2010 KLPGA Season Kicks Off Thursday in China
By Yoon Chul
Staff Reporter
The Korea Ladies Professional Golf Association (KLPGA) Tour will open its 2010 season on Thursday with the Orient-China Ladies Open at the Orient Golf and Country Club in Xiamen.
A total of 116 golfers, including 40 Koreans, will compete for the $45,000 winner's prize, and among them will be the tour's top two players from 2009 ― player of the year Seo Hee-kyung and her rival Ryu So-yeon.
Seo topped the KLPGA in wins, earnings and scoring average in addition to her top player title. She needed a win in the last tournament of the season, the ADT Caps Championship, to clinch the wins, player of the year, and earnings titles over Ryu.
Seo is looking to pick up where she left off in the 2009 season but said the offseason wasn't long enough.
"I had my best season in 2009. But I am a little worried because I couldn't spend much time training after the season."
Last year's winner, Choi He-yong, will be back to defend her title and 2008 LPGA Rookie of the Year Yani Tseng of Taiwan will also compete, adding some star power to the tournament.
"I will try not to think too much about being the defending champion," said Choi. "Winning against a field with a lot of good international players is always meaningful."
The KLPGA has opened its season in December since 2006 in order to ensure that the end of the year ceremonies can take place in early December of the following year.
"We need at least two or three weeks from the season's final competition to prepare the ending ceremony," a KLPGA official told The Korea Times. "If we had the China Ladies Open in (2010), we wouldn't have enough time to do our ceremony," the official added.
The KLPGA will have more tournaments in the 2010 season. The official said, "There will be more than 20. We already confirmed one new tournament, the Centerium Women's Open sponsored by construction company Kumgang."
That tournament is slated for Oct 1 to 3 with a purse of 400 million won.
"We are still holding negotiations with a few sponsors for new events that will be launched on the KLPGA Tour," the official said.