The #LPGAEuroSwing continues in Scotland this week with the FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open presented by Trust Golf on deck after an exciting weekend at the season’s penultimate major in France. As the birthplace of golf, the Tour’s annual stop in Scotland has attracted a host of competitive characters, including all four of this year’s major champions.
Latest Major Champ
Though it is the Tour’s only stop in France, The Amundi Evian Championship had yet to see a French national step into the winner’s circle until last week. Celine Boutier, who had already solidified her legacy as the winningest Frenchwoman in LPGA Tour history with her victory at the LPGA Drive On Championship in March, decided enough was enough: the Tour’s French major needed a French winner. Boutier started hot with a 5-under opening round – her lowest score ever at Evian Resort Golf Club – and kept her foot on the gas in the second round to take the lead after carding a 2-under 69. The 29-year-old never looked back on the weekend, building up a 6-shot lead which carried her to victory on Sunday in Evian-les-Bains. After finding such a dominant “W” on home soil, Boutier could probably ride her confidence momentum clear across the English Channel to this week’s competition. Plus, Boutier has had success at the FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open in the par, finishing runner-up last year. Though her game is clearly in good shape and while winning at home can be exhausting, Boutier isn’t passing up the opportunity to stress test her swing at Dundonald Links before the final major of the year.
Links Golf
This week’s competition will be on a links golf course which always presents unique challenges rarely seen on the LPGA Tour. Success at Dundonald Links will favor the experienced, which is where Allisen Corpuz outranks most of the competition. The last time the LPGA Tour visited a links-style venue was in early July when Corpuz clinched her first-ever career victory at the U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links. Not only did Corpuz best her closest competitors by three full strokes at 9-under, but she was also the only player to stay under par all four days of competition. The 25-year-old has not let the momentum from her first win on Tour pass her by. The week after she cashed the largest winner’s check in major history, she finished runner-up at the Dana Open with a four-day total of 18-under. Though Corpuz carded a T54 finish last week in Evian-les-Bains, France, she has more than proven her proficiency in playing links-style golf and will be someone to look out for on the leaderboard at Dundonald Links.
Tough Defense
Though she certainly has a great track record, Corpuz isn’t the only player that plays well on links courses. Last year, Ayaka Furue became a Rolex First-Time Winner at the FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open boosted by a spectacular final round. Beginning the day four shots behind 54-hole co-leaders Lydia Ko and Boutier, Furue kicked her game into high gear. She carded a bogey-free 10-under 62 to tie the 18-hole course record and win with a comfortable three-shot lead. Since then, Furue has continued to impress and seems poised to capture her second Tour victory. In 2023, the 23-year-old has missed just one cut in 15 starts and has found seven top-10 finishes. Her best result was a runner-up that came at the Bank of Hope LPGA Match-Play presented by MGM Rewards. However, this season has shown that winning on Tour is harder than ever as we’ve seen just one player successfully defend their title: former world No. 1 Jin Young Ko at the HSBC Women’s World Championship. Furue will have to pull out all the stops and rely on her consistency, momentum and experience if she wants to find her second win on Tour this week.
Home-Field Advantage
After seeing Boutier win on home soil last week, all the Scottish players in this week’s field will look to mimic the Frenchwoman at the FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open. Though it is the Tour’s lone stop in Scotland, the event hasn’t seen a Scotswoman hoist the trophy since it became a co-sanctioned event in 2017. Catriona Matthew was the last Scot to win their national open in 2013 when it was just an LET event. Luckily, one of the few Scottish players to ever play on the LPGA Tour in this week’s field is Gemma Dryburgh and she’s pretty good at golf. Though Dryburgh’s game hasn’t been as clinical as it was in 2022, it’s still too early to tell how she will fare at Dundonald Links. The 30-year-old seems to be a second-half player, finding her maiden win late in the 2022 season at the TOTO Japan Classic and following that victory up with two consecutive top-20 results in the final events of the year. Now as the 2023 schedule begins to wind down, Dryburgh seems to be heating up. She just found her best finish of the season at the Amundi Evian Championship, carding a four-day total of 6-under to sit alone in eighth. A trip home might be the boost she needs to recreate the success she found last year. Other Scottish players in the field include Louise Duncan, Heather MacRae, Lauren Beveridge, Kylie Henry, Pamela Pretswell Asher and Michele Thomson.
A Co-Sanctioned Competition
In 2017, the FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open joined the LPGA schedule as a co-sanctioned event with the LET and has consistently attracted riveting competition ever since. With the chance to earn LPGA Membership and Solheim Cup team points up for grabs, a win at this week’s event for the LET members in the field would mean that much more. The LET’s best and brightest will be littering Dundonald Links this week including a number of the tour’s 2023 winners: Lily May Humphreys (Joburg Ladies Open), Patricia Isabel Schmidt (Belgian Ladies Open), Lisa Pettersson (Helsingborg Open), Kristyna Napoleaova (Amundi German Masters), Diksha Dagar (Tipsport Czech Ladies Open) and Carmen Alonso (Ladies Open by Pickala Rock Resort). That winning crew will be joined by Liz Young and Alice Hewson who competed for the England Team in the Hanwha LIFEPLUS International Crown. Though some are strangers to the LPGA Tour right now, the LET members on the course this week will be well worth watching. The LET has helped produce a number of current stars and LPGA winners like Charley Hull, Linn Grant and Maja Stark, among others.
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