Kia Classic Preview

Our month-long break is over!  The Kia Classic Presented by J Golf is our first full-field event of 2010 and the first Tour event on U.S. soil.  This inaugural event is being played in Carlsbad (near San Diego), California at the La Costa Resort & Spa.  La Costa was a regular PGA Tour stop for 37 years, most recently for the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship from 1999 to 2006.

As the first full-field event, the Kia will be the first start for most LPGA members.  If you look over the Final Field, you'll see rookies making their first appearance as a Tour member like Pernilla Lindberg, Azahara Munoz, Marianne Skarpnord and Mojo 6 "in-votee" Beatrice Recari.  You'll see up-and-comers like Giulia Sergas, Anna Grzebien, Paige Mackenzie and Irene Cho making their first start despite being a Category-1 player.  You'll even find players who have changed their name - Bona Lee went by the name of Il Hee Lee during Q-School, Ilmi Chung has apparently dropped the hyphen from her first name after many years and Allison Hanna no longer sports the "-Williams" monicker (condolences there). You'll also see the return of several players who missed most or all of last year due to pregnancy or injury. Welcome back Mi Hyun Kim, Sherri Steinhauer, Kelli Kuehne, Gloria Park, Na On Min and the Lovely and Talented Grace Park!  Thursday will truly be Opening Day for these and many other players.

One player will be significant in her absence this week - Paula Creamer, still out with her thumb injury, is the only player in my Top 40 not in the field.  The field strength is further accentuated by the fact that it took only 147 players to fill up the 139 available spots (three sponsor's exemptions plus two Monday qualifiers equals the magic number of 144).  The Monday qualifiers were Diana D'Alessio and Lisa Strom.

There isn't a lot of info to handicap the field with.  No LPGA events in the previous three weeks (although several members played on other tours - Karrie Webb and Yani Tseng won the Australian events while Inbee Park finished second in a JLPGA event) plus an inaugural event doesn't give me much history go on this week.  Larry Smich (whose new bag is rookie Maria Hernandez) says the track is a "traditional layout" with "narrow fairways and small greens" so I used that to guide me somewhat.  My natural inclination against picking back-to-back winners kept me from selecting Ai Miyazato at HSBC but I have no such problems with picking a three-peat.