PALOS VERDES ESTATES, Calif. — The third edition of the FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship is set to begin this week at Palos Verdes Golf Club, and the event features the first 144-player field of the 2024 LPGA Tour season, one that’s studded with the some of the brightest stars in the women’s game. Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings No. 1 and UCLA alum Lilia Vu is set to tee it up, as are defending champion Ruoning Yin, 11-time LPGA Tour winner Lexi Thompson and budding superstar Rose Zhang.
Take a look at a few of the featured groups this week at the FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship using KPMG Performance Insights:
Thursday, 7:33 a.m.* – Madelene Sagstrom/Danielle Kang/Andrea Lee
Sweden’s Madelene Sagstrom is still looking to collect her second career LPGA Tour victory and will continue that search at the FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship. The 31-year-old, who won the 2020 Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio, is making her third start at Palos Verdes Golf Club this week, having earned one top-10 finish in her previous two appearances, tying for ninth in the inaugural edition of the tournament in 2022. This is Sagstrom’s fourth start of the 2024 LPGA Tour season, and thus far, it’s been a mixed bag of results for the LPGA Tour veteran. She kicked off her eighth year on Tour with a T42 finish at the LPGA Drive On Championship at Bradenton Country Club and then seemingly found her footing a few weeks later, tying for ninth at the Honda LPGA Thailand after recording four straight under-par rounds. The next week at the HSBC Women’s World Championship, Sagstrom once again managed to find the top 20 at Sentosa Golf Club, ultimately tying for 17th with a four-day total of 5-under. Statistically, the Swede is ranked inside the top 10 in just one strokes gained category, currently sitting at eighth in strokes gained driving (+0.69), according to KPMG Performance Insights. She is also ranked in the top 10 in average driving distance, hitting it an average of 274.46 yards off the tee.
Major champion Danielle Kang has struggled so far this season on the LPGA Tour and will be working to right the ship this week at Palos Verdes Golf Club. She has only managed to finish inside the top 20 once in her three starts this year, finishing 34th at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, tying for 20th at the Honda LPGA Thailand in February and finishing 55th at the HSBC Women’s World Championship. In terms of her history in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif., Kang withdrew from the first edition of the FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship in 2022 and then fared well at this event in 2023, tying for seventh after recording a 72-hole total of 10-under, a week that was highlighted by a 6-under 65 on Saturday. According to KPMG Performance Insights, the 31-year-old’s putting has served her well this season despite the difficulties she’s faced as Kang ranks 19th in strokes gained putting (+0.73) through three tournaments this season, a metric that will be key for this week as Palos Verdes Golf Club boasts tricky Poa annua and Bentgrass greens.
California native Andrea Lee is a member at Palos Verdes Golf Club and will be looking to use that home-course advantage to her benefit as she tries to track down another LPGA Tour title at the FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship. Lee captured her first and only victory on Tour at the 2022 Portland Classic after winning for the first time as a professional earlier that year on the Epson Tour and has recorded seven top-10 finishes since, the best of which was a solo second at the BMW Ladies Championship in 2022. The Stanford University alum is making her third start in the FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship and has earned one top-five result in her two previous appearances, tying for fifth in the 2022 edition of the event. This is her fifth start of the 2024 LPGA Tour season, and Lee has shown some strength early, picking up three top-20 finishes in her first four tournaments of the year, the best of which is a solo seventh that came at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore. Statistically, she’s also faring well, ranking 18th in strokes gained around the green (+0.29) and 24th in strokes gained approach (+0.43), according to KPMG Performance Insights.
Thursday, 8:06 a.m.* – Xiyu Lin/Georgia Hall/Alison Lee
In her first four events of the 2024 LPGA Tour season, Xiyu Lin has once again put together a solid stretch of golf, earning three top-15 finishes at the LPGA Drive On Championship (T6), Honda LPGA Thailand (T13) and Blue Bay LPGA (T10) as she works to track down that elusive first LPGA Tour victory in her 11th year as an LPGA Tour member. This week marks the People’s Republic of China native’s third start at Palos Verdes Golf Club, and in her two previous showings in 2022 and 2023, she has finished in a tie for 16th and a tie for 34th, respectively, a trend she’ll be looking to buck this week at the FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship. Statistically, the 28-year-old is ranked inside the top 20 in four strokes gained categories according to KPMG Performance Insights, including strokes gained total (11, +1.47), strokes gained around the green (15, +0.32), strokes gained driving (19, +0.40) and strokes gained tee to green (19, +0.87). She is also sixth on the LPGA Tour in both birdies and rounds under par as well as seventh in sub-par holes.
Georgia Hall nearly pulled out her third LPGA Tour victory at last year’s FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship, ultimately losing by one shot to Ruoning Yin after recording a four-day total of 14-under at Palos Verdes Golf Club in her tournament debut. This week marks her third start of the 2024 LPGA Tour season, and after withdrawing from the LPGA Drive On Championship and finishing in a tie for 23rd at the Honda LPGA Thailand, the Englishwoman will be working to recreate some of the magic she found at this venue last season as she looks to find some early-season form. According to KPMG Performance Insights, Hall’s short game has been her best asset so far this year as she ranks 12th in strokes gained around the green (+0.38), but she is also 19th in strokes gained approach (+0.74) and 20th in strokes gained tee to green (+0.87), a combination of skills that should prove useful around this challenging golf course.
UCLA alum and Los Angeles native Alison Lee is making just her second start of the year close to home this week at the FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship after tying for 51st at the HSBC Women’s World Championship a couple of weeks ago in Singapore. This is her third time competing at Palos Verdes Golf Club, and despite her local knowledge, Lee has struggled in the previous two editions of this event, missing the cut in 2022 and finishing in a tie for 65th in 2023. However, the 29-year-old should be primed to rectify those misgivings in 2024, having been in exceptional form since late last season when, after finishing solo second at the BMW Ladies Championship, she captured her second career Ladies European Tour victory at the Aramco Team Series – Riyadh and then recorded back-to-back runner-up results at The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican and the CME Group Tour Championship. Statistically, her ball striking has been critical to her consistency as Lee has gained the second-most shots per round with her ball striking over the last two LPGA Tour seasons (+1.67), only behind two-time major champion Minjee Lee, according to KPMG Performance Insights.
Thursday, 12:44 p.m. – Lexi Thompson/Ruoning Yin/Rose Zhang
After finishing in a tie for 16th at the LPGA Drive On Championship, 11-time LPGA Tour winner Lexi Thompson is making her second start of the 2024 LPGA Tour season this week at the FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship and will be looking for more of the consistency she found last fall on the golf course. According to KPMG Performance Insights, since September 2023, the 29-year-old has finished in the top 20 in all five of her LPGA Tour starts in that span, gaining +1.17 strokes with her ball striking, gaining +1.07 strokes with her putting and maintaining a 68.8 scoring average, an impressive turnaround considering she hadn’t found the top 20 in her first 10 starts of 2023. This is Thompson’s second time competing at Palos Verdes Golf Club as she played in the 2022 edition of the event, finishing in a tie for 13th after carding a four-round total of 5-under.
Last season, Ruoning Yin became the second player from the People’s Republic of China to win on the LPGA Tour with her one-shot victory at the 2023 FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship, joining 10-time LPGA Tour winner Shanshan Feng. The win helped propel to a major championship later in the year at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship as Yin outlasted everyone at Baltusrol Golf Club’s Lower Course to again join Feng as the only other Chinese major winner in LPGA Tour history. The key to Yin’s success last year at Palos Verdes Golf Club was definitely her ball striking as she gained nearly four strokes on the field off the tee and on approach, according to KPMG Performance Insights, and while she has struggled to find that form again with her long game so far this season, never count a defending champion out at a place they’ve had prior success.
Rose Zhang returns to LPGA Tour competition after taking an extended break following the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions to continue her studies at Stanford University. She finished in a tie for seventh that week at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club and will be looking for more of that success this week at Palos Verdes Golf Club, a venue at which she won during her collegiate golf days. This year marks Zhang’s first full season competing on the LPGA Tour as she became a 2023 LPGA Tour rookie after she accepted the immediate LPGA Tour membership offered as part of her non-member victory at the Mizuho Americas Open last June. While she might be a little bit rusty after her nearly two-month-long break, the 20-year-old’s consistency should carry her through as Zhang has gained at least one shot on the rest of the field in 63.6 percent of the rounds she’s played since her debut at Liberty National Golf Club, an impressive statistic considering the brevity of her young career.
*Off No. 10
For a full list of tee times, please click here.
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