Matthew Defends Ochoa Title

2012 Ladies Irish Open winner, Catriona Matthew, looks to defend her title for her 5th career victory following a powerful performance at last year’s event where she won by four-strokes over Anna Nordqvist and I.K. Kim. 

The 18-year veteran enters the week after adding her fifth straight top-10 finish to her résumé this season at the Sunrise LPGA Championship presented by Audi.

The second to last event of the 2012 season kicks off this week in Mexico at the Guadalajara Country Club where tournament host and 27-time winner on the LPGA Tour Lorena Ochoa makes her first appearance since 2010. 

The fifth annual Lorena Ochoa Invitational presented by Banamex and Jalisco highlights a star-studded field of 36 players vying for a $150,000 first-place prize from its $1 million purse. 

The field also consists of six of the top-10 players in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings including No. 1 Yani Tseng, No. 2 Stacy Lewis and No. 4 Inbee Park.

Lewis is coming off her fifth-career LPGA victory at the Mizuno Classic where she came from a seven-stroke deficit to defeat second-round leader and JLPGA member Bo-Mee Lee. Lewis strengthened her lead in the Rolex Player of the Year race to 214 points giving her a 58 point lead over Park, who leads the 2012 Official Money list with more than $2.1 million.

Tseng also had strong performances throughout the Asia swing with back-to-back third place finishes in Korea and Taiwan, finishing with a fourth-place finish in Japan.

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Mixed Opening Day at Q School

A total of 304 players – 193 qualifiers and 111 exemptions – began the Second Qualifying Stage of The European Tour Qualifying School at four venues across Spain on Wednesday. 

At least 17 players from each of those courses – Campo de Golf El Saler in Valencia, Las Colinas Golf & Country Club in Alicante, El Valle Golf Resort in Murcia and Lumine Golf & Beach Club in Tarragona – will earn a the place at Final Stage at the end of November.

In the mix are 16 Irish hopefuls all chasing a place over the next week which Mark Staunton, Niall Kearney, Jonathan Caldwell, Peter O'Keeffe, Tim Rice, Brenda McCarroll, Mark Murphy, Chris Devlin, Simon Thornton, Gareth Shaw, Ruairdhri McGee, Barrie Trainor, Noel Fox and Cian Curley.

David Higgins has been on of the stronger starters at El Saler on day one, after a round of 71, with other end of the leader board showing difficult rounds ahead for Alan Dunbar at Lumine, carding a 75, and Barrie Traunor  

The exact number of spots available to the six-round final at the PGA Catalunya Resort in just over a fortnight will not be determined until the conclusion of the UBS Hong Kong and South African Opens (both of which finish on Sunday, November 18), but it is all to play for amongst the 304 hopefuls who all share the same dream of securing a place in The 2013 Race to Dubai.

England’s Jamie Abbot and Welshman Liam Bond made the best starts to the first round with the pair hitting the front at Lumine Golf & Beach Club with a pair of seven under par 64s.

Germany’s Florian Fritsch sits atop the leaderboard at Las Colinas alongside the Dutch duo of Taco Remkes and Tim Sluiter after the trio fired matching scores of four under 67.

The leading score at the remaining two Second Qualifying Stage venues was three under, with American Chan Kim posting a leading 69 at El Saler while four players – England’s Chris Gane and Sean Whiffin, the Swede Jacob Glennemo and German amateur Max Roehrig – posted opening 68s to move to three under at El Valle.

FIRST ROUND SCORES FROM EL SALER

FIRST ROUND SCORES FROM LAS COLINAS

FIRST ROUND SCORES FROM EL VALLE

FIRST ROUND SCORES FROM LUMINE