2023 Hanwha LIFEPLUS International Crown: How to watch, who’s playing at TPC Harding Park in global team match-play event

The Hanwha LIFEPLUS International Crown returns to the LPGA calendar this week for the first time since 2018, as eight countries gear up for team match play in this biennial competition that began in 2014. Hosted this year at venerable TPC Harding Park, located in the southwest corner of San Francisco along Lake Merced, the International Crown marks the first elite women’s competition to be held at this historic venue.

South Korea looks to defend its 2018 title and is led by current world No. 3 Jin Young Ko, while 2016 champion USA fields a strong roster boasting world No. 1 Nelly Korda and No. 7 Lexi  Thompson, one of four players in the field (along with Thailand’s Ariya and Moriya Jutanugarn and Australia’s Minjee Lee) who have played in all three previous editions of the International Crown. Spain, winners of the inaugural International Crown in 2014, did not qualify for this year’s event.

The eight countries competing at Harding Park — United States, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, England, Thailand, Australia and China — were determined based on the combined Rolex Rankings of the top four players from each country following the conclusion of the 2022 CME Group Tour Championship in November. The team seedings and individual qualifiers (32 total) were determined by the rankings as of April 3.

The 32-player field features seven of the top 10 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings — No. 1 Korda, No. 3Ko, No. 4 Lilia Vu (USA), No. 5 Atthaya Thitikul (Thailand), No. 6 Lee, No. 7 Thompson and No. 9 Hyo Joo Kim (South Korea) – and 21 players inside the top 50, including four LPGA winners in 2023 (Ko, Vu, Australia’s Hannah Green and China’s Ruoning Yin). Twenty of the 32 players are making their first event appearance.

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