South Korea welcomes the elite of women’s golf: All reigning major champions to tee off at the BMW Ladies Championship.

+++ World-class field for the BMW Ladies Championship (19th to 22nd October 2023, Seowon Valley Country Club, KOR) +++ Nelly Korda (USA) set to make her first appearance +++ BMW provides two fully electric hole-in-one cars +++

Seoul/Munich. When the 2023 BMW Ladies Championship tees off on Thursday, it marks the start of the deciding stage of this season’s Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Tour, which culminates with the CME Group Tour Championship in Florida (USA) at the end of November.

New Zealander Lydia Ko, who was born in South Korea, is the defending champion at the tournament, which takes place at the Seowon Valley Country Club for the first time. The former world number one triumphed last year at Oak Valley Country Club after an excellent final round of 65. The 26-year-old now tees off just a few kilometres from her birthplace of Seoul as she strives to defend her title. However, Ko will be up against some outstanding opposition. The field for the 2023 BMW Ladies Championship could hardly be stronger.

Eight of the top ten players in the “Race to the CME Globe” – the LPGA ranking list – will go head to head. In Lilia Vu (USA), Yin Rouning (CHN), Allisen Corpuz (USA) and Celine Boutier (FRA), the winners of all four majors in 2023 are also represented. The field also includes no fewer than eight of the twelve players that won the prestigious Solheim Cup for Europe in Malaga, Spain, at the end of September.

Nelly Korda from the USA will also tee off at the BMW Ladies Championship for the first time. The 25-year-old daughter of former world-class tennis player Petr Korda won the gold medal at the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021 and will now enhance the high-class field in the metropolitan region of Seoul.

As in 2022, there will be no cut at this year’s BMW Ladies Championship. That means that all 78 players will receive prize money and thus pick up points towards the “Race to the CME Globe”. These points are particularly important in the final phase of the year, as the players strive to secure one of the 60 places at the season finale and put themselves in the best possible position to come out on top at the end of the season. Boutier currently tops the ranking list. The best German is Esther Henseleit in 41^st place.

Korda, Henseleit and co. are not only playing for a share of the 2.2 million US dollars in prize money at the only LPGA tournament in South Korea. Like last year, two hole-in-one cars await the pros. Should a player ace the 14^th hole, they will receive a BMW i5 for their efforts. Meanwhile, a BMW i7 awaits the first player to hit a hole-in-one on the 16^th. History was made last year when both hole-in-one awards were won on the same day in round three. That was a first in the long history of the BMW Group’s involvement in international golf.

The BMW Ladies Championship premiered in 2019 at LPGA International Busan, which also hosted the second tournament two years later, before the golfers teed off at Oak Valley Country Club last year. This time around, Seowon Valley Country Club in the metropolitan region of Seoul (KOR) – roughly an hour’s drive from the capital – is the venue for the BMW Ladies Championship for the first time.

With this in mind, renowned golf course architect David Dale has given the layout of the West and South Course an overhaul, with the goal being to make them more dynamic, challenging and tactical. This included the installation of 86 new bunkers.