After the corona crisis, Korean women’s golf, which seems to have fallen into collective lethargy, is trying to turn around in the national competition. The stage is the women’s national golf competition held at TPC Harding Park (par 72) in San Francisco, California for four days from the 5th. It is the Hanwha Life Plus International Crown (total prize money of 2 million dollars). It is the first time in five years since the 2018 Incheon Games in the aftermath of the corona crisis. This is the 4th time. Korea’s team consisted of the top four players in the world rankings: Ko Jin-young (28, 3rd in the world), Kim Hyo-joo (28, 9th), Jeon In-ji (29th, 12th) and Choi Hye-jin (24, 25th). Challenge to win 2 consecutive championships for the first time in the history of the tournament. Spain won the first competition in 2014 and the United States won the second competition in 2016. Korea placed 3rd in the first competition, runner-up in the 2nd, and reached the top in the 3rd Incheon competition.
The problem is that the recent power of Korean women’s golf is not as good as it used to be. Korean women’s golf was the world’s strongest, winning 15 tournaments in nearly half of the 2019 LPGA Tour tournaments before the corona. However, they only won 7 times in 2020 and 2021, and 4 times last year. In this year’s eight competitions, players from the United States and Australia won twice each, and Korea won once.
In this tournament, eight countries are divided into two groups to hold a group stage, and the top two countries advance to the semifinals to decide the winner through a tournament. Group A consists of the United States, Sweden, England and China, and Group B consists of Korea, Japan, Thailand and Australia.
In the group stage, two players each play with their own ball, and the winner is determined by the four-ball method, in which the better score for each hole is calculated as the team performance. In the group stage, two four-ball matches are played, with 1 point awarded for a win, 0.5 points for a draw and 0 points for a loss. From the semi-final tournament, there will be one foursome match and two single match play matches in which two players from the same team alternately hit the same ball. In the tournament, the first team to score 2 points wins. Locals predict that Korea and the United States will compete for the championship. The United States is world number 1 Nellie Korda (25), Lilia Bu (26, world number 4), Lexi Thompson (28, 7th), Daniel Kang (31, 31 16) formed a team.
In Korea, it is encouraging that ace Ko Jin-young recovered from a wrist injury and showed a clear recovery, winning the HSBC Women’s World Championship last March. Ko Jin-young finished in the top 10 four times in the six competitions she participated in this year, including a tie for sixth at the Chevron Championship. The role of her eldest sister Jeon In-ji, who is representing Korea for the third time in a row, is also noteworthy. Five years ago, In-Kyung Jeon, the youngest player, participated along with In-Kyung Kim (35), So-Yeon Yoo (33), and Seong-Hyun Park (30), winning all four matches and leading Korea to their first championship. At that time, Jeon In-ji was unable to make it into the top 4 players, and was pushed behind Choi Hye-jin and Ko Jin-young in the next ranking, but they refused to participate and were qualified to participate. If Korea succeeds in winning the tournament for the first time in two consecutive years, it will be named as the first player to win two consecutive championships in the history of the all-inclusive competition. Korea will play its first game against Australia on the 5th, Thailand on the 6th, and Japan on the 7th.메이저놀이터