Last week felt like the men’s golfing season truly got underway at the Masters and while we must wait another month until the best of the best are together again, stellar fields are a staple of the LPGA Tour but there is also a sense of anticipation as the year’s first major kicks off a hectic summer.
LPGA Tour
The Chevron Championship is the first of five majors this summer while the Paris Olympics and Solheim Cup add more weight to what will be a titanic five months with Leona Maguire and Stephanie Meadow hoping to be in the thick of it.
The pair are in The Woodlands, Texas where world number two Lilia Vu will defend the Dinah Shore trophy as Nelly Korda goes in search of a record equalling five successive LPGA Tour wins.
Maguire has a modest record in this event with a career best T18 coming at the old Mission Hills although she was T23 here last year and after progressing to the final of the matchplay a fortnight ago she feels like her game is in good shape.
Meanwhile, Meadow is making just her fifth start of the season and she too like Maguire hasn’t got the best record at the Chevron Championship.
PGA Tour
Rory McIlroy’s tenth attempt at the career grand slam barely got off the ground last week but he will have no time to dwell on what might have been as he tees it up at the latest Signature Event, the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head.
The four-time major winner has been struggling with his irons this season and he will use this event, the team event in Zurich and the Wells Fargo to tune up for the PGA Championship in Valhalla – the site of his last major win.
Seamus Power will be looking to get back on track after a missed cut in Texas brought the curtain down on his hopes of earning a place at the Masters.
At 114th in the world rankings, another big event represents an opportunity to get back inside the top-100.
Challenge Tour
A stacked Irish contingent are in action this week with as many as eight players teeing it up in the Abu Dhabi Challenge.
Conor Purcell, Gary Hurley, Jonathan Caldwell, Mark Power, John Murphy, Daniel Mulligan, Dermot McElroy and Ronan Mullarney will all be playing at Al Ain Equestrian, Shooting & Golf Club.
Ladies European Tour
Lauren Walsh and Olivia Mehaffey are in South Africa for the Joburg Ladies Open at Modderfontein Golf Club.
Sunshine Tour
Robert Brazill, Liam Grehan and Rowan Lester are chasing the sun in South Africa as the First Stage of Sunshine Tour Q-School begins.
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