Diksha Dagar
Muirfield, Scotland, Aug 3: Aditi Ashok will be in the second group early in the morning as she tees off at her 23rd Major at the 2022 AIG Women’s Open, which once again sees an enhanced prize purse.
Later in the afternoon wave, Diksha Dagar, the only Indian other than Aditi to have won on the Ladies European Tour will tee at the event. Both Indians came through the qualifiers in North Berwick.
Dagar was T-4 while Aditi picked one of the last places in a six-way playoff for three places. Aditi has played the most Majors, men or women, among all Indian golfers.
The R&A announced that the total prize fund for the AIG Women’s Open, played from 4-7 August 2022 at Muirfield, will be USD7.3 million, a 26% increase on 2021. The winner will receive USD1.095 million.
Aditi will play Angela Stanford and Whitney Hillier and tee off at 6.41 am while Dagar tees off in the company of American Lauren Coughlin and Peiyun Chien of Taipei.
The prize fund for the Championship has grown by 125% since 2018, the year before AIG’s partnership with The R&A commenced.
Martin Slumbers, Chief Executive of The R&A, said: “Last year we took a very bold step to substantially increase the prize fund of the AIG Women’s Open. This year at the AIG Women’s Open, the players will be competing for $7.3 million, which is an increase of 26% on last year and also sees the total investment into the prize fund increase by just over $4million or 125% since The R&A and AIG began our partnership in 2019.”
The event this year is historic as the famed Scottish course is staging the Women’s Open for the first time. This is the final Major of 2022. Muirfield started admitting women members only from 2017.
Swede Anna Nordqvist is the defending champion and due to play with Filipino Asian Games champion Yuka Saso and Thailand’s Patty Tavatanakit – both past major winners.
Other top names include Japan’s Ayaka Furue, who won last week’s Scottish Open at Dundonald Links to earn a maiden Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Tour victory. Australia’s Hannah Green and South Korea’s Lee Jeong-eun – often stylised as Lee6 – are Furue’s playing partners. Both won majors in 2019.
The world’s three highest-ranked players have been grouped together with Olympic champion Nelly Korda, world number one Ko Jin-young and Minjee Lee – who won the US Open earlier in 2022. Australian Lee has two LPGA Tour wins this season, including that second triumph in a major, and South Korea’s Ko has one.
American Korda is still waiting for her first win of a season undermined by missing time because of a blood clot in her arm.
Canada’s Brooke Henderson is in great form with two tournament wins in the last two months, including victory a Major, the Evian Championship in France.
