Thursday, June 25, 2015

Thursday Preview - Walmart NW Arkansas Championship

There is only one tournament that separates the Women's PGA Championship with the Women's US Open. That tournament is the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship Presented By P&G With Association With The Dunmore Foundation And Viewers Like You...or something like that.

Course: Pinnacle Country Club, measuring at about 6,300 yards. The winning score has been twelve under par for the past four editions of this tournament, and I am not about to go against the grain on that one.

Strength Of Field: A. Another packed field. Pretty much everyone is trying to get some warm up in for the US Women's Open.

Extra Tidbits: This is another three day event, starting on Friday and ending on Sunday...This was the site of Stacy Lewis' first LPGA victory in 2007. She was an amateur at the time and the tournament was reduced to one round thanks to terrible weather...Lewis also returns as the defending champion at a place where a majority of the crowd will be pulling for her. Lewis attended the University of Arkansas...This will be the first event in Inbee Park's new reign as world number one. It is also the first event since Lydia Ko missed her first cut on the LPGA Tour. She will be attempting to start a new streak after her previous was broken at 53 starts.


Fantasy Four: 

Inbee Park - Only player with three victories in 2015. Hasn't finished worse than T18 all season. Inbee is the best player on Tour, and it might not be that close right now.

Sei Young Kim - Incredibly impressive, having finished in the top 5 in her first two majors of her career. Struggles sometimes with consistency, but she hasn't missed a cut since the first event of the season, so even her lows aren't that bad.  

Morgan Pressel - Four straight top 5 finishes. Her next victory seems incredibly close, but when that will happen is a big question mark at this point. This tournament could be a great place for that breakout.

Stacy Lewis - Two time champion of this event, defending champion, and coming off a strong performance at the Women's PGA Championship. There are certain tournaments where Lewis is an automatic contender, and this is one of them.

(SLEEPER) Wei-Ling Hsu - Finished in 21st place at the Women's PGA Championship. Has been making cuts frequently, and creeping up the leaderboard early. Is searching for that breakout week, and I think it comes here.

2 comments:

  1. Good choices except for Hyo Joo, who WILL miss this weekend because she's skipping the tournament. She played last week in Korea (their first major of the year) as the defending champ and finished in the top 10. But, you could substitute another rookie for your Fantasy Four, like Minjee, Alison Lee or the "Q".

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    1. Yeah, I got informed a little too late. Oops! Lol. She has been replaced with Stacy Lewis.

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