The 2015 Ladies European Tour Rookie of the Year Emily Kristine Pedersen has been grouped with world number one Lydia Ko and Australian amateur Hannah Green for the first two rounds of the ISPS HANDA New Zealand Women’s Open.
It will be interesting to see how the exciting young teenagers fare as they compete together at Clearwater Golf Club in Christchurch starting from the 10th tee at 8.14am on Friday, followed by a second round together on Saturday beginning from the 1st at 1.29pm.
Pedersen, who has been training hard since finishing the 2015 season ranked sixth on the LET Order of Merit, will start her 2016 season in the Garden City, while defending champion Ko warmed up last week at the Coates Golf Championship in Florida, where she played herself out of contention in the final round.
There are plenty of other top players to watch and the next group starting just 11 minutes later will feature last week’s Victorian Open champion Georgia Hall, last year’s Aberdeen Asset Management Ladies Scottish Open winner Rebecca Artis and Norwegian Marianne Skarpnord, also in a rich vein of form.
In the next group at 8.36am, the 2015 Ladies European Tour Players’ Player of the Year Nicole Broch Larsen will tee up alongside former winner Gwladys Nocera and Cathryn Bristow from New Zealand. All three players currently feature in the top 60 on the Women’s Olympic Ranking.
They are followed by former champion Dame Laura Davies, home hope Liv Cheng and last year’s Lacoste Ladies Open de France winner Celine Herbin at 8.47am, with Jade Schaeffer, Liz Young and Breanna Elliott starting 11 minutes later at 8.58am.
Those visiting Clearwater later in the afternoon will also be able to watch some of the LET’s top players including last year’s Tipsport Golf Masters champion Hannah Burke, Camilla Lennarth and Fabienne In-Albon, who is likely to represent Switzerland at the Olympic Games in Rio. They start from the first tee at 1.40pm while last year’s ISPS HANDA Ladies European Masters winner Beth Allen is playing alongside Pamela Pretswell and multiple LET winner Lynnette Brooky of New Zealand from the 10th at 1.29pm.
Rising Indian star Aditi Ashok, who won the LET’s Lalla Aicha Tour School Final Qualifier in December, is out 11 minutes later along with Amelia Lewis and New Zealand amateur Munchin Keh.
The action gets under way at 7.30am local time on Friday
