The world’s No. 1-ranked woman’s golfer has barely played half the tournaments as her leading rivals have, but don’t worry about Korean Inbee Park heading into Thursday’s start of the 64th KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.

Park has played in only nine tournaments this season, and that was by design. At 29 she’s learned that her body is more vulnerable to injury than it was from 2013 to 2015 when she won this – the second-oldest tournament in women’s golf — three years in a row. Sweden’s Annika Sorenstam, retired since 2008, is the only other player to win three in a row, pulling off the feat from 2003-05.

With 19 career wins on the LPGA tour, including seven major titles, Park was unquestionably the dominant player in women’s golf during her three-year hot streak.

But that was then, and this is now.

“I learned an expensive lesson the last couple years. I just can’t play every week now,’’ said Park during a break in Wednesday’s last day of pre-tournament preparation for the 156 starters. “A couple of injuries the last couple of years got me worried and more cautious of what I can play. Scheduling-wise I didn’t want to push myself so hard.’’

Her tournaments leading in to the third of the LPGA’s five annual majors may only number nine, but they’ve been a good nine. She’s yet to miss a cut and has five top-10 finishes which include a win at the Bank of Hope Founders Cup and a runner-up at the ANA Inspiration — one of the other majors.

Park will be in the featured group on Thursday, teeing off with No. 2-ranked Ariya Jutanugarn, the U.S. Women’s Open champion from Thailand, and defending champion Danielle Kang, who became the first American winner in the tourney in seven years when she triumphed last year at Olympia Fields.

“I’m really happy to play with them,’’ said Park. “They both have good momentum going into this week, and momentum is always a good thing to have in a group.’’

Park and Jutanugarn are among only three players who have top 10 finishes in both of the two majors contested so far this year. In addition to her runner-up finish in the Inspiration Park was ninth in the U.S. Open. Jutanugarn, who tied for fourth in the Inspiration, is the only player to win twice in the LPGA’s first 16 tournaments of 2018.

The only other player to crack the top 10 in the year’s first two majors was England’s Charley Hull, who tied for sixth in the Inspiration and tied for 10th in the Open.

Park, Jutanugarn and Kang will go off Kemper’s No. 1 hole at 8:10 a.m., and tee times will run though 2:40 p.m. so it’ll be a long day of challenging golf. All the players have shown respect for the 39-year old Kemper Lakes course that hosted the late Payne Stewart’s victory in the men’s PGA Championship of 1989.

“It’s a true major championship golf course setting,’’ said Park. “Even par all week is going to be a very good score. I really love this golf course.’’

Park fears that this week’s heavy rains will soften the Kildeer layout and give an advantage to longer hitters like Jutanugarn, but that isn’t really her major concern. Park’s Las Vegas home was burglarized last week. That’s been a bigger worry than the golf tournament.

“I’ve been really stressing about that the last four days,’’ said Park. “Talking to the police, it’s so hard trying to figure out what’s lost when you’re not there — but this is the life we get on the road. A lot of our things are in Korea, so we have to figure that out a little more.’’

Returning to competition at least provides a respite from that problem.

This year’s field is again the strongest and deepest in women’s golf. For the third straight year it includes all of the top 100 money-winners on the LPGA tour this season. It also includes 29 winners of major championships, and those 29 have combined to claim 62 such titles.

Besides Park three of the other starters have won this tournament multiple times – Laura Davies (1994 and 1996), Juli Inkster (1999 and 2000) and Yani Tseng (2008, 2011).

The tourney was known as the LPGA Championship from 1955 until 2016, when KPMG took over sponsorship duties and the PGA of America replaced the LPGA as tournament organizer. Prize money is up to $3,650,000 and Sunday’s champion will pocket $547,500.

How time flies. In 2011 Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn won the U.S. Junior Girls tournament at Olympia Fields. Now she’s one of the very best players in women’s golf with a No. 2 world ranking, winner of nine LPGA tournaments the champion in two majors including this year’s U.S. Women’s Open.

Olympia wasn’t so kind to Jutanugarn in last year’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, however. After finishing third in the tourney in 2016 she missed the cut at the south suburban private club and her prospects in this week’s staging of the tournament at Kemper Lakes in Kildeer are precarious at best.

On Monday she played the back nine – her first look at the course that hosted the men’s PGA Championship in 1989 – and on Tuesday her afternoon pro-am round was delayed by heavy morning rains.

Her first comparison of the two Chicago area courses hosting the event in consecutive years suggests a tough week is ahead.

“I didn’t play much golf in this tournament last year – only two rounds,’’ she said. “Both the courses are pretty hard, but this one is even harder. The fairways are really tight. The rough is really thick and the greens are very, very big and really slow. Actually, everything is pretty hard.’’

Already she’s decided that the driver won’t be in her game plan for the start of tournament play on Thursday.

“No chance,’’ she said. “I can’t hit it here. I’m just going to keep hitting 2-iron and 3-wood.’’

She quickly came to appreciate The Gauntlet, the name the Kemper membership recently gave to the last three holes. Nos. 16, 17 and 18 are considered the toughest finishing stretch in all of Chicago golf and Jutanugarn won’t argue with that.

“Every hole is pretty tough, and the last three are really, really tough,’’ she said. “It’s going to be a really great finish because of that.’’

Here and there

Arlington Heights resident Doug Ghim, the collegiate player-of-the-year at the University of Texas, played his first event as a professional with a new caddie. Lance Bennett was on Ghim’s bag at last week’s Travelers Championship in Hartford, Ct., and will carry for him again this week in the Quicken Loans National in the Washington D.C., area. Bennett had previously carried for Matt Kuchar, Bill Haas and Daniel Berger on the PGA Tour while Ghim used his father Jeff as his caddie when he played as an amateur.

The Illinois PGA had not one but two near-misses in last week’s PGA Professionals Championship in Oregon. The top 20 in the field earned berths in August’s PGA Championship at Bellerive in St. Louis. Brian Carroll, head professional at Royal Hawk in St. Charles, and Dakun Chang, assistant pro at Twin Orchard in Long Grove, were in a nine-way tie for 16th place. Both were eliminated in a playoff for the final five spots in the field reserved for club professionals.

Weather problems severely hampered last week’s major amateur events. The 101st Western Junior at Evanston Golf Club in Skokie was reduced from 72 to 36 and Jeff Doty of Carmel, Ind., was awarded the title by virtue of being the 36-hole leader. In the 99th Chicago District Amateur the final between Illinois State teammates David Perkins of East Peoria and Trent Wallace of Joliet was reduced from 36 to 18 holes. Perkins won on the fifth extra hole.

PGA Tour player Kevin Streelman will host a day of stories, golf and fun for junior golfers at Cantigny, in Wheaton, on July 9. Pre-registration is required.

The renovation of the Players Nine at Schaumburg Golf Club has been completed and those holes will re-open on Saturday.

Kemper Lakes has a rich history for hosting men’s tournaments. With the women it’s a little different.

This week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship is by far the club’s biggest ever. The only one that comes close was 26 years ago when Kemper was still a public facility. In 1992 the U.S. Women’s Amateur was played there. It had a famous finalist, with Annika Sorenstam losing 1-up to the dominant amateur of that era, Vickie Goetze.

Consider how much women’s golf has changed since then. Kemper went fully private 15 years later. Goetze, after a winless 18-year career as an LPGA Tour player, is now the president of the LPGA Players Association and – in the most meaningful change of all – Sorenstam is retired as a player after a Hall of Fame career.

The LPGA’s most dominant player since Kathy Whitworth, the Sweden-born Sorenstam won 72 LPGA tournaments (a record 90 internationally as a professional) and over $22 million in prize money.

When Sorenstam competed at Kemper she was a promising 21-year old senior at Arizona, having won the 1991 NCAA title and making the cut in the 1992 U.S. Women’s Open.

“Other than the NCAA, that was my first really big tournament,’’ recalled Sorenstam. “She was No. 1 amateur then. I was just arriving, but I remember Kemper Lakes as a good match play course and playing there was a big deal for me – a big tournament in a big city on a big stage. I had zero expectations.’’

She handed the title to Goetze with a water ball on the 18th hole after battling back from 2-down with three holes to play to get the match back to all square

“I vividly remember that match. In the last four holes I felt that I was leaking oil, but it wasn’t so much that,’’ said Goetze (now Vickie Goetze-Ackerman). “Annika was taking the match away. It all worked out well for me in the end, and it was such a good match. At that time the U.S. Women’s Amateur matches weren’t televised. After that they were, and I felt that part of the reason was that ours had been such a good one.’’

Sorenstam fared better when she returned to Chicago as a professional. She won back-to-back titles in the Kellogg-Keebler Classic, an LPGA tour event played at Stonebridge Country Club in Aurora in 2002 and 2003. The first of those wins was by an 11-stroke margin.

No player dominated women’s golf the way Sorenstam did. She triggered a power shift to on the circuit after American players had dominated for four decades. Now only one American (No. 9 Jessica Korda) is among the top 10 on this year’s money list.

The first non-American superstar in women’s golf, Sorenstam was player-of-the-year eight times in 11 years from 1995 to 2005. No American has been player-of-the-year since 1993 and only Mexico’s Lorena Ochoa has approached Sorenstam’s record. Ochoa was player-of-the-year four straight times from 2006-09 as Sorenstam was winding down her career. She stepped away from the game in 2008.

The LPGA has also thrived in its numerous returns to Chicago. Australian Karrie Webb won the U.S. Women’s Open at Merit Club, in Libertyville, in 2000 and Danielle Kang took the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Olympia Fields last year. Those were the only two women’s majors played in the Chicago area since Kemper hosted the Goetze-Sorenstam duel 26 years ago.

A bigger impact for women’s golf came in 2009, when Rich Harvest Farms, in Sugar Grove, hosted the Solheim Cup matches. That emerged as a rousing battle with the U.S. team beating its European counterpart. Another team event, the fledgling UL International Crown, was also played at the Merit Club in 2016 but with far less fanfare.

While Sorenstam’s appearance at Kemper this week is doubtful, Goetze-Ackerman will be there. She retired as a player in 2009 and three years later became the president of the LPGA Players Association. It takes her to half of the LPGA tournaments in North America each year and a few others overseas.

Goetze-Ackerman has been reluctant to attend major championships, believing that players would rather concentrate on their games at those crucial times of the season rather than discuss political issues. She was, however, at Olympia Fields for last year’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and will be at Kemper Lakes as well. Pre-tournament activities start on Tuesday and the 72-hole competition on Thursday.

“I’m looking forward to coming back and looking at the golf course,’’ she said. “ At Olympia Fields I never set foot on the course, but I’ll be walking around Kemper Lakes. I will have to spend some extra days there.’’

Golf’s only major championship presently scheduled at a Chicago area course tees off next week when the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship comes to Kemper Lakes in Kildeer.

The event, one of five majors on the Ladies PGA Tour, was played at Olympia Fields last year with Danielle Kang the champion. Based on what’s been happening on the LPGA circuit the last few weeks this year’s tourney may have a different cast of leading characters when it comes to Kemper starting on June 26.

Canadian Brooke Henderson was the defending champion at Olympia, but she finished runner-up to Kang. Both pulled out of tournaments in the last two weeks for what was initially declared “personal reasons.’’

Henderson was a WD from the biggest event — U.S. Women’s Open — and it was later revealed that her grandfather had died. She was back in action as the defending champion at last week’s Meijer Classic in Grand Rapids, Mich., but wasn’t her usual sharp self, finishing in a tie for 44th place.

Kang played well in the U.S. Women’s Open, finishing fourth behind champion Ariya Jutanugarn of Thailand, but she pulled out of the Meijer Classic after playing 11 holes. No reason for that withdrawal has been given, though Kang said she’d return to the tour for the Northwest Arkansas Championship, this week’s LPGA stop, which begins its 54-hole run on Friday.

Meanwhile, Jutanugarn ‘s play tailed off after she won the most recent of the LPGA majors. She was in a tie for 56th place after three rounds of the Meijer tournament a week later but caught fire in the final round, shooting a 10-under-par 62 that included a 29 on the front nine. She finished the event in a tie for 12th.

Also showing at least some good form in the Meijer event was the best American player, Lexi Thompson. She shot 67-67 in the weekend rounds, but that wasn’t good enough to keep up with South Korean So Yeon Ryu. She posted a sizzling 21-under-par over 72 holes at Blythefield Country Club.

Last year Ryu moved to No. 1 in the Official World Golf Rankings prior to hitting her first tee shot at Olympia Fields. The rankings have changed a bit since then, however. Ryu is now No. 5 behind Korean Inbee Park, Jutanugarn, Thompson and China’s Shanshan Feng. Ryu may be ready to make a move back to the top spot at Kemper Lakes, however.

Her victory in Michigan was her sixth career win on the LPGA Tour, but her first of this season. She is the defending champion in the Northwest Arkansas Championship and – unlike virtually every other player in the field – Ryu has already paid a visit to Kemper Lakes to get ready for the next major championship.

Here and there

Japan’s Eriko Gejo was the only player under par in the Chicago qualifier for next month’s inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open. She shot a 1-under 70 at Conway Farms in Lake Forest on Monday. Conway’s only Chicago area qualifier for next month’s finals at Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton was Lake Forest’s Jamie Fischer, who shot 77 to finish third.

Norridge’s Sabrina Bonanno, a recent graduate of Arkansas-Little Rock, is the new Illinois State Women’s Amateur champion. She defeated defending champion Kelly Sterling of Mokena for the title at Rockford’s Aldeen course. Bonanno led the stroke play qualifying with a 67 and none of her matches went beyond the 15th hole.

The Chicago area has a second qualifier for next week’s U.S. Senior Open at The Broadmoor in Colorado. Gary March, a teaching professional at Mount Prospect, was co-medalist in a qualifier at the Warren course in South Bend. He joins Roy Biancalana, who survived an early elimination at Village Links of Glen Ellyn.

Maddie Szeryk won’t defend her Women’s Western Amateur title next week at Mistwood in Romeoville. She’ll compete in the British Ladies Amateur instead but her sister Ellie will be in the field at Mistwood.

The Kids Golf Foundation, based at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, has announced its large single donation to date — $1 million from the Hansberger family. The Hansbergers had guided Ram, a long-time golf equipment manufacturer.

The 57th Radix Cup at Oak Park Country Club last week ended in a 10-8 win for the Chicago District Golf Association’s amateur team over the Illinois PGA’s best professionals, and the competition had some individual highlights. Jim Billiter, the Kemper Lakes pro, holed a 260-yard 3-wood shot for the first albatross in Radix history. Taylorville amateur Dave Ryan made a hole-in-one and Matt Murlick of Winnetka Golf Club, chipped in three times for the amateurs.

The 99th Chicago District Amateur concludes Thursday at Briarwood in Deerfield. So does the 101st Western Golf Association’s Junior Championship, which is being played at Evanston Golf Club in Skokie.

The 118th U.S. Open tees off on Thursday at New York’s Shinnecock Hills course with the usual representation of Chicago players among the 156 starters. This year it’s a little different, however, because two of local hopefuls are amateurs.

For Arlington resident Doug Ghim it’ll be his last event before turning pro. He got into his first U.S. Open the same way he got into his first Masters in April. Both spots were due to his runner-up finish in last fall’s U.S. Amateur and Ghim needed to maintain his amateur status to take advantage of the invite to Shinnecock.

Ghim did well in the Masters. He was only amateur to make the cut, finishing in a tie for 50th place and making three eagles along the way to earn some crystal souvenirs. Once his last putt drops at Shinnecock Hills Ghim will shift his focus to playing for money.

Thanks to his sterling record as an amateur – he won the Ben Hogan Award as the nation’s best collegiate player in his senior season at Texas – Ghim has already been awarded sponsor’s exemptions to three PGA Tour events – next week’s Travelers Championship in Hartford, Ct.; the Quicken Loans Invitational in Potomac, Md., the following week and the John Deere Classic in downstate Silvis next month.

Ryan Lumsden, who just completed his junior season at Northwestern, also will play in the U.S. Open as an amateur. Lumsden, from Scotland, survived the sectional qualifying tournament in Columbus, Ohio, but he has another year of collegiate eligibility remaining.

Dylan Meyer, who concluded his collegiate eligibility at Illinois, qualified for the U.S. Open with a second-place finish in the Springfield, Ohio, sectional. The U.S. Open will be Meyer’s pro debut, and he also has secured sponsor’s invites to play at Harford and Potomac.

Meyer will join his former Illini teammate, Nick Hardy, at Hartford. Hardy didn’t attempt to qualify for the U.S. Open, a championship he played twice as an amateur. He made his pro debut at last week’s Rust-Oleum Championship, a Web.com Tour stop at Ivanhoe Club, and earned $3,070 for a tie for 33rd place.

Hardy also has invites to play in Illinois’ other Web.com event – the Lincoln Land Championship at Panther Creek in Springfield – and the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic in downstate Silvis., Ill. He also was invite made the cut at TPC Deere Run in 2017 athe Chicago area. Jon Jennings, the Shinnecock course superintendent since 2012, came to New York after serving in a similar position at Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton from 2000 to 2012.

Radix Cup on tap

The Radix Cup matches between the stars of the Chicago District Golf Association and the Illinois PGA will be played for the 57th time Wednesday (TODAY) at Oak Park Country Club in River Forest.

While the CDGA’s amateur stars won last year’s competition 10-8, that team will have eight Radix Cup rookies in its 12-man lineup this time. The CDGA unit has two veterans, however. Taylorville’s Dave Ryan is making his 15th appearance and Bloomington’s Todd Mitchell his 14th.

The IPGA has a notable Radix veteran as well. Medinah teaching pro Rich Dukelow has played in the matches 12 times, counting both his time as an amateur and a professional.

There’ll be six better ball matches, the first going off at 12:45 p.m. Though the IPGA owns a commanding 35-19-2 lead in the series the teams are both 4-4 in matches played over the last eight years.

Here and there

The 85th playing of the Illinois Women’s State Amateur concludes on Thursday at Aldeen in Rockford.

Chicago’s qualifying round for the first-ever U.S. Senior Women’s Open will be played on Monday (JUNE 18) at Conway Farms in Lake Forest. Thirty-three players will battle for five berths in the championship proper July 12-15 at Chicago Golf Club.

The 101st Western Golf Association Junior Championship begins its four –day run on Monday at Evanston Golf Club in Skokie. William Mouw of Chino, Calif., is the defending champion. Past titlists include PGA Tour mainstays Ricky Fowler, Jim Furyk and Hunter Mahan.

The Golf Scene, hosted by Steve Kashul, celebrated its 25th year on Sunday in its first show of this season. It’s the longest-airing golf show in the nation.

Entries are still available for the Blackberry Oaks Amateur, June 23-24 in Bristol.