Spanish flavour at the top

THIS week, 60 of the best professional women's golfers, in addition to three sponsor invites, are competing on the challenging Serapong course at Sentosa Golf Club in their attempt to win the 2015 HSBC Women's Champions trophy.

Defending champion Paula Creamer is here to play in the no-cut 72-hole strokeplay US$1.4 million event, which is dubbed "Asia's Major", in addition to 19 of the world's top 20 players on this week's Rolex Rankings. These include world No 1 Lydia Ko from New Zealand, Americans Stacy Lewis (3) and Michelle Wie (6), as well as South Koreans Hyo Joo Kim (7), So Yeon Ryu (8) and Amy Yang (10) who won the Honda LPGA Thailand in Pattaya last week.

The first two days have provided plenty of excitement which included a hole-in-one on Thursday for world No 11 Lexi Thompson, her fifth in total and second in competition. Former world No 1 Yani Tseng of Taiwan and current world No 2 Inbee Park of South Korea shot a six-under par 66 to lead the first round, with 2012 HSBC Women's Champions winner Angela Stanford in third place.