LPGA Tour announces return to South Korea for 4th edition of the BMW Ladies Championship

The BMW Ladies Championship begins on Thursday at Seowon Valley Country Club. It is the second of four LPGA Tour stops in Asia this fall.

This is the fourth edition of the BMW Ladies Championship as a tournament co-sanctioned by the LPGA Tour and the LPGA Tour of Korea. Three previous editions of the event have been played, but they were not part of the world's main tour schedule.

Lydia Ko won in 2022 with a score of 21-under 267. The other two LPGA Tour winners are Jin-young Ko and Ha-na Jang.

The tournament will be played on the Seowon Hills course at Seowon Valley Country Club. The course is located in Gyeonggi-do, about 12 miles from the capital city of Seoul. The course is 6,647 yards and par 72.

The characteristics of the BMW Ladies Championship are slightly different from most of the events on the circuit. The field will be limited to 72 players and there will be no cut after the second round.

Most of the world's top-ranked players will be in attendance at the BMW Ladies Championship. Eight of the top 10 and 17 of the top 20 have been announced. The field includes Lilia Vu, Ruoning Yin, Allisen Corpuz, Nelly Korda, and Jin-young Ko, among others.

The BMW Ladies Championship and the influence of Se-ri Pak

The BMW Ladies Championship is not just another effort by the LPGA Tour to globalize its product. It is an event aimed at revitalizing the development of women's golf in South Korea since the early 2000s.

There was a clear turning point in that development and that was the career of Se-Ri Pak. The winner of 25 LPGA Tour events (five majors), Pak has had a huge impact on her compatriots and the internalization of the sport.

Se-ri Pak (Image via Getty).

When Pak won the LPGA Championship and the 1998 U.S. Women's Open, the majors had been played for 68 years. In that time, women from 10 countries had won at least one edition, with the U.S. playing an overwhelming role.

By contrast, in the 25 years since Pak's first major victories, women from 19 countries have won titles at the world's major tournaments. Nineteen of them were South Koreans.

Se-Ri Pak's compatriots have won 33 of the 110 majors between 1999 and 2023 (not counting Pak's own three victories in that period). That is more than 30% of the majors that have gone to South Korea.

Extend the analysis to the rest of the LPGA Tour, and the number grows exponentially. And when you add in other Asian nations such as Thailand, China and Japan, the region is more than on par with the United States and Europe.

There are plenty of reasons to return to Asia in general and South Korea in particular every year.