Korean A Lim Kim won her second LPGA Tour title with 270 (66 69 67 68, -18) shots in the LOTTE Championship presented by Hoakalei, played on the Hoakalei Country Club course (par 72) in Ewa Beach, on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. With a final round of 68 (-4, six birdies, two bogeys) she left Russian Nataliya Guseva (272, -16) two shots behind and Auston Kim (273, -15) three.
Kim, results
In fourth place with 274 (-14) the Japanese Nasa Hataoka, in fifth with 275 (-13) Ryann O’Toole and the other Japanese Yuri Yoshida, in seventh with 276 (-12) the Korean Jin Young Ko, former world leader, and in eighth with 277 (-11) Lindy Duncan. Roberta Liti (146 – 73 73, +2) and Benedetta Moresco (152 – 78 74, +8) exited at the cut, falling to 144 (par).
Lim Kim, 29, had not won in four years, that is, since 2020 when she had won a Major (U.S. Womens Open) for a palmarès that also includes three successes on the LPGA of Korea Tour. She embellished her performance with a “hole in one” in the third round by hitting the 9th hole (par 3, 140 yards) directly from the tee with a 9-iron. For the title she was rewarded with a check for 450,000 dollars on a prize pool of 3,000,000 dollars.
The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American women’s professional golf organization created in 1950. It governs the circuit called “the LPGA Tour” which is the hegemonic women’s circuit of world golf. Its headquarters are located in Daytona Beach, Florida (United States).
This circuit takes place mainly in the United States but with tournaments held on other continents. Other professional circuits exist around the world but do not have the same aura and importance as the “LPGA Tour” circuit such as the Ladies European Tour (European circuit), the LPGA of Korea Tour (South Korean circuit) and the LPGA of Japan Tour (Japanese circuit)
In 2024, the “LPGA Tour” season is organized around around thirty tournaments classified by category of importance between the five major tournaments and all other regular tournaments. At the end of a season, the players are ranked according to their cumulative earnings (“money list”) and several titles are awarded, the most prestigious of which is the “LPGA Player of the Year” awarded by the LPGA based on a summary of cumulative earnings and victories.