Thai teenage sensation Atthaya Thitikul will chase her maiden major title at the Evian Championship which tees off today in France.
Seven other Thais are also in the field at the Evian Resort Golf Club this week -- Patty Tavatanakit, Ariya Jutanugarn, Moriya Jutanugarn, Jasmine Suwannapura, Pajaree Anannarukarn, Wichanee Meechai and Pornanong Phatlum.
LPGA Tour rookie Atthaya, 19, is the highest-ranked Thai at No.5.
She won her breakthrough LPGA title at the JTBC Classic in March and finished fourth at the Women's PGA Championship last month.
Nicknamed "Jeen," the Ratchaburi native has played 14 LPGA events this year with seven top-10 finishes.
Atthaya was fifth at the Evian Championship last year.
"For Thitikul, a rookie this year, the future may arrive sooner than she thinks," the New York Times reported.
"Only 19 years old, Thitikul of Thailand is now ranked No.5 in the world. At the KPMG [Women's PGA Championship], she finished fourth, just two shots behind [champion] Chun [In-Gee]."
World No.17 Patty, the 2021 Chevron Championship winner, will try to bounce back from her recent slump.
Patty has played 11 tournaments this season with two T4 finishes. However, she has missed the cut in three successive events, including the US Women's Open and the Women's PGA.
Former world No.1 Ariya also has had an unconvincing season, missing the cut four times in 14 tournaments including last week's Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational team event.
The two-time major winner has played seven times at the Evian with her best result being fifth place in 2019.
The race for the Evian Championship title is wide-open with several pre-tournament favourites.
The year's first three major winners are Jennifer Kupcho (Chevron Championship), Minjee Lee (US Women's Open), and Chun In-Gee (Women's PGA Championship).
World No.2 Lee, the defending Evian champion, seems to be a factor in just about every major these days.
That was the case again at the Women's PGA Championship last month, where she had a chance to nab her third major title in under a year.
The 26-year-old star finished tied second with Lexi Thompson, one shot behind Chun.
In last year's Evian Championship, Lee outduelled Lee6 Jeong-Eun on the first play-off hole to capture her first major.
The Australian fired a 64 in the final round, rallying from seven shots back to take the title.
Without a win before this year, American Kupcho has now won three LPGA titles.
She claimed her breakthrough LPGA victory at the Chevron Championship in April.
Last month, Kupcho prevailed in a three-way play-off with Nelly Korda and Leona Maguire in the Meijer LPGA Classic.
Last week, Kupcho teamed with Lizette Salas to capture the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational.
Former world No.1 and reigning Olympic champion Korda has had a year that she would surely like to forget.
In January, she got Covid-19, which kept her on the sidelines for a while during the off-season.
Then, in March, she had surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm.
The 23-year-old American did not return to the LPGA Tour until the US Women's Open last month where she finished in a tie for eighth.
New Zealand's Lydia Ko, another former world No.1, had a disappointing showing at the KPMG, where she recorded rounds of 76 and 79 on the weekend to finish in a tie for 46th.
But beyond that, Ko has been playing well this season.
Ko, who won the Gainbridge LPGA in January, is still only 25 years old and has already won two major championships including the 2015 Evian.
In 12 starts this year, the Women's PGA Championship was the only event in which the New Zealander ended up placing lower than 25th.