Germany’s Helen Briem, who secured her maiden Ladies European Tour (LET) victory at the 2024 La Sella Open catapulting herself into the limelight, returns to defend her title this week.
Last year Briem had already won four times on the LET Access Series (LETAS) and La Sella Open was her first event on the LET where she teed it up as a professional.
The German star produced a flawless final round of 66 (-6) to win by two strokes ahead of France’s Pauline Roussin-Bouchard and has excellent memories in Spain.
“It’s great here,” she said. “The facilities, the surroundings, the mountains, and the weather are all great and also, obviously seeing those posters when you come into the area.
“I remembered some shots certainly when I came back. For me, it’s one of the first tournaments that I’ve been able to play twice. It’s the first time that I really know the course already and know everything, so it’s not all new to me. That has helped a lot.”
After her victory at La Sella Golf Resort, Briem joined the LET and has now been playing on Tour for one year.
This year, the 20-year-old sits seventh in the LET Order of Merit having produced five top-5 finishes this season including runner-up results at the Tenerife Women’s Open and Amundi German Masters.
However, it’s been a more challenging couple of months for Briem, who has been struggling with her driver on the course.
She recently recorded an under-par second round at the Aramco Houston Championship – her first under-par round since the first round of the Amundi Evian Championship.
Although Briem knows her game is not in the same place as it was here in 2024, she is hopeful to play well again this year, but is not putting any pressure on herself.
She continued: “We will see this week, this was my first and right now only win on the LET. Of course, I want to win again, but it doesn’t have to be done here; however, I do want to do it here.
“I don’t really have certain expectations for this week. I played well at the beginning of the European swing and the last couple of tournaments were so so, there were some good things and a couple of bad things. If I get to have three good rounds, then I will be in contention and that’s what I hope I’m going to do, but if not it’s okay.
“We have made some adjustments to the driver setup. It was okay in Houston but not like it was here last year. We’ll see, it’s a pretty tight course off the tee but you also have to hit driver because it’s very long, which was an advantage last year, and we will see what happens this year.”
Briem will begin her title defence on Thursday at 1.17 pm (local time) alongside Spain’s Nuria Iturrioz and France’s Celine Herbin.
Follow the Tour on our socials at @letgolf (X and Instagram), Ladies European Tour (Facebook and YouTube), #LaSellaOpen.
