LPGA HanaBank Championship Fantasy Picks

With the first players off the tee at the Sky 72 Golf Club in Incheon, South Korea, the LPGA KEB HanaBank Championship is under way. Apparently sidestepping the potential for an upset posed by Michelle Wie’s return to competiton, Ladies Dream Golf players have picked Inbee Park, the new bride, to win and Na Yeon Choi, Pornanong Phatlum, and Mi Jung Hur to play near the top of the board this week.

More from Golf News

Inbee Park

Inbee Park’s a logical pick to dominate at the HanaBank Championship. She’s ranked 2nd in the world and with Stacy Lewis taking the week off, Park’s the top-ranked golfer in the field. However, she’s paired during the first and second rounds with two Americans who could challenge that dominance, Paula Creamer and Michelle Wie.

Inbee Park

If Inbee Park is the home town favorite this week, Paula Creamer is the favorite of the US troops stationed in South Korea. Creamer’s been spending her pre-tournament time visiting Camp Red Cloud, Camp Casey and Camp Bonifas, shooting off the big guns, throwing tomahawks, and playing golf with the troops on the world most dangerous golf course. She’s ready to take on Inbee Park!

Michelle Wie, playing in her first competition since she withdrew from the Evian Championship in September, is the wild card at the HanaBank Championship. If her hand has fully healed Wie could pick up where she left off two months ago and dominate the rest of the 2014 season. We’ll know more about that after watching her navigate 72 holes of golf in Incheon, but the potential is certainly there for Wie to pull out in front of Park during the first and second rounds.

Na Yeon Choi

Na Yeon Choi

Rolex Ranked 13th, Na Yeon Choi is a solid choice to challenge Inbee Park this week. Although Choi’s still hunting her first 2014 victory, she’s recorded six top-10 finishes, four of them in the last five events she’s entered.

While Choi’s game has gotten stronger as the 2014 season has progressed, she’s paired with defending champion Amy Yang and past HanaBank champion Suzann Pettersen (2007, 2012) during the first and second rounds. Although neither Yang nor Pettersen has had a particularly strong season they’re both going to mount challenges for the top of the board this week. Can Choi hold them off? This group could play a tournament within the tournament for the first 36 holes.

Pornanong Phatlum

Pornanong Phatlum

Thailand’s star golfer, Pornanong Phatlum, has been playing very strong golf and seems to have turned on the heat since the Tour’s Asian Swing opened in China. Phatlum finished T8th at the Reignwood LPGA Classic and took runner-up at the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia last week.

Phatlum, who’s Rolex ranked 26th, is paired with 5th ranked Shanshan Feng, who edged her out of the win last week in Malaysia and past HanaBank champion Yani Tseng (2011) for the first and second holes at the HanaBank. While it’s tempting to predict Feng as the dominant player in this pairing, Phatlum’s going to be teeing off hunting the win she missed last week. I’m looking for Feng and Tseng to challenge Phatlum to deliver her best game, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the diminutive golfer with the very big game claim the victory this week.

Mi Jung Hur

MJ Hur

MJ Hur, winner of the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic last month, is the best putter on the Tour, even better than Inbee Park! But is 62nd ranked Hur a viable contender for the victory? She seems to be having a late-season surge, but is there a realistic probability that she can translate that surge into a 2nd 2014 victory?

Hur’s paired with Line Vedel and Belen Mozo for the first and second rounds at the HanaBank. I’ll be watching this pairing as much to follow Vedel, a promising Tour rookie, and Mozo, who has yet to convert the winning energy she garnered at the International Crown last summer into an individual stroke play victory, as to monitor MJ Hur’s challenge to Inbee Park.

Also On My Watch List

Mo Martin is also coming back to competition after being sidelined by an injury and I’m putting the RICOH Women’s British Open winner on my radar. Could Martin deliver another winning game this week?

Brittany Lincicome, who lost the Wegman’s LPGA Championship to Inbee Park in a heartbreaking playoff, is in the HanaBank Championship field. She has the game in her bag to win, but does she have the self confidence?

Minjee Lee, the Aussie amateur who played alongside Karrie Webb on Team Australia at the International Crown and made her professional debut at the 2014 Evian Championship has her sights set on an LPGA Tour card. A win this week would let her by-pass Q School.

Home/Golf News