World No.35 Lee Jung-Min of South Korea stormed to her eighth career title with a one stroke victory over compatriots Lee Seung-Hyun, Kim Bo-Kyung and Ji Han Sol in the World Ladies Championship at Mission Hills Resort Dongguan in China.

Despite dropping two strokes in the last three holes, eight birdies in a final round 66 was just enough for Lee to hold on as her closest challengers all blew their chances in damp and testing conditions on the Olazabal Course.

It was a nerve biting finish as the clubhouse leader Lee dropped into a three-way share of the lead with namesake Lee and Ji at nine-under-par after making bogey on the final hole. She then watched as Lee then made the same mistake.

After Kim ended on eight under par, Ji needed to birdie the difficult par-4 18th to tie. Although she hit an excellent approach shot that just edged the hole, she pushed her birdie putt of 12 feet wide of the hole, meaning that Lee could take home the individual title and USD 105,000 in prize money.

There was double cause for celebration as Lee also won the concurrent team competition with partner Ko Jin-Young. An aggregate score of 12-under-par put the South Korean pair 15 strokes ahead of the French duo Gwladys Nocera and Céline Herbin, with Chinese Taipei duo Lin Tzi-Chi and Kuo Ai-Chen five strokes further behind in third.

This was the first edition of the World Ladies Championship to be sanctioned by the Korean LPGA Tour as well as the Ladies European Tour and China LPGA and resulted in nine KLPGA players in the top 12 places in total.
Other notable performances came from the Australians Stacey Keating and Sarah Kemp, Noora Tamminen of Finland and Céline Herbin of France, who were part of a large group sharing 19th.

The World Ladies Championship continues its long-standing partnership with the world’s leading renowned global services brand, American Express.

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After four years at Mission Hills Haikou, this is the first time that the World Ladies Championship will be played on the acclaimed Olazabal Course, a three-time venue for the World Cup of Golf, at Mission Hills Dongguan.

As well as a new venue, an upsized field of 126 competitors and the tri-sanctioning of the tournament, a further development is a 33 per cent increase in total prize money to US $800,000. With US $700,000 for the individual strokeplay tournament alone, the winner will earn US $105,000.
The World Ladies Championship continues its long-standing partnership with the world’s leading renowned global services brand, American Express.

Dongguan, China—:China’s Lin Xiyu says that this week’s World Ladies Championship at Mission Hills Resort Dongguan will be the ideal warm up for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro where she will be targeting individual and national glory.
Although only individual medals will be awarded when golf returns to the Games this summer for the first time since 1904, the World Ladies Championship’s innovative format includes a team competition based on the combined scores of two players from the same country.
Lin said: “This tournament is kind of similar to the Olympics because we are playing for ourselves but also as part of a team and I’m here with Pan Yan-Hong. We were part of the same Province team before, when we played on the National team, so we know each other. We are a team but we are playing our own games.