Shanshan Feng leads Chinese contingent
Led by world no. 9 Shanshan Feng, 21 golfers from China will tee it up this week at the inaugural Buick LPGA Shanghai.
Two other full-time LPGA Tour members will join her this week, playing on their home soil: Yu Liu (from Bejing) and Xiyu Lin (who, like Feng, is from Guangzhou).
18 members of the CLPGA will also be in the field via special exemptions.
Feng hasn’t won on the LPGA Tour in 2018, but if the past is any indication, she’s primed to break out soon. Of her nine LPGA Tour victories, only two have come before October.
The 29-year-old’s last LPGA win came in November of 2017 at the Blue Bay LPGA, also in China. She had won the week before at the Toto Japan Classic as well, part of a three-win season (she won the LPGA Volvik Championship earlier in the year).
Top of the world
The top three golfers on the Rolex Rankings will be in action this week in Shanghai.
Sung Hyun Park – who is on top of the world rankings for her 10th-straight week – leads the field, followed by Ariya Jutanugarn and So Yeon Ryu.
Park was part of the victorious South Korean UL International Crown team two weeks ago and finished tied for third last week at the LPGA KEB Hana Bank Championship. Park has three victories already this year, including the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
Jutanugarn, meanwhile, notched her 14th top-10 finish last week in Incheon. She leads the tour in Top 10 results (including three wins) and is also tops the LPGA Tour’s money list and Race to CME Globe in 2018. She finished tied for third with Park last week.
Ryu – one of Park’s teammates at the International Crown – was off last week. She has six top-10s on the season including a victory at the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give.
Seven of the top 10 in the Rolex Rankings will be teeing it up this week.
Past winners in China hope to rekindle magic
The Buick LPGA Shanghai is making its debut on the LPGA Tour schedule this week, but past winners of LPGA events in China are all in the field.
The LPGA Tour has had two events in China the last five years including the Blue Bay LPGA and the now-defunct Reignwood LPGA Classic.
Shanshan Feng, Mirim Lee, and I.K. Kim all won the Reignwood LPGA Classic and are in the field. Feng won the inaugural event in 2013, the second of her nine total LPGA Tour wins. Lee won the second edition, the second of three-career LPGA Tour victories. Kim won in the 2016, one of her 10-career LPGA Tour wins. She comes into this week 10th on the Rolex Rankings.
Feng also won the 2017 Blue Bay LPGA. Fellow past champs of that event, which takes place on Hainan Island, include Minjee Lee, Sei Young Kim, and Lee-Anne Pace. That trio is all in the field this week as well.
Hull riding momentum
Looking to join fellow Englishwoman Georgia Hall in the LPGA Tour winner’s circle this year, Charley Hull notched her best finish of the year last week in South Korea and hopes that momentum continues this week in China.
Hull, who won the 2016 CME Group Tour Championship – her lone LPGA Tour victory – said she had been playing “pretty well” this season (she was part of the UL International Crown team from England that finished tied for second) and feels like her game is in “really good condition” going into the final stretch of the season.
“I’ve had a third this year, now a second, and quite a few top-10 places so hopefully (a win) is around the corner,” she said Sunday.
While Hall isn’t playing this week, 15 of the LPGA Tour’s 27 winners this year are part of the 81-golfer field.
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