Hatton defends at Bay Hill, Kang chases LPGA win at Ocala
MIAMI: England’s Tyrrell Haton defends his title this week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where victory launched a roller-coaster year that included two wins in the past five months.
Sixth-ranked Haton tees off Thursday at Bay Hill in Orlando, where he captured the final trophy before the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the season for three months.
Ater the layoff, Haton captured last October’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth and kept the momentum rolling through a January victory at Abu Dhabi for his sixth career European Tour triumph.
Haton knows what it’s like to win back-to-back titles, doing so at the 2016 and 2017 Dunhill Links tournaments for his first European Tour triumphs.
Haton said it was “surreal” to be the topranked player in this year’s field, but added, “it doesn’t really play any relevance in how the tournament’s going to go.”
Haton, 29, hopes to build momentum for next month’s Masters, the only major tournament where he hasn’t managed a top-10 finish.
KANG HAS ONE EYE ON OLYMPICS: World number five Danielle Kang was dreaming of being an Olympian since childhood, long before becoming an LPGA player, so she’s keeping an eye on plans for the Tokyo Games.
Kang will be among the favorites at this week’s Drive On Championship at Golden Ocala in central Florida, which last hosted a tour event in 2016 when South Korean Jang Ha-na won the Coates Championship.
Third-ranked American Nelly Korda, who won last week’s Gainbridge LPGA, and top-ranked Ko Jin-young of South Korea, are also in the 120-player field and figure to be Olympic rivals of Kang in Tokyo on August 4-7.
That’s only five months away, but it has already been a dream delayed for Kang ater COVID-19 caused a one-year Olympics postponement.
“I even cried last year when it got delayed and I don’t cry very oten on those things,” Kang said on Wednesday.
“I automatically cried when the qualifying extended, because should’ve been cut off in June but then extended to whenever we restarted until this year.
“I actually cried for one minute and I stopped and I said, ‘OK, we’re going to be OK, just keep playing good golf. It’ll take care of everything.’ That’s how much I wanted to go.”