Chinese golfers get set for historic face-off

"We welcome the best players from all over the world to join us on the CLPG Tour. We hope that, in the future, more Chinese players can travel abroad and compete at the highest level of international golf."

Leading the Japanese charge is Yumi Narisawa, winner of last year's Aomori Ladies Open on the JLPGA Step Up Tour, Yukari Nishiyama, a two-time winner on the JLPGA Tour, and Hwang Ah-reum, the South Korean veteran who has won five times on the JLPGA Tour and three times on the Step Up Tour development circuit, among others.

The CLPG Tour will counter with such rising young talent as Zeng Liqi, the 18-year-old Nanchang native who won the Order of Merit in 2022 and now plays on the Epson Tour in the United States, Ji Yuai, the reigning Women's China Open champion, who topped the money list last year on the strength of four wins, and Ye Lei, the 2023 Women's China Open winner.

Others in the field include a strong group of Thai veterans and top amateurs Ren Yijia and Sophie Han of Hong Kong, China, who earlier this month finished equal 13th and 33rd, respectively, at the Women's Asia-Pacific Championship in Vietnam.

An extra incentive for the players is that the winner will earn a spot in the field for the JLPGA Hisako Higuchi Mitsubishi Electric Ladies Golf Tournament in October.

He Fengxiang, president of the China Golf Association, noted that China and Japan shared "profound bonds in sports exchanges", and that the co-sponsored tournament would serve as "a platform to explore new frontiers in grassroots exchanges "between the two nations.