LPGA Tour ANA Inspirational Thursday tee times/leaderboard https://www.lpga.com/tournaments/ana-inspiration/leaderboard
The last LPGA major the #AIG Women's Open several weeks ago was the sports story of this COVID summer, played for 3 rounds in a cold howling gale on the fabled links at Royal Troon on Scotland's west coast, and won in fairy tale fashion by upstart Sophia Popov.
This week, the next major will be on a west coast, there the similarity ends.
Rancho Mirage and the Mission Hills CC is in the California desert, nothing like a links course and flirting with temperatures that topped 50*c in nearby Death Valley. The players may be offered carts, caddies push carts as fires raging out of control from Washington State down the US west coast are adding to record temperatures, and turning skies in San Francisco and surrounding areas eerie orange with smoke and ash.
Still it and Dinah Shore Tournament course are a rich part of the LPGA Tour's history, it's like their Masters according to Dame Laura Davies.
The women have a forecast for the week full of hot sunshine, little if any breeze and those record setting hot temperatures. Doing anything outdoors in 100*f is not advisable, so we'll see how these women from wildly disparate backgrounds will cope as officials closely watch the Air Quality Index.
Brooke Henderson is from Smiths Falls in NE Ontario, and Alena Sharp is from Hamilton, hardly desert like climates, and they are both in the field, both finished T17 at -2 last year.
Brooke and and 2014 champion Lexi Thompson are off the 10th tee at 8.27am so will get around before the worst heat of the day on Thursday, but Alena is off the 1st right at 12.33pm with American Tiffany Joh.
Jin Young Ko from South Korea is the defending champion 69 71 68 70 -10.
Remember PST time is 3 hours behind EST.
Bryan Angus
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