In-bee eyes Olympic repeat as LPGA season tees off

MIAMI: South Korea’s seven-time major champion Park In-bee is playing this week’s LPGA season-opening Tournament of Champions with an eye toward defending her Olympic gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

World No 16 In-bee will compete against 25 rivals at the Four Seasons Orlando which started yesterday as the LPGA launches its 70th anniversary season with winners from 2018 and 2019 playing alongside celebrities in their own event.

In-bee captured Rio Olympic women’s golf gold by five strokes over New Zealand’s Lydia Ko and hopes to repeat at Tokyo on Aug 5-8. She hasn’t played in January since 2016 until now.

“I always start the season a little bit late, probably the end of February or early March,” In-bee said.

“This year I’m starting early because it’s an important year with the Olympics in the summer.”

But right now, the toughest Olympic squad to crack in women’s golf doesn’t include In-bee.

She has to be among the top four from her homeland and be among the top 15 in the world rankings to reach Tokyo.

Right now she’s only second alternate.

“In women’s golf, definitely is the toughest team to make,” Inbee said.

“It’s definitely an important year for me. Whether I get an (Olympic) opportunity or whether I don’t, I think I just want to have a season that I won’t regret. I just want to give myself a lot of opportunities.”

“The rankings cut off in June I want to play as many events as I can before and give myself some opportunities to play good golf before then so I feel like I’m in shape.”

Olympic qualifications ends after June’s Women’s PGA Championship and as of now the South Korean four would be topranked Ko Jin-young, secondranked Park Sung-hyun, fifthranked Kim Sei-young and seventh-ranked Lee Jeong-eun, the reigning US Women’s Open champion.

In-bee, the youngest player ever inducted to the LPGA Hall of Fame, was a torchbearer at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea.