Preamble
When the LPGA awarded the Evian Championship major status back in 2013, the tournament was moved from July to September. Cue rain and wind affecting proceedings, to such an extent that organisers shifted it back to July. Well, guess what. Yep. No prizes.
Le Tour hasn’t been the only big sporting event in France to be seriously affected by the weather this week. The blistering heat of the first two days was fine: only Lexi Thompson got hot under the collar, missing the cut then speaking of her annoyance at watching good drives taking hard bounces off cooked fairways and into trouble. But since then, storms have been an issue, with the field sent out yesterday in threesomes off split tees at seven in the morning to avoid a tempest.
That worked out well, with the poor weather only arriving as the final groups finished their rounds. But there’s been more meteorological bother, with heavy overnight rain flooding fairways and tee boxes. So the players will again take to the Evian Resort course in threesomes, going off two tees, but this time the play’s been pushed back a couple of hours. The leading pack will be teeing off between 12pm and 1pm BST. But while Le Tour is all over bar the shouting, as the peloton ceremonially trundles into Paris, the 25th edition of the Evian is still very much up in the air, as the 54-hole leaderboard shows:
-15: Kim Hyo-joo
-14: Park Sung-hyun
-11: Ko Jin-young, Inbee Park
-10: Shanshan Feng, Lee Mi-hyang
-9: Caroline Hedwall
-8: Ariya Jutanugarn, Megan Khang, Chella Choi
Plenty of major-winning experience there. The leader Kim Hyo-joo won the 2014 edition of this tournament, shooting 61 along the way. Park Sung-hyun is the world number one, winner of the 2017 US Open and the 2018 PGA, and nearly snatched this year’s PGA from under the nose of Hannah Green. Inbee Park just needs this title to complete the current five-major set. Ko Jin-young, she of a swing so graceful she makes Freddie Couples look like Jim Furyk, won this year’s ANA. Shanshan Feng won the 2012 PGA. And Ariya Jutanugarn has both US and British Opens on her resume. In conclusion: it’s on! A bit later than anticipated, perhaps, but on.
Updated