Ochoa Makes 2008 Debut This Week At HSBC
Rolex Rankings leader and world number one Lorena Ochoa makes her season debut this week at the inaugural HSBC Women’s Champions at Tanah Merah Country Club in Singapore.
Ochoa, fresh off a 2007 season complete with eight victories and more than $4.3 million in earnings, begins the defense of her Rolex Player of the Year and Vare Trophy honors this week at the first Winner Event of LPGA Playoffs 2008. Featuring a purse of $2 million, the HSBC Women’s Champions winner will earn the first of 13 automatic spots in the ADT Championship, held in November at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla.
If Ochoa expects to begin 2008 where she left off last year, she will have to go through a host of world champions to do it. Every LPGA Tour tournament winner from 2007 will be on hand, along with LPGA major championship winners from 2005-07; winners of prominent world tournaments; and leading 2007 money winners on the LPGA of Korea (KLPGA), Australian Ladies Professional Golf (ALPG) Tour, Ladies European Tour (LET), Duramed FUTURES Tour, LPGA of Japan (JLPGA) and Ladies Asian Golf Tour (LAGT). Add to that, top players from the Rolex Rankings and the field of 78 players is a ‘Who’s Who?’ of women’s professional golf worldwide.
Tanah Merah Country Club’s Garden Course will provide the setting for the first match-up of the season between Ochoa and SBS Open at Turtle Bay winner Annika Sorenstam. Ochoa overtook Sorenstam for the Rolex Rankings top spot last April, but a healthy Sorenstam, already with one victory under her belt and back in the number two position in the world, is determined to make up ground.
Other key challengers include 21-year old Paula Creamer, winner of last week’s Fields Open in Hawaii; world number three Suzann Pettersen, who is eager to claim her first victory of 2008 after scoring five wins in 2007; Australian Karrie Webb, winless on the LPGA Tour since 2006, but fresh off her first international victory of 2008 at the MFS Women’s Australian Open on the ALPG; 2007 Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year Angela Park, and more than 70 more proven competitors.
