This week’s tournament at the Shadow Creek course in Las Vegas in the USA is the only major match competition on the ladies’ LPGA tour.
Madelene Sagström, ranked 29th in the world, was placed in the first round against 24-year-old Albane Valenzuela from Switzerland, number 130 in the world rankings.
It was an even match where they played equal on nine of the 18 holes. Before the last hole, both had won four holes each, all with a kind of margin and everything would be decided on the very last stroke. Sagström got a birdie, while Valenzuela went on par – thus the Swede took home the hole and won the match.
The next battle for Sagström will be against 99-ranked Hsu Wei-Ling from Taiwan on Thursday morning, local time.
The competition is organized in a group game format, where the 64 players are divided into 16 groups with four players in each. Everyone meets everyone within the groups and only the group winners advance to this weekend’s playoff round.
The other Swede who should have participated, Anna Nordqvist, has become ill and was forced to cancel on Wednesday.
“I was tested negative for covid, but because I felt several of the symptoms, I took the safe before the unsafe and decided that it would be right to withdraw,” the 34-year-old and the three-time major winner writes on Instagram.