The LPGA Tour heads to Scotland this week for the FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open presented by Trust Golf and the 145-player field is stacked, featuring six of the top 10 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings and all four 2023 major winners. Ayaka Furue won the 2022 edition of the event in resounding fashion, blitzing the field with a final-round, 10-under 62 to become a Rolex First-Time Winner at Dundonald Links, and fans will surely see more enthralling drama as the LPGA Tour’s best take on the challenges of links golf. Take a look at a few of the featured groups this week that will be duking it out for the FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open title.
Thursday, 7:32 a.m.* – In Gee Chun/Allisen Corpuz/Ashleigh Buhai
Three major winners will go off the 10th tee at 7:32 a.m. local time. In Gee Chun captured her last LPGA Tour title at the 2022 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and has only managed to find the top 10 once since that victory, finishing second at the 2022 AIG Women’s Open at Muirfield. The 28-year-old has been dealing with an injury this season, stepping away from competitive golf following the Hanwha LIFEPLUS International Crown for rest and rehabilitation. Her return to the LPGA Tour was a touch rocky as she missed the cut at the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give, but Chun has righted the ship, making the cut in her last four starts, three of which were major championships. The Republic of Korea native has played in the last three editions of the FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open, finishing T7 in 2020, T42 in 2021 and T11 in 2022.
Allisen Corpuz became a Rolex First-Time Winner last month at the U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links, winning by three shots over Charley Hull and Jiyai Shin. She backed up that performance with a solo second at the Dana Open, a showing that was good enough to clinch a spot on the 2023 United States Solheim Cup team and finished T54 at The Amundi Evian Championship last week. The 25-year-old played in this event as a rookie in 2022, recording a tie for 56th at Dundonald Links, and missed the cut at the AIG Women’s Open the next week, but will return to the Women’s Scottish Open with renewed confidence in her ability to play links-style golf as she continues to ride the momentum derived from her major victory.
Ashleigh Buhai captured her first LPGA Tour title at the AIG Women’s Open last year, defeating Chun in a four-hole playoff at Muirfield. This season, the South African has won the 2023 ShopRite LPGA Classic presented by Acer and has earned five additional top-10 finishes, the most notable of which is a solo third at the Cognizant Founders Cup. This week will mark her seventh start in the FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open and the 34-year-old has had a mixed bag of results in her previous six appearances, missing three cuts and recording two top-20 finishes, a T17 in 2018 and a T12 in 2021. Ahead of next week’s title defense, Buhai will definitely be looking to fine-tune her links game over the next 72 holes before heading to Walton Heath Golf Club.
Thursday, 12:31 p.m. – Charley Hull/Celine Boutier/Alison Lee
Charley Hull nearly did the impossible at the U.S. Women’s Open, firing a final-round, 6-under 66 to go from T7 on Saturday to T2 on Sunday and almost successfully chase down champion Corpuz. But that’s been the only recent highlight on Hull’s 2023 resume as she’s missed the cut in three of her last four starts, most recently at The Amundi Evian Championship where she was battling illness. The 27-year-old Englishwoman isn’t one to linger on the past though, and with her sights set on this week’s FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open, Hull will look to rekindle some form at an event in which she has played well before. In six previous starts, Hull has recorded four top-25 finishes, the best of which was a solo fifth that came in 2021. Hailing from Woburn, England, the Brit has plenty of experience with links golf and will use that local knowledge to her benefit as she looks to flip the script of her season at Dundonald Links before the year’s final major championship next week in England.
Speaking of majors, Frenchwoman Celine Boutier captured her first major title at The Amundi Evian Championship last week, winning by six shots over Brooke Henderson. Boutier is the first French native to ever win the event and became the season’s fourth two-time winner, joining Jin Young Ko, Lilia Vu and Ruoning Yin. The 29-year-old has played in the five previous editions of the FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open, recording back-to-back top-10 results in 2021 and 2022, a tie for seventh and solo second, respectively. She has also earned two top 10s in the AIG Women’s Open in recent years, coming solo sixth in 2019 and earning a tie for seventh in 2022. Boutier is a player that likes hard, windy conditions, and with plenty of momentum in tow from her win at home last week on another tough golf course, look for the now four-time LPGA Tour winner to take a page from Corpuz’s book and have another solid showing at Dundonald Links the week after winning her first major championship.
Alison Lee has had a solid 2023 season thus far, finishing inside the top 20 in five events this year, including a tie for ninth at the JM Eagle LA Championship presented by Plastpro and a tie for 20th in Evian-les-Bains. While she missed the cut in her first two showings at the FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open, Lee figured something out about links golf last year, tying for fifth at Dundonald Links in 2022, her best result of the season, and finishing T15 at the AIG Women’s Open the very next week. Though Lee hasn’t been able to capitalize on some of the hot starts she’s gotten off to in recent weeks, she’s in good form and will be playing a style of golf that she’s clearly fond of, a combination that could spell success for the UCLA alum this week in Scotland.
Thursday, 12:53 p.m. – Gemma Dryburgh/Atthaya Thitikul/Ayaka Furue
Hometown hero Gemma Dryburgh will look to mimic Boutier’s Evian performance and become the second consecutive player to win in their home country this week in Ayrshire, Scotland. Coming off her best career finish in a major championship and best result of the 2023 season last week at The Amundi Evian Championship where she finished solo eighth, the Scot will look to improve upon her last six starts in the FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open which saw her miss four cuts and earn a best result of T34 last year. Dryburgh became a Rolex First-Time Winner at the 2022 TOTO Japan Classic and has finished in the top 20 five times since, not including her eighth-place showing at the fourth major of the 2023 season.
Two-time LPGA Tour winner Atthaya Thitikul also comes to Scotland off a top-10 performance at Evian Resort Golf Club. The Thailand native finished in a tie for ninth after carding a final-round, 6-under 65 on Sunday in France, successfully getting herself back on track following back-to-back missed cuts at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and U.S. Women’s Open. The T9 is the 20-year-old’s eighth top 10 of the 2023 season, the most notable of which is a tie for fourth that came at The Chevron Championship. Thitikul had a banner year as a rookie in 2022, capturing victories at the JTBC Classic presented by Barbasol and the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship presented by P&G and ascending to No. 1 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings for the first time in her career. While 2023 has been incredibly solid for the young talent, it feels strange that she’s yet to hoist a trophy. But that all could change this week at the FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open, where Thitikul has nearly won before, finishing T2 in 2021.
Ayaka Furue’s 10-under performance in the final round of last year’s FREED GROUP Women’s Scottish Open was one that fans will never forget. The Japan native came from four shots back with a closing 62 at Dundonald Links to become a Rolex First-Time Winner last year in Ayrshire, and after playing plenty of stellar golf so far this season, it feels like the 23-year-old is more than due for another victory. Furue has recorded seven top-10 finishes, most notably finishing runner-up for the second consecutive year at the Bank of Hope LPGA Match-Play presented by MGM Rewards, carding a T8 at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and earning a T6 result at the U.S. Women’s Open. While she finished T36 last week at The Amundi Evian Championship, be looking for the defending champion at the top of the leaderboard as she works to become just the second player this year to successfully defend her title.
