P&G NW Arkansas Championship Preview

Rogers, Arkansas - half an hour up the road from Fayetteville and less than that from the Missouri state line - hosts the LPGA Tour for the second straight season.  Two years ago the event was washed out and local hero Stacy Lewis was declared the winner (albeit an unofficial one in Tour records) after only 18 holes were played.  Rain delays plagued last year's event too, but they got in all 54 holes as Seon Hwa Lee claimed her second victory of 2008.

Pinnacle CC underwent a renovation earlier this year but still plays as one of the shorter courses on Tour.  The signature hole is the par-3 15^th, featuring an island green.  18 is a par-5, which I always like to give players a reasonable birdie chance to finish the day.

The field isn't a bad one but given that it is not being played in Hawaii or Mexico, the quality is rather disappointing.  For those who played at Solheim this would have been their fourth straight week of action (with three more to come) so I'll give Suzann Pettersen, Catriona Matthew and Anna Nordqvist a pass.  But Lorena Ochoa, In-Kyung Kim and Karrie Webb have only played the last two weeks after a three-week layoff.  Surely one or two of them could handle playing four in a row (all three are in next week's Samsung) in the name of supporting their Tour, especially given that two of those events are only 54 holes.  Granted - very few will try to play all of these six straight events, and being in the middle Arkansas was going to get skipped by most of the 20 Samsung participants.  But the LPGA needs its stars to suck it up now more than ever.  And the Tour needs to be mindful of this situation when it draws up the 2010 schedule - they can't afford to have any events next year getting short-changed because the headliners need a week to rest.  Keep the events grouped in twos or threes and this problem goes away.

A thinner field does narrow down the choices, though.  For the second week in a row, I'm picking the hottest player around and hoping she gets her second win of 2009.