Canadian Women's Open Preview

I will do my best to avoid using the expected one-liners in reference to the location of this week’s LPGA event. Let’s just say the ladies are playing in London, Ontario at the London Hunt And Country Club.

The course is par 72, 6611 yards – one of the longer courses on tour, designed by Robert Trent Jones. I wasn’t able to find a hole-by-hole layout of the course to get a better feel for what type of player might do well here. Caddy extraordinare Fourwack (at /www.intergate.com/~lslpga/caddie_corner/
2006/canada.htm) reports that the greens are huge. What kind of player would that favor? Good putters who aren’t great with the short irons? I can’t think of anybody offhand who might fit that description.

The field is weaker than your typical LPGA event, although compared to last year it looks fairly strong. Only four of the Top 10 on the money list are playing this week (MH Kim, Kerr, Lincicome and Jang). Meena Lee is the defending champion, but based on her recent play I wouldn’t pick her to challenge here. My pick to win is Cristie Kerr, with Mi Hyun Kim and Natalie Gulbis as my CYAs. So far I’m oh-fer-two in picking winners and 3 of 6 in the Top 10.

Now the bad news: This tournament is NOT being televised in the United States, unless you have satellite service that gives you access to the Rogers Sports Network (I think it’s a Canadian kind of Fox Sports Net). I’ve checked TGC, ESPN, FSN and it’s a big Canadian Goose-egg. Looks like I’ll spend part of my weekend watching the scoreboard update on lpga.com.