Golf Babes

Congratulations to Christine Wong, winner of the DCM PGA Women's Championship of Canada. The tournament concluded today (Aug. 31, 2021) at Oshawa Golf & Curling Club in Oshawa, Ontario. It was staged by the PGA of Canada. Christine fired a 69 in the final round to finish at 5-under-par. She was the only golfer to finish the tournament under par, and won by five strokes over the runner-up. This victory comes little more than a month since a previous big win for Wong. She claimed the 2021 Glencoe Invitational, an invitation-only tournament in Calgary, Alberta, in July, earning one of her biggest tournament paydays. Wong is a very busy golfer. She is an instructor at University Golf Club in Vancouver, British Columbia, a club that is practically in the neighborhood she grew up in. She also works with KidSport BC helping underprivileged kids get involved in the game of golf. And she also manages to find time to coach the golf teams at a local junior college and, with her si

For the second year in a row, California girl Rose Zhang is the winner of the Mark McCormack Medal as the world's best amateur female golfer. The medal is given out annually to the leading golfer in the WAGR (World Amateur Golf Ranking). Zhang is the third golfer to win the medal twice, joining Lydia Ko and Leona Maguire. Zhang first won the honor in 2020. Zhang won the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship at age 17 in 2020. And although she was unable to successfully defend that championship in 2021, Zhang did win another USGA championship this year, the U.S. Girls' Junior. She is the eighth golfer to win both titles, but the first to do it by winning the Amateur first. At the time the medal announcement was made, Zhang had been No. 1 in the WAGR for 47 consecutive weeks. In 2021, Zhang made the cut in an LPGA major, the Evian Championship, and finished third in the Augusta National Women's Amateur Championship. She also had a runner-up finish in a Symetra Tour even

Hee Jeong Lim got her first win since 2019 on the Korean LPGA Tour (KLPGA) on August 22, 2021. The 21-year-old claimed the trophy at the High1 Resort Ladies Open. She carded rounds of 69, 71, 69 and 68 to finish at 11-under 277 and one stroke ahead of the runners-up. Lim entered the tournament off a tie for second place in her previous event, the KLPGA MBN Ladies Open. She was ranked No. 49 in the women's world rankings entering the High1, and has been as high as No. 27 in 2021. Hee Jeong's best finish on the LPGA Tour to date is a tie for sixth place at the 2019 BMW Ladies Championship, a tournament played in South Korea. So far, the vast majority of Lim's golf, both as an amateur and a pro, has been played in her home country. Lim turned pro in 2019 at age 19. And she had a great KLPGA rookie year. She won three times, including the KB Star Championship, a KLPGA major. She was runner-up in the rookie of the year standings, finished fourth on the KLPGA money list a

Laura Gomez Ruiz is a Spanish golfer who recently won in her home country in the final tournament of the Andalusian Professionals Circuit. The mini-tour is organized by the Royal Andalusian Golf Federation, and Gomez won on the Campo America de La Cala Resort course in Mijas, Malaga, in the tournament that concluded on August 11, 2021. Gomez played college golf at James Madison University, and she turned pro in 2018. She has a couple wins on the Santander Tour, which is one of the European circuits that feeds into the Ladies European Tour. One of those came in 2018, and she nabbed another victory in 2019 in a tournament that was co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour Access Series (LETAS). On the LETAS in 2019, Laura played 18 tournaments, had the one victory plus multiple other Top 10s. She finished in the Top 5 on the LETAS money list, which netted her membership on the Ladies European Tour. And that is where Gomez continues to play the bulk of her tournaments.

Lilia Vu was a dominant golfer in college, then struggled in her first couple years as a pro. Now, she's dominant again — and she'll be heading to the LPGA Tour again. On August 15, 2021, Vu won the Four Winds Invitational at South Bend Country Club in South Bend, Indiana, a tournament on the Symetra Tour. She carded rounds of 68-69-67, finishing at 12-under 204 and winning by two strokes. Now two months shy of her 24th birthday, it was Vu's third victory on the Symetra Tour in 2021 and her fifth consecutive Top 5 finish. She previously won the 2021 Garden City Charity Classic and 2021 Twin Bridges Championship. The $30,000 first-place check pushed her season winnings in 14 tournaments up to $140,607, more than $45,000 ahead of second-place on the Symetra Tour money list. She is guaranteed to earn her LPGA Tour card for 2022, even in the very unlikely event she slips from the No. 1 spot on the Symetra Tour money list. Vu won eight times in college at UCLA. She won

Nayeon Eum is a Korean golfer who is currently playing in Europe. And on August 14, 2021, she won in Sweden. Nayeon, who also goes by the nickname Laura, is a 27-year-old from Seoul. In addition to the Ladies European Tour Access Series (LETAS), she also has experience playing on the Japan LPGA and Japan Step-Up tours. Eum turned pro in 2013, which was three years before she graduated from university in Korea. Eum just won the Anna Nordqvist Vasteras Open, a tournament on the Nordic Golf Tour co-sanctioned by the LETAS. It was her first professional win. Eum carded rounds of 66, 70 and 72. Her winning total was 8-under-par 208. "I never thought this day will actually come," she wrote on Instagram, "but it thankfully did and I don't know how to express my feelings with the trophy in my hands." The Anna Nordqvist Vasteras Open was her second LETAS start of 2021. She finished ninth in her previous start in the GolfUppsala Open, also in Sweden, one week ea

What is even better than winning your first tournament on the Symetra Tour? Winning it by shooting 62 in the final round. That's exactly what Fernanda Lira did in the 2021 Firekeepers Casino Hotel Championship. That tournament concluded on August 8, with Lira the winner by six strokes. She carded rounds of 70, 65 and 62 to finish at 19-under 197 and earn the first-place check of $26,250. Lira's 62 was bogey-free, and she had 10 birdies, including on five of the last six holes. What a way to storm to victory! The 26-year-old is from Mexico and played college golf at the University of Central Arkansas. Her rookie year as a Symetra Tour pro was 2019. She does have a previous professional win this year, however: Lira also won the 2021 Mountain Ranch Championship on the WAPT (Women's All Pro Tour), which is a feeder into the Symetra Tour. Her previous best finish on the Symetra Tour was in the 2021 Twin Bridges Championship, a tie for 11th place. The victory in the Fir

Alison Lee claimed the individual championship in the Ladies European Tour's Aramco Team Series – Sotogrande tournament recently (the tournament concluded on August 7, 2021). And that's significant because ... well, we'll let Lee tell you. On Instagram (@thealisonlee), Alison wrote: "My first professional win!! Had such a fun week in Spain playing the beautiful @lareservasotogrande! Thank you to @aramco_series @letgolf for hosting such a world class event and for having me. I’ll remember this forever." The Aramco Team Series is, as you can probably guess, a team tournament: three professionals are joined by one high-ranking amateur, and that quartet competes against other quartets. But the LET Aramco Team Series events also crown an individual winner, and Alison Lee was that in the Sotogrande tournament. In the three-round tournament, Lee posted back-to-back 65s on the first two days. In the third round, she carded a 71 and won the individual title by five

Pajaree Anannarukarn's first LPGA victory came the hard way: Her final round included a triple bogey, and she had to go to a playoff. But it's not how that first win comes that matters, it's just getting that first win.