NorCal favorite Inkster will see plenty of friendly faces
Juli Inkster, a 31-time winner on the LPGA Tour, will enjoy the home game of the Mediheal Championship as the tour returns to the Bay Area after skipping 2017.
Inskter is Northern California born and bred. The LPGA and World Golf Hall of Fame member was born in Santa Cruz, she was a three-time All-American at San Jose State and currently lives in Los Altos, about 30 miles from Daly City’s Lake Merced Golf Club where the tournament will be held.
As expected, Inkster is happy the LPGA has returned to the Bay Area this season.
“My kids and all their friends are going to come out,” Inkster said. “It’s nice to have family close by. Got some players staying with me so we’re cooking in every night and having fun there. It’s a great home game for me just to have my friends come out here and watch me play.”
Inkster has great memories of playing at Lake Merced Golf Club; it was the site of her most recent top20 finish at the 2016 Swinging Skirts Classic where she finished tied 19th. At the same event in 2015 she finished tied 15th. As a seventime major champion, Inkster enjoys the challenge a course like Lake Merced presents.
“I like where it’s not a birdie-fest out here,” Inkster said. “Lake Merced’s probably in the best shape it’s been, it’s in amazing shape. The weather seems like it’s going to be OK this week, so the course is playing tough. I mean, this is like an Open golf course, it’s a tough golf course. You’ve got to really play well here. I think it’s going to be a good week.”
Major champions Pernilla Lindberg and Michelle Wie will play alongside the tour’s newest winner in Moriya Jutanugarn.
Wie, the Stanford grad, returns to the Bay Area after a tie for 55th last week in Los Angeles, which was her worst finish of 2018. Wie won earlier this season on the Asian swing in Singapore.
One player who will look forward to the return to the Bay Area is Lydia Ko. She seems built for success at Lake Merced. The 21-year-old, who celebrated her birthday Tuesday, won in 2014 and 2015. With one top 10 to start the year, a victory on Sunday would be a nice birthday present for the former world No. 1 who is looking for her first win since 2016.
TEAMING UP >> Masters champion Patrick Reed returns to competition at the PGA Tour stop in New Orleans. The Zurich Classic team event is the first tournament since the Tour Championship last September with a field including the reigning champs of all four majors, including Reed, Jordan Spieth (British Open), Justin Thomas (PGA Championship) and Brooks Koepka (U.S. Open).
Reed expects a sizeable, boisterous gallery, and not just because he’s fresh off of being fitted for his first green jacket as Masters champion. He went to high school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where his wife attended college at LSU. So he’d be a fan favorite.
“It can get pretty rowdy. We can use that to our advantage,” said Reed, whose teammate is Patrick Cantlay. “It’s going to be a lot of fun . ... Hopefully, we can give them a show.”
Koepka is returning from a left wrist injury that kept him off the Tour for 15 weeks.
Organizers made one considerable change this year; on the final day, the format will be alternate shot instead of best ball. The move raises the stakes of each shot on the final round, and could lead to more drastic changes on the leader board. The first and third rounds will be best ball this year.
Spieth said teams could be four of five shots behind heading into the final round, “and certainly still in it in an alternate shot format. But in best ball it’s probably too difficult to overcome.”
INJURY >> Luke Donald is stepping away to try to heal an ailing back. Donald, a former world No. 1 who hasn’t won since the end of 2013 in Japan, said on Twitter that he has been trying to play with back pain and has decided to get treatment and take time off to recover. “Gutted about this but I’m fully committed to getting back out onto the course,” he tweeted.