Major winner Danielle Kang is hoping a break from “suffocating” life on the LPGA Tour to play this week’s Aramco Team Series event in South Korea can breathe new life into her season.
The American is among the big names teeing it up at the $1m tournament in Seoul, along with England’s Charley Hull and Bronte Law, and home favourite Hyo-Joo Kim.
It marks the Ladies European Tour’s first foray into South Korea, a modern-day golfing hotbed with more players in the top 50 of the women’s Rolex Rankings than any other country.
Kang won the 2017 Women’s PGA Championship and is a former world No2 but has slipped to 71st and admits she has fallen out of love with life on the US circuit.
“It’s been a very long time of me playing on that tour, and where I work it’s been very suffocating lately. To come to a different tour was one of my main reasons to come out,” she said.
“I haven’t been wanting to compete or to play. It’s been a very unpleasant environment for me to be working in for a while, and working really hard to be able to compete in that.”
Kang has missed three cuts from seven appearances this year but her drought goes back to January 2022, when she won her sixth LPGA Tour title.
The closest the 31-year-old has come to victory since then was at another Aramco Team Series tournament, in Singapore last year, where she finished second to Pauline Roussin.
“I’m doing the best I can, but selfishly I came out here and wanted to come out because I really do like the Aramco Team Series,” she added.
Danielle Kang was second when the Aramco Team Series visited Singapore last year
“I love the team vibe but I’m hoping that this will be a turning point in my career where I’m not just playing on the LPGA, but becoming that competitive golfer that I wanted to become again.
“I think I’m going to be able to ride the momentum from this Aramco Team Series in Seoul and that’s kind of the reason why I really wanted to compete.”
Seoul is the second of five legs in this year’s Aramco Team Series, the Saudi-backed string of big-money events on the LET which routinely draws talent from both major tours.
Germany’s Alexandra Forsterling won in Tampa in March, when Hull was second for the third time in her last four appearances in the series. The Englishwoman also won in New York in 2021.