Leading professional golfers are to return to competitive action for the first time in months after a shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic when three of the world’s top 10 women tee off in South Korea today.
The domestic showpiece KLPGA Championship is to follow the country’s soccer and baseball leagues in starting behind closed doors at the Lakewood Country Club in Yangju, northeast of Seoul.
World No. 3 Park Sung-hyun, sixth-ranked Kim Sei-young and No. 10 Lee Jeong-eun are to be in a 150-strong field chasing a US$180,000 winner’s check from a record tournament purse of US$2.5 million, the largest in the event’s 42-year history.
Photo: AFP
South Korea — which endured one of the worst early outbreaks of the novel coronavirus outside China — has brought COVID-19 under control with a widespread “trace, test and treat” model, and has begun to resume professional sport.
South Korean players dominate women’s golf and the US-based LPGA tour, with three golfers ranked in the world’s top six and eight players in the top 20.
Two-time major winner Park, nine-time winner on the LPGA Tour Kim and US Open champion Lee were already back home in the country.
They had returned after the LPGA season was suspended in February because of the pandemic following the Australian Open, which was won by another South Korean, world No. 11 Inbee Park.
No spectators would be allowed inside the club and strict protocols are to be in place to guard against the risk of infection.
All players and staff would have their temperature checked before entering the venue. All support staff must wear masks at all times.
Players who turned up for practice rounds yesterday were required to wear masks before and after play.
Some opted to don one on the course, where they were kept at least 2m from their competitors and were careful to keep contact with caddies to a minimum.
Media covering the tournament are restricted to two designated areas on the course at the first and 10th tees.
Each player would have to eat meals alone to maintain social distancing, with no caddies or family members allowed to sit at the same table in the players’ lounge.
Only four LPGA Tour events have been completed this year — the last in Adelaide, Australia, on Feb. 16 — and the tour has outlined plans to resume in mid-July in Michigan.
The men’s PGA Tour, which came to a juddering halt when the Players Championship was abandoned after the first round in March, has penciled in a restart behind closed doors at the Charles Schwab Challenge beginning on June 11 in Fort Worth, Texas.
With sports fans worldwide starved of live action, overseas broadcasters have shown unprecedented interest in South Korea’s normally low-profile domestic competitions.
An LPGA of Korea Tour spokesman said that US network CBS was in negotiations for rights to broadcast the tournament.
The contest “has been at the center of global attention,” the tour said in a statement, adding that it was “making all-out efforts” to organize the event “to please golf fans fatigued by the coronavirus.”
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