Recent Ladies European Tour winners Hannah Burke and Florentyna Parker believe that England has a great chance of team success in next week’s World Ladies Championship at Mission Hills Resort Dongguan.
While the competition is primarily an individual stroke play event, the team competition is at the forefront of the pair’s thoughts heading to China.
Parker, winner of the 2010 ABN AMRO Ladies Open and 2014 Ladies Italian Open, said: “I’m really excited about playing in the World Ladies Championship and can’t wait to tee it up at Mission Hills Dongguan Resort for the first time. I have enjoyed playing the tournament at Mission Hills Haikou in the past and looking forward to representing England again, this time with Hannah Burke. It’s not often you get the chance to play for your country as well as yourself, so hopefully it will be a great week for Team England and myself.”
Burke enjoyed her breakthrough win in the Tipsport Golf Masters in the Czech Republic last summer and is hungry for more success. She said: “Flory told me in Australia that I needed to hit the practice green because we’ve got a big match coming up. I’m practising hard this week so that I won’t let Flory down! I’m really looking forward to seeing a new Mission Hills course and a new part of China. The resort over in Hainan was absolutely stunning and we were very spoilt with the luxury hotel and immaculate golf course so I’m hoping for the same thing when we arrive in Dongguan.”
The make-up of the 126-woman field includes 40 players from each of the Ladies European Tour, China LPGA Tour and Korean LPGA Tour as determined by their 2016 Exemption List as well as six invited players.
The format is 72 holes of stroke play, with individual players competing for the US$700,000 prize fund. The top world-ranked two players from each country as of 1st January will compete for the team prize fund of US$100,000, using combined stroke play scores.
First played in 2012, the list of former champions reads like a who’s who of women’s golf, with great names such as Shanshan Feng, Suzann Pettersen, Inbee Park and So Yeon Ryu having lifted the individual trophy. Feng led China to victory in the inaugural team competition but Korea has dominated the last three years.
