Evian was the first trendy water to hit the world stage.
You’d love to have a dollar for every person who has downed a bottle of Evian.
You’d be able to buy the Evian Golf Club, the magnificent, scenic setting for this week’s final major of the LPGA season and another battle for Player Of The Year between defending champion Lydia Ko and her nearest rival — Ariya Jutanugarn.
If you’re into majestic scenery, you can get up early and catch the sights of the course that sits at the foot of the French Alps and overlook Lake Geneva. Switzerland is on the other side.
Sorry we got distracted by the magnificent setting, what’s happening is a great two-woman race for Player Of The Year.
First there’s defending champion Ko, who shot an amazing 16-under par at The Evian last year to win her first major.
This season, Ko has racked up four wins and bagged her second major at the ANA Inspiration.
She’s still a win short of Jutanugarn, who has five wins this year, an incredible break-out year if there ever was one. She nabbed her first major at the Women’s British.
So what you have are the world’s No. 1 — Ko and the world’s No. 2 — Jutanugarn, neck-and-neck down the stretch.
Jutanugarn announced her intentions this week: “I want to be Player Of The Year,” she said, matter-of-factly.
Surprisingly, Jutanugarn got off to a poor start in the first round in the land of incredible mineral water. There was too much water on the course from overnight rain and despite the fact that they played lift-clean-and-cheat as Ken Venturi used to call it, Jutanugarn finished her day at 73, two-over par.
She will look back and see that it all came undone when she made a triple-bogey seven at the 18th hole, her ninth of the day. Other than that, she was one-under on the other 17-holes. She’s still bothered by her left knee, the one that knocked her out of the Olympic competition during the third round.
Ko, on the other hand, went out and basically did what she does best — she out-steadies everyone. No mistakes, fairways and greens, no great length off the tee, silky putting touch. During the opening round, she found herself stuck in par-neutral — too many pars.
While co-leaders In Gee Chun and Sung Hyun Park managed to make 16 birdies between them, Ko came up with only two and found herself at one-under par, seven back of the leaders.
Making up seven, eight or even nine shots over three rounds these days is no big deal for Ko and Jutanugarn. They are that good.
The one thing they and the rest of the field will battle over the weekend is weather that isn’t going to be very good.
Cool, windy and rainy doesn’t make it easy at the foot of the Alps and those wonderful springs that run underground can make for fairways that could be more mushy than normal.
Still, the fight for the Player of the Year goes on.
Last major of the season, last chance for Ko or Jutanugarn to make a big statement.
