After another exciting week, the 2021 Ladies European Tour (LET) season rolls on and the next stop for the Tour is a Major championship.
The Evian Resort Golf Club in Evian-les-Bains, France, welcomes Amundi as a new title sponsor for the 27th edition, which is the ninth stop on the 2021 schedule. Here are three things to look out for…
Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings Tussle
Rolex Rankings leader Nelly Korda from the United States is teeing up this week, looking for her second major having become world no1 with victory in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. However, the defending champion and world No.2 Jin Young Ko, from South Korea, will be well placed to stop her having won the title the last time in was contested in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic. There are seven of the world’s top 10 players in the field: Korda, Ko, Inbee Park (3), Sei Young Kim (4), Hyo-Joo Kim (5), Brooke Henderson (7) and Lydia Ko (10). Park won at Evian in 2012 before the event became an LPGA major in 2013, while Hyo-Joo Kim and Lydia Ko won in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Kim holds the low 18-hole scoring record of 61, posted in the first round.
Home Favourites Ready to Shine
There are five French players in the field, with Céline Boutier, Perrine Delacour, Céline Herbin, Lucie Malchirand and Pauline Roussin-Bouchard. Since the beginning in 1994, there has never been a home champion. There have been several European winners, including Suzann Pettersen in 2013 and Anna Nordqvist in 2017. Ranked 59th in the world, Boutier is the highest French player on the Rolex Rankings and a shoe-in for the Solheim Cup team. Herbin is a two-time LET champion who won her home Open, the Lacoste Ladies Open de France, in 2015. Malchirand has just turned professional and joined the LET after winning the Italian Open and Roussin-Bouchard is an exciting young amateur. This could be the year!
Recent LET Winners Tee Up
Six of the 2021 LET tournament winners will be playing this week, with Pia Babnik (Jabra Ladies Open), Matilda Castren (Gant Ladies Open), Stephanie Kyriacou (Big Green Egg Open), Lucie Malchirand (Ladies Italian Open), Lee-Anne Pace (Investec South African Women’s Open) and Race to Costa del Sol leader Atthaya Thitikul (Tipsport Czech Ladies Open). They are joined by Carly Booth, Christine Wolf, Anne Van Dam, Esther Henseleit, Alice Hewson and Emily Kristine Pedersen, last year’s Race to Costa Del Sol winner.
