STARK AND GRANT RESUME RACE IN EVIAN

Maja Stark and Linn Grant return to the LET this week to make their debuts in The Amundi Evian Championship.

The Swedish Rookies, ranked first and second on the Race to Costa del Sol respectively, both have their eyes on the prize – namely  the $1 million USDwinner’s cheque, as the purse has increased by $2 million USD to $6.5 million USD this year – but even more importantly, a prize that cannot be bought: Major champion status.

Stark and Grant are both looking to earn their first Major victory at The Amundi Evian Championship, which would be worth 675 official points on the Race to Costa del Sol Rankings. There are only 292 points separating the pair heading into the Championship. Fellow Swede Johanna Gustavsson also has a mathematical chance of leapfrogging Stark with a win.

All three Swedes benefited from playing in the Jabra Ladies Open presented by Bitstamp at Evian Resort Golf Club in late May, on the same golf course, albeit on a different set-up.

Stark, who has won the Women’s New South Wales Open and the Amundi German Masters so far this year, said: “I’m excited about playing in a tournament again. I haven’t really thought about it as a different competition to any of the other LET events. It’s a bigger, stronger field, but I’ve played at the course before.

“I’ve had a good season and I’m always expecting the best from myself, hopefully being up there in contention and hoping that it’s enough, this week. I’m always aiming for the win. I haven’t been training a bunch at home on this week off, I just felt like I needed the time off to re-set my brain a bit. I’ve only practised when I felt like it and I think it’s been good for me.

“The shots are there and I know what to work on and what happens when I’m not hitting the ball very well. Last week was more about sustaining what I have and not practising anything new.

“The Jabra Ladies Open went well but I think the course is slightly different. It feels a bit longer than it was at the Jabra and the greens are softer now than they were then. The rough is a bit longer but for sure it’s nice to have played it before because it’s a very tricky course, both strategically and just knowing where to hit around the greens. In some places, you can end up with an almost impossible shot if you’re not careful, so it’s really good to have been here before and to have started to figure the course out and it’s nice that it was pretty recent that we played…