DIksha Dagar
Evian Les Bains, France, July 26: Aditi Ashok will extend her own record of most Majors by an Indian 26 this week as she tees up at the Amundi Evian Championships. Yet, there will be something bothering her at the back of her mind and that would she has never gone better than Tied-22 at Major.
If she does log her first Top-10 in a Major this week, it will come a week after Shubhankar Sharma did that at the men’s Open in Royal Liverpool and it will be a huge boost for Indian golf not just women’s golf.
Aditi will have company at the Diksha Dagar, who has been in great form this season. For Diksha who gets to play two Majors and two other events that are co-sanctioned with the LPGA, this could be a very important four-week stretch in her career with US $ 17.3m on the line.
Both Aditi and Diksha have won once each on the Ladies European Tour and are in the Top-5 of the Ladies European Tour (LET). Aditi won the Magical Kenya Ladies Open and Diksha took the Czech Ladies Open. While Aditi added a second and a third place on LET before focussing on the LPGA, where she came close to getting her first LPGA win as she finished in JM Eagle Los Angeles Open. She added a few Top-10s, too.
Diksha has also had her share of Top-10s on LET and rising up the World Rankings as she chases a second straight Olympic berth.
On current rankings, both Aditi and Diksha would make the Paris Olympics.
Aditi, who won her first LET title way back in 2016 at her home event, the Hero Women’s Indian Open and then added titles in Abu Dhabi, Qatar and this year in Kenya, Diksha won in South Africa in 2019 and this year in Czech Republic.
The next four weeks will see two Majors with Evian and Women’s Open besides the Scottish Open and the ISPS Handa Invitational, too and all are co-sanctioned with the LPGA.
Diksha will tee off from the 10th alongside Lauren Hartlage and Pernilla Lindberg at 7.39 am, while Aditi will play from the first with Georgia Hall and Morgane Metraux.
The Evian Championship will be celebrating 10 years as a major in 2023. Eight of the previous nine winners were ranked inside the top 20 of the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings.
Sei Young Kim and So Yeon Ryu are participating in this week’s major championship. Both rank second for most top-10 finishes without a win at the Evian Championship since 2013.
Allisen Corpuz and Xiyu Lin are the only two players who have finished in the top 15 in each of the first three majors of the year. Corpuz captured her first LPGA Tour title at the U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links and Lin will continue to search for a major title of her own as the fourth major of the year brings even more excitement to LPGA fans worldwide.
Last year’s champion Brooke Henderson is here hoping for a repeat.
