🏌️ Our Top Picks For Mexico Open

Good Morning. The Mexico Open tees off today at Vidanta Vallarta with the defending champion Tony Finau teeing off at 9.03 am ET.

Here’s a list of our top picks for the tournament.

Trivia: Who was the first player to win the Masters with a long putter? Answer at the end of the email.

⛳ This day in history: On this date in 1960, Arnold Palmer’s breakout year as major star, he finished tied for fifth at the Tucson Open after shooting rounds of 65-74-69-68—276, good for $872.86.

ALBATROSS
Chien Leads, Vu Off To A Disastrous Start

The LPGA Tour is back after a month-long break with an action-packed opening day at the Honda LPGA tournament in Thailand.

🏌️ Chien Leads: Peiyun Chien shot an 8-under 64 on to take a two-stroke lead after the first round ahead of 12-time LPGA Tour winner Kim Sei-young.

🤯 Vu's Disastrous Start: World No 1 and defending champion has got off to a poor start, shooting a 73 and is placed T-60 after Day 1.

⚠️ Stars Struggle In Pattaya: Top-ranked players like Celine Boutier (WR 3), Ruoning Yin (WR 4), Jin Young Ko (WR 6) struggled big time and are all placed outside the top 10. World No 8 Charley Hull is tied for the last spot in the field.

🔝 Local Players Dominate: Thai golfers had a field day on their home turf during the first round. Two of them are placed T-3 while three of them are tied for the eleventh spot.

Honda LPGA Thailand Round 1 Leaderboard 

Click here to watch Round 1 highlights. 

TWEET
Worth Mentioning

EAGLE
Tiger Brings Down PGA Viewership

You can't keep Tiger away from the limelight and this time he is accompanied by his son, Charlie.

Tiger's Withdrawal Impacts PGA Tour Viewership

📺 The final round of last week's Genesis Invitational attracted 3.2 million viewers on CBS - down by 5% from 2023.

📉 Tiger Woods participated in the final round of the 2023 edition while he missed both Day 3 and 4 due to illness this time around.

Charlie Woods To Play PGA Tour Pre-Qualifier

⛳️ Charlie Woods has confirmed his participation in a pre-qualifier for the Cognizant Classic at the Palm Beaches - he will play the pre-q held at Lost Lake Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Florida.

1⃣ This is set to be Charlies's first pre-q for a PGA Tour event but he's not the only amateur in the field.

✅ The top 25 finishers and ties at each of the four pre-q sites will advance to the Monday qualifier at the Tesoro Club’s Palmer Course in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

LOCKER ROOM
What else is making news

Masters 2024: LIV Golf's Joaquin Niemann has received a special invite to play at the Masters this year alongside Thorbjorn Olesen and Ryo Hisatsune. All three golfers have accepted the offer.

Cognizant Classic: Top-ranked golfers Rory McIlroy, Matt Fitzpatrick and Tom Kim have confirmed their participation at the Cognizant Classic. It will be held at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens from February 29 to March 3.

PGA Tour: The PGA Tour and Deckorators have announced a multi-year Official Marketing Partnership that designates the brand as the Official Decking and Railing partner of the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions.

G4D Tour: The Golf for the Disabled Tour is set to host an event at a PGA Tour tournament for the first time. The G4D event will be played in conjunction with the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in Texas on 29 and 30 April.

The Olympic Dream: Tony Finau has revealed his "big goal" of representing the US at the 2024 Paris Olympics as he prepares to tee off at the Mexico Open later today.

BIRDIE
Rolex Women's World Golf Rankings - 10 Things To Know

The Women's Golf Rankings debuted less than 20 years ago on Feb. 21, 2006 - here are 10 interesting things you should know.

🥇 Who was the first World No 1? Annika Sorenstam topped the first edition of the Rolex Rankings and remained there for 60 weeks.

📈 Who has been No 1 the longest? Jin Young Ko holds the record for the longest time at No. 1 with 163 weeks over the course of five different stretches.

🔝 Who is the youngest to reach No 1? Lydia Ko became the youngest player to reach No. 1 at 17 years, 9 months, 9 days on Feb. 2, 2015.

👑 Which country has the most weeks at No 1? Five South Korean players have spent a whopping 333 weeks on top of the world (Jiyai Shin, Inbee Park, So Yeon Ryu, Sung Hyun Park and Jin Young Ko).

Four US players (Cristie Kerr, Stacy Lewis, Nelly Korda and Lilia Vu) have been No. 1 a total of 91 weeks.

📌 Who spent the shortest total time at No 1? Atthaya Thitikul spent two weeks as World No 1 before Nelly Korda knocked her off.

Read the full article.

DRIVING RANGE
Fix Your Slices and Hooks

In today's video, former LPGA pro Carolin Pinneger shares insights and simple drills on how to fix slices and hooks in your golf swing

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