This week, the TLPGA Tour celebrates the sixth Taiwan Mobile Ladies Open. All five former champions returned to make for an exciting line-up.

Last year’s winner Hsu Wei-Ling (徐薇凌) told the press that “she is entering the game with the odds on her side because she has the freshest winning memories,” with a smirk on her face, as well as an intriguing gaze towards her friend and fellow former champion Lee Min (李旻), whose victory dates back to 2018.

But apparently, Lee has a different idea. “You girls better watch out, I am going to ‘copy and paste’ my winning performance from 2018,” Lee said, during today’s pre-time.

Hsu, who lifted her first LPGA Tour victory on her seventh season in 2021, feels she is on a more “positive balance” in 2022 compared to the breakthrough year, and is looking forward to what 2023 brings for her.

Also an LPGA Tour campaigner, Lee recorded 20 starts in 2022, a season that left a lot to desire and pushed Lee back down into the LPGA Q-Series event two week ago. Fortunately for her, after a lengthy eight-round battle, Lee still became one of the four Taiwanese players to have qualified to be on the prestigious women’s golf circuit, alongside Hsu, Chien Pei-Yun (錢珮芸), and Hou Yu-Sang (侯羽桑), for the 2023 season.

First player from Taiwan to ever hold a Korea LPGA Tour title, Chen Yu-Ju (陳宇茹) hasn’t had the best couple of years, which were struck by the aftermath of the covid.

The brightness comes after the gloom after all. “Now basically all restrictions have been lifted in Korea. We players are not even required to get tests before each tournament anymore, so everything finally feels normal again, and that invisible burden finally feels off the shoulder,” said Chen, who made four cuts in six outings on the KLPGA’s second-tier “Dream Tour” this year and earned her membership in 2023 through successful qualifying attempts.

In order to get back full-time onto the first-tier KLPGA Tour, Chen has been working actively with a new Korean coach, and is scheduled for an intensive training session in Thailand in late January next year. “I’m also watching a lot of Youtube and Korea dramas to hopefully improve my language skill,” Chen said.

For the second consecutive year, the tee-off ceremony welcomed honor guest C.T. Pan (潘政琮), who has won the first and only Olympic medal for Taiwan in Tokyo 2020 and one PGA Tour title at the 2019 RBC Heritage. “I wish all the ladies the best, it’s anybody’s game, but if I were to choose who’s going to win, my hopes are on Hsu Wei-Ling and Lee Min,” said Pan, picking his Team Taiwan teammates in Tokyo 2020 to have the last laugh.

“Just to get my revenge,” Pan added. “Because they had me all soaked in a ‘water celebration’ before me stepping onto the podium in Tokyo, which should have been one of the best moments of my life. I hope one of them will win on Friday so they can get miserably wet!”