Lewis eyes win after streak’s end
Three weeks ago, Stacy Lewis saw her streak of top-10 finishes end at 13, a run that began in mid-2013. However, more important to Lewis is winning tournaments, something she accomplished only once, at the Ricoh Women’s British Open last summer, during the run.
Lewis will be in a comfortable place this week at the JTBC LPGA Founders Cup, where she is the defending champion. Last year, at the Wildfire Golf Club at JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix, Lewis shot 68-65-68-64 (23-under par) to win her seventh career title. In three starts at the course, Lewis is a combined 33-under par and is riding a streak of eight consecutive under-par rounds.
Here’s a look at how Lewis has started the last three seasons, where she has accumulated all eight of her career wins:
2011: Won the fifth tournament of the year, the Kraft Nabisco, her only win of the season.
2012: Won the eighth tournament and four times on the season in her Player of the Year season.
2013: Won the third and fourth tournaments of the year, including the Founders Cup (fourth event of 2013).
Wildfire splits courses for LPGA
The course being used this week at the JTBC LPGA Founders Cup is split between two of the game’s most famous names. Arnold Palmer and Nick Faldo designed separate courses at The Wildfire Golf Club at JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix. But the 18 being used in the tournament combines the two courses. The back nine of the Palmer Course will be the front nine this week and the back nine of the Faldo course will be the finishing nine in a composite par-72, 6,568-yard tournament layout.
The courses are inspired by the famed Australian Sandbelt, featuring numerous bunkers with high lips and high, sand-flashed faces, as well as sloping greens.
Young entries in Kraft Nabisco
The year’s first major championship, the Kraft Nabisco Championship, will have an accomplished list of amateur invitees in two weeks. These include Australia’s Minjee Lee, the world’s No. 1-ranked amateur; Annie Park, who plays collegiately at Southern Cal and is ranked second; UCLA’s Alison Lee, ranked third; Emma Talley from Alabama, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion; Australia’s Su Hyun Oh, ranked fifth; Canada’s Brooke Henderson, the youngest winner of a professional event on any tour; Ashlan Ramsey from Clemson; Angel Yin, who qualified last year for the Kraft by winning the Kraft Nabisco Junior; and Nelly Korda, the 15-year-old younger sister of Jessica Korda.
Etc.
England’s Charley Hull, 17, shot a final-round 62 to win her first professional title last Sunday in Morocco on the Ladies European Tour. Hull, who turns 18 on Thursday, … The Executive Women's Golf Association (EWGA), the community for women which connects current and aspiring business and professional women to learn, play, and enjoy the game of golf, will honor LPGA and World Golf Hall of Fame member Carol Mann with the EWGA Leadership Award during its Empower ‘14 Conference in San Antonio, Texas, April 6-8. … Cheyenne Woods will be playing on the LPGA this week on a sponsor exemption. Woods, who plays regularly on the Epson Tour, attended Phoenix Xavier Prep, which is 16 miles south of this week’s host course. … Donald Trump provided some additional promotional value two weeks ago for the PGA Tour’s World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship at Trump Doral. The 2017 U.S. Women’s Open will be played at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, NJ.
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