CN Canadian Women’s Open Preview

The LPGA resumes play this week in Edmonton, Alberta for the CN Canadian Women’s Open. Royal Mayfair Golf Club is the host for this year’s North-Of-The-Border visit, the final “Winners Event” in the quest for a spot in the ADT Championship. Cristie Kerr won last year in London, Ontario by one shot over Angela Stanford. If you live in Canada, all four rounds of the event will be aired by the Rogers Sports Network. The U.S. audience will see tape-delayed coverage on The Golf Channel beginning with Saturday’s third round.

Royal Mayfair is a par-71 6565-yard layout which sounds a little long, but the higher altitude should compensate somewhat. Larry Smich reports that there is “plenty of sand and just a bit of elevation”. Being so close to the Canadian Rockies, I expected there would be some uphill-downhill shots.

After several years of getting short-changed on the turnout, this year’s Canadian event has a reasonably strong field. One notable absentee is Annika Sorenstam, whom I discussed at length on Monday. I would like to point out that Laura Diaz will be playing for the sixth consecutive week because she not only played the two LPGA events in Europe but she stayed over and finished tied for second in Annika’s Scandinavian TPC during the “off-week”, then jetted all the way to Edmonton with her toddler in tow. Hey Betsy King, that sounds like one determined golfer! Maybe Laura is just who your Solheim Cup team needs to square off against the Haughty Swede next month.

Sorry, I digress…I’ve mentioned before that players rarely win the event after they have won a major. They rarely ever win two events in a row, period. But since this IS Lorena Ochoa we’re talking about (and she did take a week off, to cruise the waters of Norway with her family), I sense a run of successes coming on for the first-time major champion. Ochoa to win, with Se Ri Pak and Jee Young Lee as CYAs.

Stats: Winners 4-19 (6-19 with CYAs), Top Tens 30-55.