Stars dress up for HSBC Women’s event

Dressing for golf took on a new dimension as Michelle Wie donned a Korean hanbok and Paula Creamer a Japanese kimono for a photo-shoot ahead of this week’s HSBC Women’s Champions at Tanah Merah, Singapore.

In the event, the players’ appearance could not have served as more of a show-stopper had they notched a hole in one apiece.

“It feels great,” said Wie, who had been helped into her costume by Jiyai Shin, Korea’s top player of the moment and last year’s World No. 1.  Wie doubted whether she would be able to play golf in the prettily flowing garb but gamely suggested that she could give it a try. 

It was a suggestion to have one of her rivals making cheerful reference to how, if she did, she would be reined in to the point where she would hit the ball no further than the rest of them.

Creamer, before she walked down the catwalk, thanked Japan’s Ai Miyazoto who had helped with the finishing touches to her outfit and said that she felt honoured to be sharing in her culture.

The morning was designed to capture the matching attributes of HSBC and the LPGA Tour. “As we travel,” said Mike Whan, the LPGA’s commissioner, “we use HSBC as our role model. They are sponsors and business partners who can think big and act locally.”

Whan, who speaks at a pace to suggest that golf is a game played on the run, went on to say that whenever he is asked about golf being in the 2016 Olympics, he points to how the LPGA are putting on Olympics every week. This week, as he said, as many as 29 different nationalities will be teeing up at Tanah Merah.

Apart from Wie, Creamer, Shin and Miyazato, the function was attended by Yani Tseng, the current World No 1 and a winner of four tournaments in a row so far this year. When Tseng was asked what she had worked on over the winter break, she did not reveal some intricate golfing secret. Instead, she announced that she had been working on her English, having taken lessons every morning for a month.

All of the players, with particular reference to Miyazato, believe that the women’s game of the moment is all the more exciting for the fact that as many as four players have held the No 1 spot in the last 12 months. “We haven’t had a situation like this in a long time,” said Miyazato,  who won five times last year.

“When Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa were at the top of their form, each had the No 1 slot to herself for a long time. What’s happening now helps to make things more interesting.”
 
All five players were asked what they felt would represent the biggest challenge over the week.

Four opted for managing the heat and remembering to drink enough water. Creamer agreed with the above but only up to a point.

Given where she is in the world, she felt that her “biggest challenge” would be one of “Not shopping”.