LPGA Championship Preview

The 56^th LPGA Championship will be its first at Locust Hill Country Club in Pittsford (near Rochester), New York.  Locust Hill was the site of the Wegmans LPGA for 33 years and hosts this year's second major thanks to Wegmans' decision to assume the sponsorship.  In only her fifth LPGA start, Anna Nordqvist won last year's LPGA Championship by four shots over Lindsey Wright.  Jiyai Shin won last year's Wegmans by seven shots over Yani Tseng and Kristy McPherson.

In past years, Locust Hill has played as one of the shorter courses on Tour but its major championship model has been lengthened out by about 140 yards.  According to Larry Smich, the extra yardage has been tacked on to Holes 1, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 and 14.  Also, the already-difficult rough has been allowed to thicken and the greens are firmer than usual.  Expect an average score higher than the three I listed in the summary box.

A nice feature of previous Wegmans events has been their daily webcast, featuring player interviews and tournament discussions separate from the television productions.  That feature continues this week, befitting the Tour's marquee championship.  Also, our good friend The Constructivist is on-site and credentialed - he started posting early Monday morning!  Be sure to check out Mostly Harmless for his input this week.

150 players make up the field including six Teaching and Club Professionals.  Three international players qualified by their positions in the Rolex Rankings - Chie Arimura and Sakura Yokomine from Japan and Korea's Hee Kyung Seo, although Seo appears to be declining the invitation.  I expected the remaining 142 players to come from the latest Priority list but that doesn't seem to be the case.  Currently the first three alternates are Gloria Park, Danielle Downey and Kelli Kuehne (141-143) but the twelve players following them are in the field.  That leads me to believe that some iteration of the 2010 money list was used instead but I haven't found evidence of that anywhere.  Tell me why we have the Priority List again?

As it is, the field is about as strong as it possibly could be.  As of this writing, the retired Lorena Ochoa is the only member of my Top 40 not playing.  I can't believe Jiyai Shin is actually going to start - as of Wednesday morning her name is still listed.  Two weeks recovery from an appendectomy just isn't enough - is it?  If she does play, she'll put Paula Creamer's performance at ShopRite to shame!  Shin would have been my pick to win if not for the surgery.  Somebody else will have to shoulder that burden this week.  Hmm...let's see...