LPGA: Tour Rolls into Thailand

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The LPGA finished its first week of the 2012 season, a look at some of the highlights.

*Jessica Korda became the fourth youngest winner of a 72 hole LPGA event when she won the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open last week on the second extra hole of the playoff.  The playoff group included Stacy Lewis, Brittany Lincicome, Julieta Granada, So Yeon Ryu and Hee Kyung Seo. Korda who is eighteen years old is in her second season on the tour and was making her sixteenth professional start. Korda is expected to jump from 285th to 30^th in the Rolex world rankings.

*It was obvious that Royal Melbourne lived up to its reputation as one of the toughest courses that Australia has to offer. Only eight players were able to break par last week.  The names that we are used to seeing around the leaderboard found themselves in unfamiliar territory as many struggled to simply make the cut. Suzann Pettersen had an uncharacteristically poor start to the season as she opened up with an 80 in the first round.  To her credit she made the cut and finished tied for 22^nd.  World number one Yani Tseng battled a stomach bug through the weekend but was still able to muster a tie for 8th. She will continue on to Thailand this week as she defends her title at the Honda LPGA Thailand.

*Both Brittany Lincicome and Stacy Lewis started the 2012 year right where they left off in 2011-by playing great golf.  Ranked 8^th and 9^th in the world respectively, both players are coming off their best year on tour. Lincicome earned over one million dollars last year as well as two wins.  Lewis also made over a million dollars and though she recorded only one win, it was a major. 

*The ladies continue their international travel as they will spend the week in Chonburi, Thailand.  A couple of notable Americans will make their start to the 2012 season as we will see Paula Creamer and Natalie Gulbis join the field. Creamer will be looking to add to her nine tour victories while Gulbis already made a debut of another kind this week-on the pages of Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit edition.  If you haven’t seen the painted on swimsuit check out the following link. Per Gulbis it took over thirteen hours to paint the suit on.

The Honda LPGA Thailand can be found on the Golf Channel Feb 16^th-19^th.

Sources: lpga.com, sports/yahoo.com

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