A knack for learning quickly could be a key to staying ahead of a class of high achievers at this week’s Lotte Championship.
After last year’s tournament was canceled due to the pandemic, the event makes its return to the LPGA Tour schedule this week with Kapolei Golf Club making its debut as the host venue.
Ko Olina Golf Club had hosted the LPGA’s Hawaii stop since the tournament’s inaugural year in 2012, with the event’s ninth year to be played about 8 miles to the east. The move was announced last month and much of the 144-player field — including nine of the top 10 players in the world — got their first look at Kapolei’s Ted Robinson design in practice rounds over the past few days.
“I played all my years at Ko Olina, so it’s kind of nice to have a change,” Minjee Lee, the 2016 Lotte champion, said on Monday. “This is the first time I’ve seen both the nines, so I think we had a little bit of everything. I think if the wind gets up it’ll be a good challenge.”
While the tournament changed location, it retained its Wednesday-Saturday schedule for its return from last year’s hiatus. Like the PGA Tour’s Sony Open in Hawaii in January, this week’s event will be played without spectators on the course.
As the players adjust to a different layout heading into Wednesday’s opening round, managing the West Oahu winds remains at a premium at Kapolei, which hosted the Cup Noodles Hawaiian Ladies Open held from 1996 to 2001 as well as the PGA Champions’ Pacific Links Championship in 2012-14.
Lee, who tied for third in 2019, is among four past Lotte champions entered in the field along with Sei Young Kim (2015), Cristie Kerr (2017) and two-time defending champion Brooke Henderson. Kerr is among the players who has some history at Kapolei, having played there in the final years of the Hawaiian Ladies Open.
Kim owns two of the most memorable shots in tournament history — her chip-in off Ko Olina’s 18th green to force a playoff with Inbee Park and a two-hop eagle from the fairway to earn the second win of her rookie season. While she’s adjusting to Kapolei’s challenges, the view from the tee on the closing hole does have at least one familiar trait to Ko Olina.
“When I go to hole 18 it’s very similar, left side hazard,” said Kim, whose tee shot rolled into the water at Ko Olina prior to her dramatic recovery on her way to the 2015 victory.
Kim and Park will again play in the same group in the opening round along with Kathrine Kirk in Wednesday’s 8:06 a.m. tee time at No. 1.
Park enters the week as the field’s highest ranked player at No. 2 in the world with a win at the Kia Classic last month and a tie for seventh at the ANA Inspiration, the year’s first major.
The 21-time winner on tour returned to Oahu on Saturday with four top-four finishes in eight Lotte starts and feels she’s “pretty much done everything except for win” in Hawaii. She’ll take aim at a breakthrough, noting an emphasis on accuracy with her irons.
“The greens are quite small and it’s actually a little bit elevated greens,” Park said. “So once you miss the greens it’s going to be very tough up and down, but it’s going to give us plenty of opportunity if we hit good second shots in.
“You have to hit really good shots on your iron shots and obviously putt good. The putting surface is pretty much similar to Ko Olina — maybe a little bit quicker over here.”
LPGA Lotte Championship
At Kapolei Golf Club
>> When: Wednesday-Saturday
>> TV: Golf Channel, 1-5 p.m. each day
>> Purse: $2 million ($300,000 champion’s prize)
