I was thinking about going to this tournament when I saw it on the schedule. Kind of decided at the last minute to go today so it wasn’t going to be realistic to try to see any of the first wave of tee times. It’s too bad because there were a lot of players I would have liked to have seen play. Particularly So Yeon Ryu, who shot -6 in front of probably very few people. I drove to the Hollywood Bowl shuttle with a buddy and we got to Wilshire CC around 12:30.
Not knowing our way around the course, and with very few people around, the group of Minjee Lee, Catriona Matthew, and Amy Yang started down the 10th fairway in front of us so we decided to follow them around from 10 thru 13.
During this time the group of Lexi Thompson, Inbee Park and Anna Nordqvist was starting the afternoon off of #1. After watching Minjee’s group for a few holes we made our way back to the front 9 and caught up with Lexi’s group on the 5th tee box.
On the 6th hole we were walking ahead to around the middle of the fairway and Lexi hit her drive over our heads to the right where it avoided going into a back yard by ratting around a big tree off of the fairway and landing right in front of us. Her next shot, 200+ to the green I think, would have had to have been a low, hard, punchy, risky fade under some branches. We got to listen to a good few minutes of conversation with her caddie about her options before he eventually talked her into a very short lay up into the fairway. It was the right decision, but it frustrated her. Something about a chicken-**** layup. My favorite part of the day.
Followed them around and then walked ahead a couple of holes to sit down for a drink and a bite to eat in front of the Par 3 18th. Lunch view:
After lunch we caught back up to Lexi/Inbee/Nordqvist on 12 and basically followed them around for the rest of the day. I don’t know what to expect this weekend since this is the first year of the tournament, but we had easy access to any available tee box or green we wanted all day. It was a nice afternoon right in the middle of a fancy old school LA neighborhood.