It’s time for the LPGA’s first major tournament in their 2014 schedule, the Kraft Nabisco Championship, to be held at the Dinah Shore Tournament Course on the Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, CA beginning this Thursday.
Defending Champ and World’s No. 1, Inbee Park, started her remarkable roll with her win last year, the first of the three consecutive major victories last season; she won the Wegmans LPGA Championship and the Women’s US Open as well.
Park has had an auspicious start of the year with four Top 10 finishes in the LPGA in as many appearances, and her lone win on the Ladies European Tour (LET) World Ladies Championship, where she also won the Team competition with fellow compatriot and World’s No. 6, So Yeon Ryu.
The win in the World Ladies Championship was at Mission Hills in Hainan, China. If you like to gamble on chance, remember they will be playing this week at Mission Hills…just that this time in California.
But she will be thoroughly challenged by one of the strongest field assembled in recent years, even with the withdrawal of World’s No. 2 Suzann Pettersen. She withdrew on Tuesday because of an aggravated disk in her back.
World’s No. 3 and Top 10 machine, Stacy Lewis is on board. This year, she already has five Top six finishes, including two second places in six starts. She won this tournament in 2011 and finished T4 the following year, look for her to contend once again.
Two players that will be hard to overlook are the only two-time winners this year, Karrie Webb and Anna Nordqvist. Webb, was the winner here in 2006 and 2006, and Nordqvist has three Top 10 finishes in the last four years.
Webb looks rejuvenated and has climbed all the way up to No.5 in the World rankings. Nordqvist's new look in 2014 includes a new caddie, new instructor, new clubs, new clothing sponsor and a new golf ball. She’s basically a new woman, and the results speak for themselves as she is up to No. 10 in the World rankings.
This is the only major where Paula Creamer has never recorded a Top 10. But she has been playing very well this year and won in early March, the HSBC Women’s Champions with a sensational 75-foot eagle-putt in extra holes.
The youth watch is in full effect. New Zealander Lydia Ko (RR No. 4), Lexi Thompson (RR No. 9) and England’s Charley Hull (RR No. 67) will be present.
Ko’s T61 last week at the Kia Classic broke her streak of Top 20 finishes, but has been her superb self prior to that. Thompson comes from a third place finish at the Kia Classic and Hull obtained her maiden win in the Ladies European Tour when she won the Lalla Meryem Cup three weeks ago in Morrocco.
There will be nine amateurs playing, but all eyes will be on the World’s Top amateur, Australian Minjee Lee. She has been near the top of the leaderboards this year with the big ladies on the LET and won her first professional win (as an amateur) in February at the Women’s Victorian Open in the Australian Ladies Professional Golf (ALPG).
The other Top amateurs present are:
- Annie Park (USA) -World No. 2
- Alison Lee (USA) - World No. 3
- Su Hyun Oh (AUS) – World No. 5
- Brooke Henderson (CAN) – World No. 6
- Ashlan Ramsey (USA) – World No. 7
- Emma Talley (USA) – World No. 10, current U.S. Women’s Amateur champion
- Angel Yin (USA) - qualified by winning 2013 KNC Champions Junior Challenge
- Nelly Korda (USA) – World No. 417, Jessica Korda's little sister, made the cut last year
An important subject this week is that Player of the Year points and Rookie of the Year points are doubled for major championships. Twenty-five percent will be added to the normal value of points rewarded for the Race to the CME Globe and its one million dollar first prize.
Those looking to earn those honors will certainly go guns blazing this weekend.
This year will mark the last time the tournament will be known as the Kraft Nabisco Championship. The LPGA and commissioner Michael Whan will be looking for another deep pocketed company to sponsor the Tour’s first major next year.
The tournament was founded in 1972 by American entertainer Dinah Shore, and was ‘awarded’ its current status of a major in 1983. Since its inaugural edition the tournament has remained hosted in its current site at Mission Hills Country Club in rancho Mirage, CA.
TV Times on Golf Channel:
- Apr 3 - GC 12:00 PM-3:00 PM ET
- Apr 3 - GC 6:00 PM-9:00 PM ET
- Apr 4 - GC 12:00 PM-3:00 PM ET
- Apr 4 - GC 6:00 PM-9:00 PM ET
- Apr 5 - GC 5:00 PM-9:00 PM ET
- Apr 6 - GC 5:00 PM-9:00 PM ET