Kia Classic Begins at La Costa

The $1.7 million begins today on the South Course at , marking the return of the LPGA Tour to the San Diego area after a year's absence.

The tournament was played last year at the Industry Hills Golf Club at Pacific Palms in Industry because of a $50 million renovation project at La Costa.

The 144-player field includes nine of the top 10 players in the Rolex Women's World Golf Rankings, led by Yani Tseng of Taiwan, the winner of two of the LPGA's four tournaments this year, including the RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup, which concluded Sunday in Phoenix, and five of her last 11 tournaments. It also includes this year's two other LPGA Tour winners, 19-year-old Jessica Korda and Angela Stanford, fellow Americans Michelle Wie and Paula Creamer, and four players with ties to San Diego County -- graduate Leta Lindley, Tiffany Joh, an alumna of Rancho Bernardo High School, Carlsbad resident Jennifer Johnson and Rancho Santa Fe resident I.K. Kim, 11th on the world rankings.

The winner will receive $255,000. Tseng said she has been looking forward to the tournament. "Lots of Chinese people live here and lots of Chinese and Taiwanese are coming out to support us," she said. "I think it's going to be a fun week." Tseng called the course "very different" from what it previously was. "The back nine was much longer," said Tseng, who finished 57th in the tournament in 2010, the only previous time it was played at La Costa.

Lexi Thompson, who last year became the youngest player to win an LPGA Tour event when she won the LPGA Navistar Classic at 16 years, 8 months and 8 days, said the course is "in amazing shape for us." She added, "The greens are pretty small, rough is pretty deep, so you just have to keep it straight and place the ball on the green.''

The tournament comes one week before the LPGA Tour's first major of the year, the Kraft Nabisco Championship, which is played in Rancho Mirage. "This week is all about trying to prepare yourself as good as possible so you can go into next week with lots of energy and kind of stress free," said Suzann Pettersen of Norway, third in the world rankings.

–City News Service