Americans looking to right the ledger at the Safeway International
IN: News | LPGA | Safeway International (2004) | Preview | by Bruce Young | 17 Mar 2004
The LPGA Tour stays in Arizona this week, but moves 150 miles north west of last week's event in Tucson when the Safeway International Presented by Coca Cola gets underway on Thursday.
The tournament is being played for the first time at Superstition Mountain Golf & Country Club in Superstition, Arizona, on the edge of metropolitan Phoenix. Already two Champions Tour events have been played at the venue but this will be a significant move for the LPGA, the event having been played in sixteen of the last seventeen years at the Moon Valley Country Club. The Safeway International was first played back in 1980 when Australia's Jan Stephenson won at the Hillcrest Golf Course.
A Jack Nicklaus designed facility and one of two courses on the residential driven development, the Prospector Course, which was built in 1997, carries Bermuda greens.
A field, in keeping with the significant history of the event and that it is played just one week prior to the first major of the year, is assembled with Annika Sorenstam the logical favourite to win the event for the second time. Only three weeks ago Sorenstam dominated the ANZ Australian Ladies Masters in her first and only outing of 2004, winning by four shots from last week's winner in Tucson, Karen Stupples, so if form counts for anything then Sorenstam should be in the thick of things again on Sunday.
The very impressive Stupples is lining up again and the manner in which she handled herself in her duel with Sorenstam in Australia and her win last week, suggest that, should she play again with Sorenstam on Sunday, then she will not be quite the underdog she was in Australia.
With only one American in the top ten last week, Stacey Prammanasudh, the US players will be keen to rebalance the ledger but the strength of the foreigners, more especially the Koreans, is hard to argue against with the defending champion Se Ri Pak now tournament sharp after her first up start for the year last week well placed to do feature. Along with the new recruits Jung Yeon Lee, Shi Hyun Ahn, Seol An Yeon and the experienced Grace Park and Mi Hyun Kim, the Koreans may well be the dominant nation on the leaderboard again at week's end.
The Koreans are not the only ones the Americans need to be concerned about however with Thai, Aree Song, England's Stupples and Laura Davies and Australians Rachel Teske and Karrie Webb, to name just a few who are likely to do well.
One American who may have some say in turning the tide is 14-year-old Michelle Wie who plays here on invitation having narrowly missed the cut at the USPGA Tour's Sony Open earlier this year. It was at next week's event, the Kraft Nabisco, one year ago that Wie served notice of her capacity to handle the pressure cooker of major golf when she finished 9th after playing the last day with winner, Patricia Meunier Lebouc and Annika Sorenstam.
The Safeway International is worth $US1.2 million with the winner to receive the customary 15%, namely $US180,000.
