Individuals begin Worldwide Crown with sweep

GOYANG, South Korea — America beat China twice in four-ball matches Thursday on the primary day of the LPGA’s Worldwide Crown event whereas world No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul remained good on the group occasion.

Thitikul and associate Pajaree Anannarukarn of Thailand beat Hannah Inexperienced and Grace Kim of Australia 1 up on the New Korea Nation Membership. It was Thitikul’s sixth consecutive win within the group competitors.

The win got here after Australia’s Minjee Lee and Steph Kyriacou beat Chanettee Wannasaen and Jasmine Suwannapura 2 as much as cut up the factors with Thailand on the opening day.

Individuals Yealimi Noh and Angel Yin routed Liu Yan and Yin Ruoning of China 5 and 4 and Lilia Vu and Lauren Coughlin beat Zhang Weiwei and Liu Ruixin 1 up.

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The U.S. was the one group to win each its opening matches.

Japan led the World group early in each four-ball matches however Charley Hull and Lydia Ko birdied the ultimate gap for a tie with Rio Takeda and Miyu Yamashita. Then Brooke Henderson and Wei-Ling Hsu rallied for a 2-and-1 win over Ayaka Furue and Mao Saigo to choose up 1.5 factors towards their opponents.

Hull and Ko bought again to 1 down when Hull received the twelfth gap with a birdie, and the pair remained 1 down till the par-4 18th gap, in the end tying the match when Ko buried a 25-foot birdie putt.

“The one manner I believed we had been going to increase the match was for me to gap the putt on 17,” Ko stated. “At each our lengths, it is not a assured birdie putt in any respect, however I felt like I should not let the group down. Charley holed so many good birdie putts that stored the match going, and I simply got here for the experience for the final two.”

The host group bought off to a very good begin when South Korea’s Hyo Joo Kim and Hye-Jin Choi beat Sweden’s Maja Stark and Linn Grant 3 and a couple of and Jin Younger Ko and Haeran Ryu completed tied with Ingrid Lindblad and Madelene Sagstrom.

Beneath the event format, seven nations and a “remainder of the world” group compete in two swimming pools: the U.S., China, Australia and Thailand in Pool A, and South Korea, the World group, Japan and Sweden in Pool B. The groups and their gamers had been decided by the ladies’s world rankings.

The addition of a world group permits for gamers similar to Ko of New Zealand and Henderson of Canada to play within the event.

4-ball matches proceed on Friday and Saturday. The highest two nations from every pool advance to Sunday’s semifinals and closing that consist of 1 foursomes (alternate shot) and two singles matches.

Thitikul was a member of the Thai group in 2023 that received the Worldwide Crown at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco and is the one participant within the subject who has received the occasion. She is a six-time winner on the LGPA Tour, together with wins this season on the Mizuho Americas Open and the Shanghai event two weeks in the past.

Final week, Sei Younger Kim received the BMW Girls Championship, additionally in South Korea. The LPGA’s Asian swing continues in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, subsequent week and concludes in Shiga, Japan, from Nov. 6-9.