ANA Inspiration: Free golf betting preview and tips for ladies' major championship

Recommended bets

1pt e.w. In Gee Chun at 50/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)

1pt e.w. Anna Nordqvist at 50/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5)

1pt e.w. Stacy Lewis at 66/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5)

1pt e.w. Mi Hyang Lee at 100/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5)

There is a shadow hanging over this week’s second major of the 2020 LPGA campaign, the ANA Inspiration. Readers of a certain vintage may recall the popular BBC children’s programme Rentaghost which featured a Dutch character called Miss Popov who disappeared whenever she sneezed. In this year’s unlikely, and widely panned, LPGA remake it wasn’t hay fever which prompted Germany’s Miss (Sophia) Popov to complete a vanishing act, but instead merely victory at the first major of the season. Short of the PGA Tour losing its marbles and commissioning a Sherlock reboot that actually casts JB Holmes and Bubba Watson as the heroes, it’s hard to imagine a scenario which might leave an organisation with more egg on its face.

Popov, you will recall, thrilled the golfing world by winning in highly unlikely fashion at Royal Troon, a story which drew more eyeballs than normal for the women’s game courtesy of the strange summer we've been enduring. It then emerged that because she lacked a full LPGA card she would not gain a five-year exemption and that because this tournament should have taken place much earlier in the year the field is set in stone. To complete an introduction of astonishingly mixed metaphors, I shall remind you that last year’s Women’s Open was claimed by a Japanese player known as ‘The Smiling Cinderella’. What we never anticipated was a panto-style sequel in which the LPGA commissioner, an otherwise sensible fellow, played the role of stepmother and said: “Cinders, you won’t go to the ball.”

But what of those who will be playing this week? They return to the Dinah Shore Course at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California, a track that has hosted the tournament since 1972, becoming a major in 1983. It’s a resort course commonly defended by lush rough. Players who win there tend to have provided a hint of their competence in previous years (13 of the last 15 winners already owned a top-25 finish in the tournament) and more specifically in negotiating their passage from tee to green (the last eight winners had previously ranked top 15 for Greens in Regulation, seven of them top ten).

In the week of their success, however, and also in the weeks prior to their win, they also displayed a decent short game. An added obstacle this week will be the heat with temperatures forecast to top 100 degrees and maybe touch as high as 115. Caddies, for example, have already been cleared to use buggies.

Of the leaders in the betting, there are doubts. Inbee Park was part of the staking plan, and indeed collected a place payout, in the Women’s Open, but her odds were double what’s on offer this week. Danielle Kang’s price reflects her back-to-back post-lockdown wins rather than the T32-T49 she’s recorded in her last two starts (when she didn’t hit many greens and didn’t save par too often afterwards). Minjee Lee remains consistent and has finished tied third here, but that is one of only four top-tens in majors she’s earned in 30 starts and three of those were in the UK – not stats to make you confident of backing an 11/1 shot.

Last year’s winner and the world number one Jin Young Ko does not play this week, remaining at home in Korea. Her compatriot Sei Young Kim does tee it up and was close to selection, but she’s yet to win a major or impress with her long game at Mission Hills so the price puts me off. Nelly Korda likewise misses out because one top-40 (and that T13th) in five course starts is unpersuasive set against another sub-20/1 price.

First pick, therefore, takes us to 26-year-old Korean IN GEE CHUN who was a prolific winner on her home tour and in Japan prior to winning the 2015 US Open in just her seventh LPGA start. The following season she nearly added a second major win at this tournament and then did so in the Evian Championship. The next two seasons saw her rattle up eight top-three finishes without adding to her win tally and in the middle months of 2018, unbeknown to many, she was struggling with the dark side of her fans' obsessive micro-analysis of her game and life.

Frankly I would have been more or less unaware of this but for the decision to venture to Korea after the 2018 Ryder Cup, where I watched her win the International Crown and HanaBank Championship in successive weeks. A quiet and diffident determination to overcome her problems was striking and yet I was not entirely surprised that further wins failed to follow – the experience had undoubtedly been tough on her.

This summer there has been a sense that her spirits are recovered. Indeed, she’s collected seventh in both the Scottish and Women’s Open whilst appearing contented and carefree on Instagram, and now could be the time to catch her at a decent price. That runner-up finish on the course in 2016 has also been backed up by a pair of top-30s, all earned with solid enough G.I.R. numbers, and she’s scrambled well there, too. Those elements of her game were in good order in Scotland and the tee-to-green strength also thrived when she was T21st last time out.

At the Women’s Open it appeared that STACY LEWIS was suffering from the mental and emotional fatigue of winning the Scottish Open that preceded it, but she’s had time back at home with her young family and should be reset for this week’s challenge on a course she knows well. In fact, she’s completed finishes of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 at Mission Hills and has never missed a cut in 12 starts. Moreover, during her 2011 win she dealt with temperatures in the high 90s.

Her tee-to-green game has been strong in the post-lockdown period – the missed cut at Troon excepted – and her scrambling joined the party in her last start at Pinnacle CC two weeks ago. The books don’t seem greatly impressed by the recent win, but I’m happy to side with both that and her course form.

In last year’s renewal of this event Korea’s MI HYANG LEE chased the winner hard, putting up a valiant fight to claim solo second. It was a week in which she found something on the greens to ally with a long-term fondness for the tee-to-green challenge. In fact, in three of her five previous appearances she had ranked top-three for Greens in Regulation.

The 27-year-old has solid pedigree, with two wins on the LPGA, and an impressive victory in the 2014 New Zealand Open when she successfully hunted down the then-dominant Lydia Ko on her home soil with a final round of 63. This year she landed tied sixth in the Australian Open before lockdown and then after it had to engage in a rust-removal operation at the home of the sport, missing the cut in the Scottish Open and nearly doing so in the Women’s Open. But she ended that week with a 68 and then added a trio of 67s for T11th at the NW Arkansas Championship two weeks ago. Proven in hitting greens on the course, her scrambling has been decent in recent weeks and we’ve already established that’s a key combination.

Sweden’s ANNA NORDQVIST dropped hints that she was finding form when playing on the links last month. She was T13th at halfway in the Scottish Open before landing T22nd, then fourth after round one of the Women’s Open before finishing T32nd. When she opened 64-62 at Pinnacle she was leading the NW Arkansas Championship and she did little wrong in the final lap, carding 69 only to be passed by Austin Ernst’s 63.

Now she returns to a course where she has always played four rounds, nine times finished T26th or better, five of those times T11th or higher, with a best of fourth in 2015. Six times she’s ranked top-eight for finding the greens and she’s also led the scrambling stats there. All aspects of her game were in fine fettle during that near-miss two weeks ago, adding a hot putter to her more common skills as she seeks to land a third major championship victory, and she completes the staking plan.

Posted at 1950 BST on 07/09/20

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