2020 ISPS Handa Women's Australian Open

[18majors]

Race to the CME Globe: 500 PointsFormat: 72 holesPurse: $1,300,000Par: 72History:This is the 9th year for the event.Yardage: 6,648In 2019, Twenty-seven years after father Petr started a family tradition of winning in Australia, Nelly Korda joined the family club with a two-stroke victory over defending champion Jin Young Ko at the 2019 ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open.

[18majors]

Those players who're in this field are the luckiest people on earth; it's suddenly become the toughest ticket to get in the whole world.

With the cancellation of the next three tournaments; LPGA won't reconvene until Volvik Founders Cup on March 19, 2020.

Players like world No. 1 Jin Young Ko, would trade anything to get a spot in the field.

[Stooch]

Yeah I'm betting Nelly is glad she's defending, with her pedigree and status now, she might have skipped it otherwise.

[Singapore Joe]

Or the other way around. A long way to fly to Australia and back without playing in SE and East Asia on the way back.

[Stooch]

I'm betting that's why they waited till tonight to cancel the other 2 events, either the players are already in transit or are already there, it's Monday afternoon in Australia.

[Singapore Joe]

Good point. I'm still living in the last week. Would make sense to do it that way to protect the event but not sure if the players will be happy about that.

I am in Melbourne so I should have a general idea which date and time it is here ;)

[Raving Shanker]

The LPGA website has the venue listed as Grange. But the course map is for Kooyonga. But the tournament is at Royal Adelaide. But fair play to them, this would take minutes of labour to get right, 3 days ahead of the start!

[Singapore Joe]

LPGA equivalent of a gorilla and a wind mill. We'll have a tournament but to make it more exciting we won't tell you where it is, you need to find out if you want to survive the cut.

[Newinup]

definitely waited until the last minute... the players were given a heads up as to the possibility but it wasn't with finality until, well, as you guys guessed it, yesterday along with us (eg we were not late to the news in this forum)...

[18majors]

Sixty-four players will tee off Qualifier Tournament starting at 4:00 PM EST today.

This's one of the most decorated Qualifier; it includes many regular LPGA members like Haley Moore, Jiwon Jeon, Esther Henseleit and Bianca Pagdanganon.

https://www.golfbox.dk/livescoring/tour/?language=2057#/competition/2222713/teetimes

[18majors]

Nelly will advance to Rolex #2 if she finishes inside Top-20.

"A year ago, Nelly Korda came into the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open as the second-best golfer in her family. This year, the 21-year-old Floridian arrives at Royal Adelaide Golf Club as the third-best player in the world and with aspirations for bigger things."

2020 Nelly Korda Looks for Aussie Repeat in Quest for Olympic Spot and Rolex No 1 | LPGA | Ladies Professional Golf Association

 

 

 

[18majors]

Today is a memorable day for Yealimi Noh; she's officially inside Rolex Top-100 at #98.

She'll be exempted to play US Women's Open when she advances to Top-75 later this year.

[Stooch]

I'll give props to couple of them like Bianca, she flew to Australia for a Qualifier? That's dedication, I don't know the answer but with the limited field events that were cancelled, would a Top 10 in the ISPS get you into the Honda, the only reason I could think of for trying.

[18majors]

 

The winners of Gainbridge, Vic and Australian Open would've got players into Honda and HSBS; Top-10 won't do anything.

[Newinup]

No choice, they wanna play and they have to try as much as they can... not good that the Asian events were cancelled but prudence is the better part of valor in this instance (eg Big picture - i personally wont risk playing either actually in China but hey I'm just a recreational golfer haha).

Bianca thankfully is young and is used to traveling to and from Asia/Australasia having gone home several times for Christmas vacations, Asian Tournaments (Eg Asian Games, APWA) etc in the midst of NCAA season.

Hopefully the effort at least yields some good results... :)

[krisrod]

The qualifier is at my home course, so I’m watching on the first tee at the moment. Grange member Kristalle Blum the best so far. Not many names I know in the field, but should be a fun day.

[Singapore Joe]

Can you give us a live stream from you phone camera? Scoring would be nice as well and don't forget top tracer and distances to the pin ;)

I'm trying to follow on the GolfBox but looks like that leaderboard won't be updated until after the tournament.

[krisrod]

Anyone in particular you’d like updates on? Can’t film obviously but happy to give some updates.

[Singapore Joe]

Don't worry about that, just have a great day out there.

[18majors]

Please find Bianca Pagdanganon and cheer for her for both @Newinup and myself! She teed off at 9:21 AM local time from 10th tee.
She drives easily over 300 yards; she's quite a spectacle.

[krisrod]

Had to leave for the office after a couple of hours, but managed to see everyone on at least one tee. Bianca hit an absolute bomb on the 10th. Unfortunately the Golfbox app doesn't seem to be updating and they aren't using physical leaderboards for this tournament, so it's very difficult to follow. Kristalle Blum was +4 through 9 after making double on the 6th and bogeying both of the par 5s. The wind is very strong today (the Adelaide sandbelt courses are very close to the Southern ocean) and a lot of holes are straight into a two or three club headwind. Will be very interesting to see the final scores later.

Looking forward to the tournament itself this weekend. Royal Adelaide is looking superb and the weather looks fantastic.

[Singapore Joe]

The first groups are finishing and the final scores are starting to pop up at Golfbox. Pretty high scores out there. For the first sixteen finishers, the scores range from +1 to +15 with one RTD. For those golfers coming from less windy places, first the Vic Open and now this must be a bit of a shock to the system. Now, where's that cold, horisontal rain...

[Mick Douglas]

Heard on NZ sports radio today that Pernilla Lindberg is going to play in the NZ men's open in a few weeks in Queenstown where she got married last year... with no Tournaments until March 19 now I wonder if Lydia Ko will follow suit.

Its a Pro Am set up for all 4 days across 2 courses neither of which are terribly long, be interested to see how she goes.

[krisrod]

I've just seen Esther Henseleit's score of -6. That's incredible in the conditions.

[Singapore Joe]

That's pretty impressive. 31 on the back nine with one bogey squeezed in between lots of birdies. Then there's Jenny Häglund (-2), Nina Pegova (-1) and Haley Moore (par). A whole bunch at +1 so I guess they will have a play off to sort out the exact order for alternative places.

No need to drive to Adelaide to wave my Finnish flag it seems.

[krisrod]

Henseleit started on 10, so she played the (in my opinion) more difficult 9 first as well.

Disappointed that Louise Ridderstrom missed out. I spoke to her briefly and she was lovely. Liz Elmassian finished way down the field and looked quite distracted whenever I saw her. She had headphones in while she was on the range, kept her distance from the other players and refused offers from members to caddie for her.

[Singapore Joe]

It's a tough route to the tournaments to grind through the Tuesday qualifiers. Flying all the way to Australia and not making it, need pretty generous sponsors for doing that too many times.

[18majors]

 

Esther Henseleit of Germany, 20 years old, is a player to watch for. She won 2019 LET Rookie of the year and order of the merit.

She caught a lot of attention when she shot 66 and was T2 after the first round of 2019 US Women's Open.

 

[18majors]

Everybody knows Minjee; but she deserves more

 

[18majors]

This is the course Ha Na Jang won in 2017