At Liberty National, the LPGA Has a New Event With a View and Elite Juniors Get a Front-Row Seat
Jersey City, N.J. — Katie Li, a New Jersey native and high school senior, summed it up best: “How do you even come up with this?”
The 18-year-old speaks from Liberty National Golf Course, where she’ll compete alongside top LPGA stars and 23 other American Junior Golf Association players in the unique Mizuho Americas Open—Michelle Wie West’s new event—this coming June.
“I was talking to one of my friends at our last tournament and we were just talking about how cool it is, this whole event,” Li continues. “This is definitely one of the top events on my schedule this summer.”
The inaugural tournament marks the first time that the LPGA will be playing the iconic Jersey City, N.J., venue. The scenic Tom Kite design has hosted the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs and the 2017 Presidents Cup.
The breathtaking views of New York City’s skyline and Liberty National’s history are impressive on their own, but the excitement surrounding Wie West’s first event as a tournament host lies in the event’s distinct format.
“I was really fortunate that I got to play in a lot of LPGA events when I was really young and it shaped the course of my career moving forward,” Wie West told Sports Illustrated at the Mizuho Americas Open media day. “I played in a lot of Pro-Ams, but it’s so different playing with the pros in a Pro-Am versus a tournament round. These girls are going to have so much fun and really see the pros be nervous and really grind and be really serious on the golf course, and they’re going to learn a lot.”
During the Thursday and Friday rounds of the tournament, the LPGA and AJGA players will play in separate groups, but on Saturday and Sunday—when things matter the most—the two cohorts will be paired together.
Li and her peers will have a front-row seat to the high-stakes competitive environment they may very well face in the near future, and a true one-of-a-kind opportunity.
“I really liked what Michelle said during the press conference about seeing pros hit hero shots, but also seeing them make mistakes,” Li says. “I think mistakes are what everybody learns the most from, and we as juniors look up to the pros as perfect individuals, and they’re not. You can’t compare yourself to perfection and I really want to see how they approach everything—the ups and the downs.”
If Wie West had the chance to play in such an event, she would have loved to play alongside Lorena Ochoa or Karrie Webb. Li is eyeing Brooke Henderson or Lydia Ko.
“I remember just going onto the range and looking to my left and looking to my right. There was one idol, there’s another,” Wie West said, recounting her days as a teenager playing on the LPGA. “That’s the greatest part about this. They’re going to spend all week with them. Not just one day, not just two days, but literally the entire week. They’re going to be in the tournament.”
World No. 1 Nelly Korda, Lydia Ko and eight of the top 10 players in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings will play in the star-studded event.
And Mizuho Americas is taking good care of those stars: The title sponsor rented out the Conrad Hotel in Manhattan and will provide complimentary ferry transportation for the players all week. Such details represent the support that the LPGA has been looking for, and makes the anticipation surrounding the event all the more real.
“Mizuho has set the tone for this event to be a game-changer for how LPGA players should be taken care of,” said Caila Roberts, the tournament director at Excel Sports Management.