The LPGA Lotte Championship has a bit of a different feel this year.
With the season’s first major championship held the week after instead of the week before, none of the top six in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings are on Oahu for this week’s tournament starting today at Hoakalei Country Club.
Three past champions — including the only two-time winner, Brooke Henderson — are in the field, which includes all 31 rookies on tour.
Defending champion Hyo Joo Kim and 2017 winner Christie Kerr will also participate in the event, which was held at Ko Olina Golf Course until the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The 2021 tournament was held at Kapolei, where current world No. 1 Lydia Ko won, and then moved to Hoakalei last year, where Kim won her fifth LPGA title.
She’s flirting with a sixth this year, with top-10 finishes in all three events played in 2023, and has made the top 20 in six consecutive tournaments dating back to her last missed cut.
“Obviously I have great memories here in Hawaii.” Kim said at Monday’s press conference. “I won the championship last year, and since then a lot of people have approached me and they said I hope you will win again this year, so I will play hard and as much as I can live up to these expectations.”
Henderson, ranked No. 7 in the world, is one of five winners on the LPGA Tour this year. She opened 2023 winning the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions but finished outside of the top 40 in her next two tournaments before missing the cut three weeks ago in Arizona.
She never finished outside of the top 11 when the tournament was held at Ko Olina. She tied for 27th at Kapolei and withdrew due to an illness during the second round last year after opening with a 74.
“This golf course is very challenging with the wind,” Henderson said. “I love coming back to Hawaii. All the people are so nice and kind and the atmosphere is already really amazing. So beautiful everywhere you look, all the flowers, and looking out over the ocean is always really cool.”
The event might be missing some of the tour’s top stars who are preparing for next week’s The Chevron Championship, but Henderson, world No. 8 Celine Boutier, No. 9 Kim, No. 10 Georgia Hall, and No. 11 In Gee Chun help make the field a tough one.
Boutier, who joined the tour in 2017, notched her third LPGA win the last time she teed it up at the LPGA Drive On Championship.
She’s second in the Rolex Player of the Year standings and leads the Race to the CME Globe chase.
“I feel like it’s hard to expect anything here because there is so many different things that can happen, especially with the wind,” said Boutier, who tied for 10th last year at 3-under 285. “I definitely like challenging conditions. I feel like it just makes my focus more and just a little tougher and, yeah, makes me able to dig deeper, I feel like.”
Punahou graduates Allisen Corpuz and Mariel Galdiano make up the Hawaii contingent in the field this week hoping to follow in the footsteps of Michelle Wie West, who won the Lotte title in 2014.
Corpuz, in her second season on the LPGA Tour, finished in a tie for 18th here last year and has played in four of the season’s first five events, with a T3 finish in the HSBC Women’s World Championship her best.
Galdiano, who won three individual high school state championships before going on to play at UCLA, is one of five golfers playing on a sponsor’s exemption. She’s playing her second season on the Epson Tour.
LPGA Lotte Championship
>> When: Today through Saturday
>> Where: Hoakalei Country Club, Ewa Beach, Oahu
>> TV: Golf Channel, 1-5 p.m. each day
