The world’s finest feminine golfers, together with Australian Olympians Hannah Inexperienced and Minjee Lee, are set to be met by wild winds in a uncommon look for the ladies’s recreation at St Andrews for the AIG Ladies’s Open Championship.
It’s the first time the ultimate girls’s main championship of the yr has returned to the House of Golf since 2013 and chief government of the R&A Martin Slumbers declared in his pre-tournament press convention that there’s “a sensible probability of 40, 45 mile-an-hour winds” sweeping by way of the Outdated Course.
The ferocious winds are set to make it a brutal introduction to the historic venue for the likes of world primary Nelly Korda who’ve by no means teed it up in a match at St Andrews earlier than.
Watch each spherical of the PGA Tour LIVE & Unique on Fox Sports activities, accessible on Kayo. New to Kayo? Begin Your Free Trial At the moment >
“I believe I’m proper in saying that 30 of the highest 50 have by no means performed a aggressive spherical round right here,” Slumbers mentioned.
“I’m excited to see them. That is the House of Golf. It’s arguably crucial golf course on this planet. I believe we’re going to take pleasure in watching them play.”
In distinction, skilled males have the possibility to grace the fairways of the Outdated Course yearly on the DP World Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Hyperlinks whereas The Open Championship is performed on the venue sometimes each 5 years.
Male golfers even have the chance to turn into accustomed to the well-known hyperlinks when they’re amateurs within the St Andrews Hyperlinks Trophy.
The dearth of alternatives skilled girls need to play the enduring Scottish venue has inspired seven-time main winner Karrie Webb to tee it up this week.
The 49-year-old – who additionally received the Ladies’s Open Championship twice earlier than it was deemed a significant – performs sometimes on the LPGA Tour these days however she couldn’t cross her “final alternative to compete at St Andrews”.
The dearth of publicity to the course for almost all of the ladies’s discipline coupled with the wild climate forecast makes this week’s main as huge open as any in current reminiscence.
The scheduling of tee occasions might be essential with those that tee off within the morning on Thursday and play the majority of their spherical earlier than the winds turn into their strongest within the afternoon .
Slumbers mentioned that the R&A have “slowed down the golf course fairly a bit” to fight the wild climate that threatens to create scenes the place golf balls are blown off greens and play is paused consequently.
“There’s a threat that we’ll have delays in play tomorrow, however we’ll cope with that,” Slumbers mentioned.
“I believe the perfect gamers on this planet need a little bit of a tough problem. I simply hope it doesn’t blow so laborious that we will’t play.”
Inexperienced and Lee – together with fellow Australians Webb, Grace Kim, Gabriela Ruffels and Hira Naveed – might be counting their blessings that the schedule has fallen favourably for them.
Steph Kyriacou is the odd one out of the seven-strong Australian contingent by teeing off later within the day however the 23-year-old has a powerful document in main boasting a runner-up end on the Evian Championship earlier this yr, whereas coming tied seventh on the AIG Ladies’s Open two years in the past.
Australia has a storied historical past at St Andrews with Cameron Smith successful the one hundred and fiftieth Open Championship on the iconic Scottish venue two years in the past whereas Kel Nagle (1960) and Peter Thomson (1955) additionally triumphed there.
No Australian girl has received the previous editions of the Ladies’s Open Championship on the House of Golf however Inexperienced and Lee are well-placed so as to add one other chapter to the nation’s historical past books.
World quantity 5 Inexperienced completed agonisingly in need of an Olympic medal in Paris coming in fourth at Le Golf Nationwide however she is having fun with a career-best season having received twice on the LPGA Tour and she or he might be refreshed so as to add a second main title to her resume after skipping final week’s Ladies’s Scottish Open.
Two-time main winner Lee in the meantime feels due for a win after coming within the top-five in three of the final 4 the Ladies’s British Opens.
The previous world quantity two can even have a hearth in her stomach from sharing the lead at Dundonald Hyperlinks on the midway mark final week earlier than falling to a tied twelfth end, and that consequence got here after she possessed a three-shot lead within the ultimate spherical of the Ladies’s US Open earlier this yr however was unable to hold on to win that occasion for a second time.
Ruffels is one to be careful for too as she presently leads the LPGA Tour’s rookie of the yr standings and she or he completed in a tie for thirteenth when she final performed this match in 2020.
Learn how to watch
Aussie golf followers can catch the AIG Ladies’s Open LIVE on Fox Sports activities and Kayo.
When is it?
The match runs from Thursday, 22 August to Sunday 25 August.
All 4 rounds might be broadcast every day from 9pm to 4am AEST.
Aussie spherical one tee occasions AEST
4.11pm Hannah Inexperienced, Brooke Henderson (CAN), Amy Yang (KOR)
4.33pm Karrie Webb, Stacy Lewis (USA), Catriona Matthew (SCO)
4.44pm Minjee Lee, Lexi Thompson (USA), Gemma Dryburgh (SCO)
5.06pm Grace Kim, Kokona Sakurai (JPN), Shannon Tan (SIN)
5.39pm Gabriela Ruffels, Esther Henseleit (GER), Xiyu Lin (CHN)
6.01pm Hira Naveed, Nanna Koerstz Madsen (DEN), Amy Taylor (ENG)
9.15pm Steph Kyriacou, Akie Iawi (JPN), Andrea Lee (USA)