The LPGA Tour returns to Chonburi, Thailand this week for the 17th edition of the Honda LPGA Thailand at Siam Country Club’s Old Course after a three-week break from competition following the LPGA Drive On Championship in January. The 72-player field is loaded with some of the game’s top stars, including Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings No. 1 Lilia Vu, Canadian major champion Brooke Henderson and 15-time LPGA Tour winner Jin Young Ko. Eleven Thai players are also set to tee it up, most notably Ariya and Moriya Jutanugarn and 2021 Chevron Championship winner Patty Tavatanakit. Five hundred points in the season-long Race to the CME Globe as well as a $1.7 million purse are up for grabs, $255,000 of which will go to the champion. Here’s a look at just some of the featured groups this week at the Honda LPGA Thailand using KPMG Performance Insights.
Thursday, 9:26 a.m. – Charley Hull/Leona Maguire/Moriya Jutanugarn
Englishwoman Charley Hull is making her second start of the 2024 LPGA Tour season this week at the Honda LPGA Thailand, fresh off a T3 finish last week on the Ladies European Tour. The 27-year-old kicked off her 10th year on the LPGA Tour with a T7 result at the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions and will be looking to improve upon a tournament-best finish of solo 13th this week as she makes her seventh start in Chonburi, Thailand. Currently ranked eighth in the world, Hull moved inside the top 10 in the Rolex Rankings last August after her runner-up showing at the AIG Women’s Open, and according to KPMG Performance Insights, that progression can be attributed to improvements in her par-5 scoring and bogey avoidance in 2023. At the end of the 2022 season, the two-time LPGA Tour winner was 45th in bogey avoidance and tied for 21st in par-5 scoring, improving to 23rd in bogey avoidance and third in par-5 scoring last year. She ultimately recorded five top-10 finishes on the LPGA Tour in 2023, four of which were runner-up results, so expect to see big things from Hull in 2024 as she works to track down her third career Tour title.
This week marks Leona Maguire’s third tournament of the season on the LPGA Tour after finishing in a tie for 12th at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions and 31st at the LPGA Drive On Championship a few weeks ago. Like her groupmate Hull, the Irishwoman competed on the LET last week, tying for 29th at the Aramco Saudi Ladies International in her first Ladies European Tour start since the 2023 KPMG Women’s Irish Open. Last year saw Maguire capture her second career LPGA Tour victory at the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give and record five additional top-10 finishes, one of which was a tie for sixth that came at the Honda LPGA Thailand. According to KPMG Performance Insights, since the beginning of the 2023 season, the Duke University alum ranks third in most strokes gained around the green, picking up 0.43 shots on the field with her short game. This is Maguire’s third appearance at the Honda LPGA Thailand, and along with her T6 result that came in 2023, she finished T12 in her tournament debut in 2022.
Competing as a sponsor exemption, Thailand native Moriya Jutanugarn is making her 14th start in the Honda LPGA Thailand this week and will be looking to improve upon her tournament-best result of T2 that came in 2018 at Siam Country Club’s Old Course. It’s her second event of the 2024 LPGA Tour season as Jutanugarn teed it up last month at the LPGA Drive On Championship at Bradenton Country Club, ultimately missing the cut after rounds of 78 and 76 on Thursday and Friday. Last year saw Jutanugarn finish 82nd in the Race to the CME Globe after missing seven cuts in 23 events in 2023 and recording two top-15 finishes early in the year at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions (11) and LPGA Drive On Championship at Superstition Mountain (T7). While it may not have been as consistent of as season as she would’ve wanted, Jutanugarn did help the Thailand Team to their first Hanwha LIFEPLUS International Crown victory in May, doing so alongside her sister Ariya, Patty Tavatanakit and Atthaya Thitikul at TPC Harding Park.
Thursday, 9:50 a.m. – Patty Tavatanakit/Ruoning Yin/Celine Boutier
Patty Tavatanakit finally found victory lane on the Ladies European Tour last week, winning the Aramco Saudi Ladies International by a whopping seven shots over Germany’s Esther Henseleit to capture her first worldwide victory since she won The Chevron Championship as one of the second-chance rookies on the LPGA Tour in 2021. The win is her fifth since turning professional, joining her major title and three Epson Tour victories that Tavatanakit collected in 2019. This week’s Honda LPGA Thailand marks her fourth start in the event, and in her three previous appearances, she has recorded two top-20 results, tying for third in her tournament debut in 2021 and tying for 19th in 2022. It’s her second start of the 2024 LPGA Tour season as Tavatanakit teed it up in the LPGA Drive On Championship at Bradenton Country Club in late January and ultimately finished in a tie for 42nd, a showing she will be looking to improve upon in her home country.
Ruoning Yin is one of just over a dozen players making her Honda LPGA Thailand debut at Siam Country Club this week after playing well in the first two events of her third season on the LPGA Tour. She opened her year with a solid T19 showing at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, an event she qualified for after becoming a Rolex First-Time Winner at the FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship in 2023, and then backed that up with a T23 result in the LPGA Drive On Championship a week later. Yin had a strong sophomore season on the LPGA Tour, winning the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship not long after picking up her first victory in Los Angeles, and according to KPMG Performance Insights, she was one of just two players to rank inside the top 20 in both strokes gained off the tee and strokes gained approach last year alongside Minjee Lee. Additionally, since the beginning of last season, Yin’s impressive iron play has helped her gain three or more strokes on the field with her approach in 12 total rounds, the third-most of any player in that span.
Celine Boutier is definitely a player to keep an eye on this week as the Frenchwoman has finished in the top five in her last two appearances in the Honda LPGA Thailand. Boutier came third in the 2022 edition of the event after recording rounds of 65-64-67-67 at Siam Country Club’s Old Course, backing up that solid performance with a T4 showing in 2023. According to KPMG Performance Insights, the 30-year-old has the second-best cumulative score to par over the last three years at the Honda LPGA Thailand, combining for a 12-round total of 55-under with nine rounds in the 60s in that span, and she has not shot over par once in her four times teeing it up in Chonburi, Thailand. Considering those facts and that she was one of only two players to record four victories last season on the LPGA Tour, Boutier could prove to be deadly this week, having more than enough potential to add another trophy to her ever-growing collection.
Thursday, 10:02 a.m. – Ariya Jutanugarn/Jin Young Ko/Lilia Vu
Three years ago at the 2021 Honda LPGA Thailand, former Rolex Rankings No. 1 Ariya Jutanugarn became the first Thai player to win the event since its inception in 2006 when she defeated Atthaya Thitikul by one shot at Siam Country Club’s Old Course. Jutanugarn is one of five past Honda LPGA Thailand champions in the field this week in Chonburi and will be looking to utilize some of the momentum she has generated since the 2023 Portland Classic to her advantage in front of a hometown crowd. In that span, Jutanugarn has recorded four top-10 finishes, the best of which was a tie for third at the Buick LPGA Shanghai and ranks inside the top 20 on the LPGA Tour in strokes gained approach (6, +1.18), scoring average (14, 69.17) and strokes gained putting (17, +0.69), according to KPMG Performance Insights. The 28-year-old’s putting in particular has drastically improved since the 2022 season as in addition to her strokes gained putting ranking, Jutanugarn has improved in both three-putt avoidance and putts per green in regulation, currently sitting at 11th and 15th in each statistic, respectively.
Jin Young Ko is making her season debut this week at the Honda LPGA Thailand in what will be her fourth start in the event. In her three previous appearances at Siam Country Club’s Old Course, Ko has finished no worse than T29 and recorded two top-10 finishes, tying for seventh in 2018 and tying for sixth in 2023. Her T6 result last year wasn’t fully indicative of how well Ko played as the major champion was second in strokes gained tee to green (+2.70), strokes gained (+2.19) and greens in regulation (83%) at the end of the week, according to KPMG Performance Insights. This is the third consecutive year that Ko has kicked off her season in Asia, and in addition to her T6 performance at this event in last season, she won in her first start of the year in 2022 at the HSBC Women’s World Championship. Although injuries have been an issue for Ko in recent years, she still managed to claim two victories in 2023, successfully defending her title at the HSBC Women’s World Championship last March and defeating Minjee Lee in a playoff to win her fourth Cognizant Founders Cup title in May.
Lilia Vu became a Rolex First-Time Winner at last year’s Honda LPGA Thailand, firing an 8-under 64 on Sunday to eke out a one-shot victory over 2023 rookie Natthakritta Vongtaveelap, and will be defending a title for the first time in her LPGA Tour career this week in Chonburi. According to KPMG Performance Insights, the key to Vu’s 2023 success was her short game as she gained 16.6 strokes on the field with her shots around the green and putting, the most strokes gained with short game by any player all season. Her win in Thailand was only the beginning for Vu in 2023 as the Epson Tour graduate went on to capture three more titles throughout the rest of the season, picking up two major victories at The Chevron Championship and AIG Women’s Open and then winning The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican in November, a victory that helped her secure Rolex Player of the Year honors the following week at the CME Group Tour Championship. The 2024 Honda LPGA Thailand marks Vu’s second career appearance in the event and is her third tournament of the 2024 season. She finished 18th in the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions and 55th in the LPGA Drive On Championship, a pair of finishes Vu will be working to improve upon in her title defense at Siam Country Club.
For a full list of tee times, please click here. All times are local.
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