S. Korean stars looking to end LPGA major drought at oldest championship

South Korean LPGA stars will search to finish the nation’s main championship drought this week on the oldest of the 5 huge tournaments.

Twenty-two gamers from South Korea will compete within the US Ladies’s Open, which tees off Thursday at Pine Needles Lodge & Nation Membership in Southern Pines, North Carolina.

South Korea, lengthy a dominant pressure in girls’s golf, has been shut out on the final six majors, the longest such drought for the reason that nation’s golfers have been denied at seven consecutive majors between 2009 and 2011.

The final South Korean winner of an LPGA main is Kim A-lim from the US Ladies’s Open in December 2020.

South Korea went winless in 5 majors final yr, the primary major-less season for the nation since 2010, and watched Jennifer Kupcho of the US declare the primary main of this yr on the Chevron Championship in April.

This would be the 77th version of the US Ladies’s Open, the oldest main in girls’s golf. South Korea has been profitable within the American nationwide championship, having produced 10 champions who’ve mixed for 11 wins — with Park In-bee, the 2008 and 2013 champion, being the one a number of winner.

Park, nonetheless, has withdrawn from this week’s occasion, citing her must get again into higher kind.

Main the Korean contingent shall be world No. 1 Ko Jin-young, a two-time main champion going for her first US Ladies’s Open title.

Ko skipped final week’s match, the Financial institution of Hope LPGA Match-Play, and she or he has been training at Pine Needles for the reason that weekend.

“I actually wished to play this golf course. I heard that it is a robust one however it should be enjoyable,” Ko mentioned at her pretournament press convention Tuesday. “Greens look greater however touchdown areas are small. So we have to hit iron photographs like darts.”

Ko mentioned she has been attempting to repair issues together with her backswing, and she or he desires to start out including to her win complete after taking the HSBC Ladies’s Champions title in Singapore in March.

“I’ve had a pair probabilities to win, and I would like extra wins this yr,” Ko mentioned. “However my swing or my sport is ok to this point. I’m engaged on it with my caddie and with my crew, and so it is good.”

Ko has been paired with Kupcho and one other American star, Lexi Thompson, within the first two rounds.

There are six former US Ladies’s Open champions from South Korea within the discipline this week: Ji Eun-hee (2009), Ryu So-yeon (2011), Choi Na-yeon (2012), Chun In-gee (2015), Park Sung-hyun (2018) and Kim A-lim (2020).

Ji certified for this yr’s US Ladies’s Open by successful the match-play occasion final week in Las Vegas. (Yonhap)