Minjee Lee at her media conference today – photo R&A via Getty Images
The fifth and final major of the season for women’s golf, the US$6.8 million AIG Women’s Open, begins on Thursday at the famed Muirfield in Gullane in East Lothian to the north and east of Edinburgh.
Typically, the event has been rotated around most of Britain’s great courses in the last 45 years but more especially in the last twenty years with most of the Open Championship’s venues being used.
A notable absentee from that list has been Muirfield and in 2022 it gets its chance to expose its great layout to the elite of the female game.
Sweden’s Anna Nordqvist arrives as the defending champion following her narrow one-shot victory at Carnoustie last year.
From an Australasian perspective, however, the genuine chances of success appear to lie with Minjee Lee, Lydia Ko and Hannah Green although Ko and Lee are in the best recent form, Ko in particular, producing six top five finishes in her last eight LPGA Tour starts.
Lee on the other hand is the current US Women’s Open Champion and two starts later finished runner-up in the following major at the KPMG PGA Championship.
She can be forgiven for two finishes below that level in her last two attempts at the Evian Championship and the Women’s Scottish Open but Lee remains as the leader of the LPGA Tour’s Race to the Globe in 2022 and is the world number two behind Jin Young Ko.
Lee has recorded top 5 finishes in each of the last two starts in this particular event, her last round of 66 at Carnoustie last year the best of the day so her chances of adding a third major championship to her resume appear good.
Referring to her 18th place finish last week at the Scottish Open, Lee suggested she was transitioning to links style golf again after her time in Asia, the US and France to date this season
“I think just getting into the rhythm of playing on links-style courses. It wasn’t quite that windy at Dundonald, so I’m not sure how windy it’s going to be here. But I feel like Muirfield is maybe a little bit more traditional like links golf.
“I live in Dallas and it’s really windy and I grew up in Perth, which is also very windy. So I think just playing — I think playing in the wind, you just subconsciously kind of know how to spin the ball properly in the wind and also keeping it through the wind, like how it’s going to affect it, I think I know what it’s sort of going to do. So I think that’s what makes you sort of a better wind player.”
When asked if winning the Women’s British open would mean a lot to her Lee responded; “It’s the British Open. I really love playing at links golf courses.
“It’s just — I just really love like the hard conditions that we get and just how much creativity we have to sort of — we sort of have to think about around these types of courses. It could be really cool and it would be a great honour to be able to win the British.”
Ko, on the other hand, while playing some fine golf at present, does not enjoy a great record in this event for one of her standing. In ten starts at the Women’s British Open Ko has recorded just one top ten, that coming in 2015 when 3rd behind Inbee Park.
Both Ko and Lee are facing the prospect of a third major championship, Lee with her two in the last twelve months and Ko earning her two in her first over an eight month period in 2015 and 2016.
Ko indicated last week following her 5th place at the Women’s Scottish Open that while her record at the Women’s British Open is not as she would like playing Muirfield was an exciting prospect.
“I haven’t had the greatest I think track record at The Open, said the New Zealander. “So I’m excited for Muirfield. Obviously it’s the first time that the women’s championship is there, so it’s a pretty historic venue and historic championship.
“I’m excited. I’ve heard a lot of great things about it. Seen it on TV. So I’m excited to go play. It’s going to be pretty different to here even though they are both links. So just enjoy it and see what happens at the end of next week.”
Hannah Green, Stephanie Kyriacou, Su Oh and Whitney Hillier are the other Australasians in the field.
Green has played the event on four occasions for a best of 16th, Kyriacou twice for an impressive best of 13th last year, Oh on eight occasions for a best of 15th and Hiller is playing the event for the sixth occasion but has yet to make the weekend in any.
