Two of the tour’s biggest stars, Brooke Henderson and Nelly Korda, sit at the top of the leaderboard after the first round at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club.

RELATED: Brooke Henderson joins Nelly Korda at TaylorMade

As the LPGA started its 74th season in Orlando, the initial conversation centred on the those not in attendance rather than the 29 players in the field. Six of the top 10 in the Rolex Rankings are missing. (Lexi Thompson is ranked No. 6 but did not qualify because she hasn’t won since 2019). Most notably absent is 2022 player of the year and World No. 1 Lydia Ko, who got married last month and had planned to start her season a little later. But Rookie of the Year Atthaya Thitikul didn’t enter either. Nor did two major winners from a year ago, Minjee Lee and In Gee Chun.

Then matters deteriorated more when Golfweek reported on Tuesday that lockers were not available for players anywhere this week on site, as was also the case last year. The men’s locker room at Lake Nona had to remain open to the public because of restrooms, according to Golfweek. Players were able to use bathrooms and showers in the designated women’s area but there a not a place for them for store any of their belongings or have their own private space.

“I don’t know why [the LPGA] cancelled the lockers,” Aaron Stewart VP of sports marketing at Hilton Grand Vacations, told Golfweek.

On Wednesday afternoon, 36 lockers were delivered to Lake Nona and set up in the women’s locker-room area. It was an improvement, but still they were in a part of the clubhouse that was not private and was shared with tournament hospitality and VIPs.

“We are always open to player feedback and work with our tournament partners to allocate finite space,” an LPGA statement said.

“It’s unfortunate that that story is kind of being discussed,” said Annika Sorenstam, a 72-time LPGA winner and a member at Lake Nona who is competing in the celebrity portion of the event. “I just want to focus on the game, and hopefully they can sort all the logistics out and we can focus on what’s important.”

Nelly Korda wasn’t distracted by the off-the-course controversy at Lake Nona, shooting an opening-round 68 to sit one off the lead. Julio Aguilar

Said Korda: “To me this event is so unique in the sense where that stuff doesn’t really bother me. You’re out here competing with different celebrities, former athletes, current athletes.”

True to her word, not much seemed to bother Korda on Thursday as she birdied three of her last eight holes to turn a mediocre round into a four-under 68 and hold second position on the leaderboard. The World No. 2 is looking for vindication after shooting a final-round 75 at Lake Nona a year ago, which dropped her into a tie for fourth place.

Henderson, ranked seventh in the Rolex Rankings, birdied three of her first eight holes and added two more at Nos. 10 and 14 before recording her only hiccup on the afternoon with a bogey at the par-3 17th hole. But she rebounded with birdie on the par-4 18th to claim the lead at five-under 67.

“Yeah, it does feel really good, and to get off to a hot start, that’s always a great feeling,” Henderson said. “Hopefully I can continue it the next three days, a lot of momentum, and lots of birdies. You really need to go low here if the conditions are going to stay as nice as they are.”

Gemma Dryburgh, Charley Hull, Ashleigh Buhai and Wei-Ling Hsu are tied for third place at 69.

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By Keely Levins
Michelle Wie West has committed to playing the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, beginning January 20th, Golfweek first reported. When she tees it up at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Orlando, Fla., it will be her first round on the LPGA Tour since June 2021, when she finished T-46 in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.

Wie West played six events in 2021, missing the cut in four of them. Her first event in 2021 was the Kia Classic; at that point, she hadn’t competed on tour in nearly two years. Her time away from the game to heal an injured wrist was extended after she found out she was pregnant. She gave birth to Makenna in 2020, the first child for Wie West and her husband, Jonnie West.

While she was on maternity leave, Wie West missed playing in the 2021 Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions. She had qualified for the event via her 2018 HSBC Women’s World Championship win. Since she didn’t play in 2021, her eligibility carried over to the 2022 event, the tournament communications team explained.

Given the name of the event, it’s no surprise that the field is stacked with the tour’s most talented players. World No. 1 Nelly Korda has committed to playing, as has her sister, Jessica Korda. World No. 3 Lydia Ko and World No. 4 Inbee Park are also in the field, along with Danielle Kang, Brooke Henderson and others.

Tour players play alongside celebrities in this event. The tour players play a 72-hole strokeplay event with no cut while the celebrities play a modified Stableford.

Wie West, 32, committed to the event without making any public comments.

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By Kent Paisley
For those successful on the LPGA Tour, the offseason comes like a brief reprieve. The CME Group Tour Championship finishes near Thanksgiving, and a mere six weeks later, the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions kicks things off once more. The constant grind causes Lydia Ko to only take a month off each offseason.

In turn, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 presented a silver lining for the Kiwi star, forcing the 16-time LPGA winner to go on the most extended break of her career. She got away from competitive golf for six months, honing her technique and mental game with coach Sean Foley.

The work paid off in 2021 with 11 top-10 finishes in 20 starts and a victory at the LOTTE Championship in April that ended a three-year winless streak. The consistent play brought her another reward on Sunday when the 24-year-old was officially awarded the LPGA’s Vare Trophy for the season’s low scoring average for the first time in her storied eight-year LPGA career, thanks to her 69.3 average.

“Every season is a new chapter in a book,” Ko said, “and I think the break was a whole new chapter itself for me.”

Those short off-seasons had hindered Ko’s opportunity to rebuild herself after her World No. 1 run through 2016. Stuck in the seemingly endless schedule churn, Ko felt discouraged until her seven-stroke victory at the LOTTE Championship.

“When you do all those things and it doesn’t work,” Ko explained, “even though you try to be patient, sometimes it’s hard to be patient when things just don’t go your way. But to have kind of have that momentum shifted, I think it just helped a lot with the confidence.”

The Vare Trophy was the only major annual award that Ko didn’t already have in her trophy case, although not for a lack of trying. Twice she had narrowly missed winning it. In 2015, Ko lost to Inbee Park by .03. In 2016, she fell to In Gee Chun by .01.

Ko holds the Vare Trophy on Sunday after finishing up the 2021 LPGA season with the official low season scoring average of 69.3. Michael Reaves

This year, she beat Lexi Thompson by .3 to win after finishing T-19 at the CME Group Tour Championship on Sunday with a 15-under 273 total. But it came with a caveat; neither Nelly Korda and Jin Young Ko, who both had lower marks, were eligible to win because they had not played the minimum 70 rounds.

Until a few months ago, Ko also appeared as if she’s miss out, only adding an extra event to her schedule (Pelican Women’s Championship) to nudge her over the 70 mark.

While new LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan recognized the potential need to change the minimum rule, Ko’s winning score tied for the fifth-lowest average in Vare history alongside Annika Sorenstam in 2005. In addition, it gave Ko a 20th LPGA Hall of Fame point with 27 needed to enter the hallowed territory.

“It’s really special because obviously it sums up the whole season,” Ko said. “All the other things do, too, but at the end of the day golf is about how consistently well you can play and what kind of low score you can shoot.”

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