Photograph courtesy of Tristan Jones Photography/LET

The 2018 Ricoh Women’s British Open gets underway tomorrow at Royal Lytham St Anne’s Golf Club just outside of Blackpool, and Australian star Minjee Lee will be hoping she can breakthrough to claim her first major championship in what is her fourth season on the LPGA Tour.
Lee has had a superb 2018 season to date with two victories to her credit coming at the Victorian Open in February and the LPGA Volvik Championship in May, however her form in the major championships has been disappointing this year with finishes of 25th, 34th and 25th in the three majors played so far.

The 21-year-old West Australian will head into the fourth Women’s Major Championship of 2018  full of confidence after coming so close to taking down world number 1 Ariya Jutaragarn at the Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Scottish Open at Gullane Golf Club last week. After a titantic final round battle with Jutanagarn, Lee in the end came up just a shot short to finish in solo second place, her final round 66 was one of the best of the day in the testing windy and wet conditions.

Lee’s best finish in her four Women’s British Open appearances to date came three years ago in her rookie season when she finished in a tie for 9th place at Turnberry.

Of the other Australians in the field this week Karrie Webb surely cannot be counted out and will be hoping that she can build on her solid performance last week in Scotland where she finished in a tie for 11th place. Webb boasts three Women’s British Open titles to her credit and is regarded by many experts as the best links player in women’s history.
The 43-year old Queenslander is playing a somewhat limited schedule in 2018 having only played in seven events so far, however many have noticed a determined looking Webb prowling the Lytham fairways this week and it would seem that if Webb is going to contend in another major championship this event would provide her best opportunity.

The eight-strong Australian contingent is rounded out by Victorian Su Oh, who has been in some career-best form in recent months, Queensland’s Katherine Kirk who came so close to winning this title back in 2010 at Royal Birkdale GC, her Queensland compatriot Sarah Jane Smith who spent much of the US Women’s Open in contention before going on to finish in a tie for 5th place, West Australian Hannah Green and New South Welshwomen Sarah Kemp and Rebecca Artis.

Australian tee-times (local - GMT)
6:41 Hannah Green, Katie Burnett, Tiffany Joh
7:03 Karrie Webb, Ashleigh Simon, Aditi Ashok
8:58 Su Oh, Astrid de Pradenne, Tonje Daffinrud
12:05 Minjee Lee, Catriona Matthew, Yani Tseng
13:49 Sarah kemp, Silvia Banon, Tersa Lu
14:00 Rebecca Artis, Hyo Joo Kim, Jane Park
14:22 Katherine Kirk, Ludovica Farina (a), Lee-Anne Pace
15:06 Sarah Jane Smith, Jennifer Song, Pannarat Thanapolboonyaras

Watch all the action live on FoxSports Channel 505 from Thursday 2^nd August at 8:00 pm AEST.

Follow the live scoring at https://ricohwomensbritishopen.com/

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