Contemporary off the again of Scottie Scheffler’s win at Augusta Nationwide final week, we’re now all set for the primary girls’s main of the yr with the Chevron Championship in Texas this week.
World No 1 Nelly Korda is chasing fifth-straight win to proceed her outstanding 2024, whereas defending champion Lilia Vu is hoping so as to add to the 2 main titles she secured final yr.
Vu overcame Angel Yin in a playoff 12 months in the past, whereas fellow main winners in 2023, Allisen Corpuz, China’s Ruoning Yin and Celine Boutier determine to once more be within the combine come Sunday.
Lilia Vu received the Chevron Championship final yr, considered one of two main wins in 2023 for the American
However what of the Brits? Are there any British and Irish contenders current among the many 132-strong area? Right here, we take a more in-depth take a look at among the dwelling hopes forward of the match…
Stay LPGA Tour Golf
Thursday 18th April 3:00pm
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Thursday 18th April 11:00pm
Charley Hull
Arguably the most effective golfer within the girls’s sport but to win a serious, the 28-year-old English hope got here agonisingly near altering that in 2023 – twice!
Hull completed tied for second within the US Girls’s Open at Pebble Seaside earlier than then being overwhelmed by a relentless Vu on the ultimate day of her dwelling main on the Girls’s British Open.
Talking on the Sky Sports activities Golf Podcast, Trish Johnson believes Charley Hull wants to enhance her course administration if she is to win extra tournaments
Hull held a share of the 54-hole lead at Walton Heath earlier than her problem pale down the stretch. The frustration solely added to her willpower to place issues proper, nevertheless, with Hull telling Sky Sports activities afterwards: “I actually really feel like subsequent yr’s my time to win one.”
Nicely, right here you go Charley… The primary main championship of 2024, go take it!
Georgia Corridor
The one member of this area to have already tasted success at a serious championship, with Corridor’s win approaching dwelling soil on the Girls’s British Open in 2018.
The 27-year-old has struggled to show that triumph into constant final-day challenges at main championships since, with simply three top-10 finishes throughout the 5 tournaments within the 5 years which have adopted.
2023 specifically appeared to vow a lot when, heading into final yr’s Chevron Championship, Corridor bagged herself two second-placed finishes on the LPGA Tour.
That kind has since abandoned her, nevertheless, with just one top-10 putting on the tour since and a fifth-placed end on the Amraco Group Sequence in London final summer season her finest displaying on the Women European Tour. Is that this the week when she turns issues round?
Lottie Woad
The one novice among the many British contingent, with the English 20-year-old incomes her spot in gorgeous fashion by changing into the primary European to win the Augusta Nationwide Girls’s Novice in early April.
Highlights of the Augusta Nationwide Girls’s Novice last spherical
Woad, a scholar at Florida State College and large Leeds United fan, birdied her last two holes, and three of her final 4, to complete one stroke forward of American Bailey Shoemaker within the last spherical – although a 2-1 defeat for her beloved Leeds United to Coventry Metropolis “ruined my day a bit of bit”, she joked following her gorgeous victory.
Woad’s victory at Augusta comes one on from Rose Zhang’s, who has since received on her skilled debut, recorded three top-10 finishes in majors and featured for Group USA within the Solheim Cup final September.
Lottie Woad’s native golf membership have a good time her being the primary British participant to win the Augusta Nationwide Girls’s Novice
Woad advised Sky Sports activities that “there is no such thing as a rush” for her to comply with in Zhang’s footsteps and switch professional, although a robust displaying on the first main of 2024 – with appearances to comply with on the Girls’s British Open and US Girls’s Open – will solely see requires her to take action develop louder.
Jodi Ewart Shadoff
The English 36-year-old performed in her maiden main championship manner again when in 2012, occurring to card spectacular top-10 finishes at each the Chevron Championship and US Girls’s Open the next yr.
Her career-best return got here when ending runner-up by two strokes to In-Kyung Kim on the 2017 Girls’s British Open however, regardless of being a daily challenger on tour and a three-time Solheim Cup choice, a primary LPGA Tour success eluded her till two years in the past on the Mediheal Championship.
A considerably shocking omission from Europe’s victorious Solheim squad final yr, Ewart Shadoff shall be further eager to not miss out on their defence Stateside later this yr… Presently ranked 69th on the earth, a robust displaying on the majors, beginning this week, will definitely help her trigger.
Leona Maguire
Arguably the shape participant of the bunch, the 29-year-old from County Cavan in Eire was edged out by Korda within the newest of her LPGA triumphs within the championship match of the T-Cell Match Play in Las Vegas in early April.
Maguire had earned the highest seed within the match-play bracket by going six underneath by 54 holes of stroke play. She then defeated Thailand’s Moriya Jutanugarn 4&3 and South Korea’s Sei Younger Kim 3&2 within the quarter-finals and semi-finals, respectively, earlier than faltering in opposition to Korda.
Highlights of the ultimate on the LPGA Match Play at Shadow Creek, which noticed Nelly Korda defeat Leona Maguire
Her match play prowess shall be of no nice shock to followers of the Solheim Cup who’ve watched her tear it as much as the tune of 4.5 factors from 5 matches in 2021 and three in 2023 – each successes for Group Europe.
To this point the majors have confirmed exhausting to beat for Maguire, with a tied-fourth end on the 2022 Girls’s British Open her finest but, however she’s actually obtained the sport to alter all that.
Stephanie Meadow
The 32-year-old from Jordanstown, Northern Eire turned skilled 10 years in the past shortly after qualifying for the 2014 US Girls’s Open the place she’d safe a hugely-impressive third-placed end.
Meadow didn’t kick on from such spectacular beginnings, making the lower solely twice over the following six years however since 2021 she has loved an upturn in fortunes, carding top-10 finishes for the final two years operating on the Girls’s PGA Championship – together with her tied-third in 2023 matching her profession finest.
She additionally positioned eighth on the Blue Bay LPGA final month that factors to her sport being in good order coming into the primary main of the yr.
Gemma Dryburgh
The 30-year-old Scot loved fairly the rise when, off the again of a primary LPGA Tour win on the Toto Japan Basic in November 2022, she catapulted herself into the world’s high 100.
Dryburgh confirmed it was removed from a flash within the pan as she kicked on to a career-high rating of fifty final yr, incomes herself a maiden Solheim Cup spot as one of many 4 captain’s picks in Suzann Pettersen’s victorious squad.
Her best-yet end at a serious additionally got here final yr as she completed eighth on the Evian Championship in France which was in the end claimed by dwelling favorite Boutier.
Can she enhance on that this week? Two top-10 finishes on the LPGA Tour already this yr level to her sport being in a robust sufficient state to see her within the combine come Sunday.
Watch each males’s and girls’s main reside on Sky Sports activities Golf in 2024 or stream with NOW.
The primary girls’s main of the yr, The Chevron Championship, is reside from 3pm this Thursday, with the following males’s main, the PGA Championship at Valhalla in Kentucky, going down from Could 16-19.
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