LPGA Tour arrives in Korea for 2023 BMW Ladies Championship

The 2023 BMW Ladies Championship opens in Paju, Gyeonggi on Thursday where 78 golfers will vie for Korea’s sole LPGA Tour title over a four-day, no-cut tournament.

Ko Jin-young tees off on the 16th hole during the final round of the CPKC Women's Open at Shaughnessy Golf & Country Club in Vancouver on Aug. 27. [USA TODAY/YONHAP]

The 2023 BMW Ladies Championship opens in Paju, Gyeonggi on Thursday where 78 golfers will vie for Korea’s sole LPGA Tour title over a four-day, no-cut tournament.

All players will run the entire course, at the end of which lies a $2.2 million purse, the largest in tournament history. The winner is set to walk away with $330,000.

It's the 25th time the LPGA Tour has stopped in Korea and the fourth annual edition of the BMW Championship, which joined the circuit in 2019.

Last year’s competition took place in Wonju, Gangwon, at the Oak Valley Country Club and two previous years were held at LPGA International Busan. Korea’s Jang Ha-na became the inaugural champion during the tournament’s debut.

Two of the tournament’s previous winners are returning for this year’s contest, which heads to a new course at Seowon Valley Country Club’s Seowon Hills.

Lydia Ko of New Zealand tees off on the third hole during the final round of the 2022 BMW Ladies Championship golf tournament at Oak Valley Country Club in Wonju in October 2022. [AFP/YONHAP]

Defending champion Lydia Ko, who won the tournament last year in Wonju with a score of 21-under-par, 267, is back as she looks to defend her title. It was a special victory for Ko, who is from New Zealand but was born in Seoul.

“I think I've always wanted to win in Korea, whether it was an LPGA event or a KLPGA event or any event that was played here. Last year was the first time we had fans since Covid-19, so it was really nice to just have a lot of my family and friends come out and watch me play,” Ko said during a press conference ahead of the tournament on Tuesday.

“Playing in front of the Korean fans is always exciting. I think they love golf here, especially women's golf, so to be able to play in the final group was really special,” Ko said.

The gallery watches by the seventh hole during the final round of the 2022 BMW Ladies Championship golf tournament at Oak Valley Country Club in Wonju, Gangwon in October 2022. [AFP/YONHAP]

Also back is Korea’s Ko Jin-young, who won the tournament by a playoff in 2021 after it returned to the circuit after a hiatus in 2020 due to Covid-19. She also won the BMW Championship in 2016 and 2017 when it was solely part of the KLPGA.

Currently ranked 3rd, the 28-year-old tees off in Paju with two LPGA titles this season, winning the HSBC Women's World Championship in Singapore in March and the Cognizant Founders Cup in New Jersey in May.

It’s her first time back on an LPGA Tour green since finishing second at the CPKC Women's Open in Toronto in August.

Nineteen of 22 players with at least one LPGA Tour title this season are in the competition, including last week’s Buick Shanghai champion, 25-year-old Angel Yin, who edged out top-ranked Lilia Vu of the United States in a playoff win.

Vu, along with France’s Celine Boutier, so far have the most wins this season, each with three. China’s Yin Ruoning, ranked 2nd, is another player to watch over the weekend as the 21-year-old, along with Korea’s Ko, enters with two tournament wins.

Shin Ji-yai plays her shot from the ninth tee during the final round of the U.S. Women's Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, California on July 9. [AFP/YONHAP]

A total of 21 players from Korea will play the tournament, including former No. 1 Shin Ji-yai, who became the first Korean player to top the Rolex Rankings in 2010 and tied for second at the U.S. Women's Open earlier this year.

“[I]t's been a long time since I played in Korea and since deciding to join this event, I was really excited,” 16th-ranked Shin said at a Tuesday press conference. “At the same time, I was a little bit nervous, and having played golf for a very long time and having a long career, sometimes you lose that sense of enthusiasm and tension and nerves.”

Also among the Korean players headed to Paju are four amateurs, including the two top-ranked amateurs selected by the Korean Golf Association — Park Seo-jin, who enters the BMW championship with two amateur wins from 17 tournaments this season, and Seo Ji-eun, with four top-10 finishes across nine tournaments this season. Amateurs Oh Soo-min and Yun Da-been were sponsor invitees.

Alongside Ko Jin-young, Korean players Kim Hyo-joo and rookie Ryu Hae-ran also enter the tournament with an LPGA title. Kim, 28, won the Ascendant LPGA benefiting Volunteers of America tournament in Texas earlier this month to notch her sixth career win.

Korea's Kim Hyo-joo celebrates on the 18th hole after winning the 2023 Ascendant LPGA tournament in The Colony, Texas in October. [AP/YONHAP]

“I think earlier in the season, I had a few lost opportunities, so to be very frank, I was a little bit stressed out about that,” Kim said during a press conference Tuesday. “But it's nice to be able to sort of come to the end of the season with a win, and of course, that also boosted my confidence.”

Ryu, 22, has had an impressive LPGA Tour debut, finishing in the top seven at her season opener in March and winning the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship in September to earn her first title.

Seowon Hills, a 36-hole course nestled between mountains in northern Gyeonggi, can be found an hour north of Seoul.

Two of the courses were newly renovated for the tournament and include 86 bunkers built in a new three-dimensional style not seen anywhere else in Korea, according to Seowon Hills.

A fall chill has quickly fallen over many parts of Korea, and it’s set to be a cool weekend, with the temperature in Paju hovering around the 60s over the tournament, which runs Thursday to Sunday. As of press time, players and fans can expect light rain Thursday morning and clouds for the rest of the day, but sun for the rest of the weekend.

The BMW Championship is the only LPGA Tour stop in Korea and one of seven tournaments held in Asia this season. Players teed off in Thailand, Singapore and China at the beginning of the 2023 season in a three-stop Asian swing.

This fall, players are coming to Paju from Shanghai and the Tour will head to Malaysia after the BMW Championship ends on Sunday.

After that, Japan will host the decades-old Toto Japan Classic before the circuit heads back to the United States to close out the season with the CME Group Tour Championship in Florida.

BY MARY YANG [mary.yang@joongang.co.kr]