Jeddah (Saudi Arabia)/Prague – Czech women's golf number one Klára Davidson Spilková will start her season in Saudi Arabia on Thursday. At the Ladies European Tour (LET) tournament in Jeddah, it will be her debut with a changed name after her wedding in December and her first start since the end of November, when she finished fourteenth at the event of the highest European circuit in Malaga. The former LPGA Women's Elite Series player enters the season as a career-high No. 149 ranked golfer in the world.
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“I am very much looking forward to the new season and the first tournament. After the January preparation in the heat of South Carolina and Florida, where my coach and I worked on technique and the short game, I believe in a solid start to the year,” said Davidson Spilková in a press release .
The Czech No. 1 spent most of last season on the lower American Epson Tour, but she also completed seven LET events and in September she won the second triumph of her career at the Irish Open, which secured her a membership card for the European circuit for the next two years. She set two basic goals for this year. “To get (as the first Czech woman) into the European team for the Solheim Cup, which is being played this year (in September) in Spain, and to qualify for her third Olympic Games in Paris 2024,” she stated. She finished 48th in Rio de Janeiro 2016 and took 23rd position the year before in Tokyo.
In Jeddah, she will compete at the Royal Greens Golf & Country Club, where she played last year's penultimate tournament in November, but didn't make the cut there. “We expect temperatures around thirty degrees during the day and a strong wind from the sea, which can affect the game. The course is located right on the coast and among all the ones we play on, it is one of the longest,” said Davidson Spilková. On Tuesday, she completed the first training round. “The course is excellently prepared after last week's Asian Tour tournament. Only the greens are slower so far, but that will change for the tournament rounds,” added the top Czech professional.
In Jeddah, the four-round tournament will be played from Thursday to Sunday with a subsidy of five million dollars and Czech golf will have double representation on it. Also at the start will be Jana Melichová, who last weekend finished fifth at the previous LET event in Rabat. At the event for 120 players, England's Georgia Hall will defend last year's championship, and world number one Lydia Ko from New Zealand and number seven Lexi Thompson from the USA will also be at the start.
