Marianne Skarpnord will be teeing off in India tomorrow in the first of the final three prestigious Ladies European Tour events of the season and will battle it out with the likes of Meghan MacLaren, Carly Booth, Laura Fuenfstueck, Karolin Lampert, Diksha Dagar and Christine Wolf in the Hero Women’s Indian Open, where Becky Morgan is defending.
It will mark the fourth time that the Norwegian has played in the tournament and the third consecutive year that she has played at DLF Golf and Country Club in Gurugram.
Skarpnord currently sits third on the LET order of merit and will also need to finish at least third on Sunday to leapfrog Esther Henseleit and Nuria Iturrioz at the top of the rankings.
Sixth ranked Meghan MacLaren also has the opportunity to ascend to the top of the OOM if she wins the tournament, following on from her second LET victory in the Women’s New South Wales Open in Australia, in March.
Skarpnord, who claimed her fourth LET title in the Pacific Bay Resort Australian Ladies Classic in February, is keen to push on. Aside from her win, she has posted seven additional top 10s this year, including second in the season-opening Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies Open in Abu Dhabi and a ninth place in last week’s Estrella Damm Mediterranean Ladies Open in Spain.
“I’m feeling relaxed about this week and last year I played well but just had a horror last round,” said Skarpnord, who last year shot rounds of 68, 74, 72 and 77 on the Gary Player Course at DLF to end tied for 21st.
“I would like to see myself on the top of the leader board when we finish in Kenya. It would mean a
lot. I’ve been out here for a lot of years and my best finish was fourth. I feel that I’m more than able to win this ranking now. If I can keep hitting my driver and 3-wood straight, I think I can do well here, but you need to be in the fairways off the tee.”
