Evian Championship and Espirito Santo set to tee off

KO TO DEFEND FIRST MAJOR TITLE

New Zealands Lydia Ko returns to the grounds of the Evian Resort Golf Club this week where she became the youngest major champion in LPGA history. Kos six shot triumph featured a final round 63 which she defined as "one of the top rounds of her whole entire life and will be for her career."

It was a historical moment in New Zealand sport as she joined the prestigious company of Sir Bob Charles (1963 British Open) and Michael Campbell (2005 US Open) as the only Kiwis to win a golf major.

Teeing off at 11.20pm tomorrow night (NZ time) in the fifth and final major of the season, Ko is grouped alongside the two past winners of the event in Koreas Hyo Joo Kim (2014) and Norways Suzann Pettersen (2013).

Already a four-time winner in 2016, Ko is coming off back-to-back top-10 finishes in Canada, T7 at the CP Womens Open and T5 at the Manulife LPGA Classic, following her silver medal at the Olympic Games.

The nineteen year-old has been spectacular at this championship and has not finished worse than T8 in her first three starts.

Follow scores here: http://www.lpga.com/leaderboard

ESPIRITO SANTO WORLD AMATEUR TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP

Overnight tonight the New Zealand Espirito Santo team will take on the worlds best as they look to become the first womens team to bring home a World Amateur Team Championship title.

The team consisting of Wellingtons Julianne Alvarez, Aucklands Wenyung Keh and Waikatos Chantelle Cassidy have put in the hard yards and completed their final preparations in very hot and humid conditions at the Mayakoba El Camaleon Golf Club in Cancun, Mexico.

The team will be led by Keh and Alvarez who were both part of the Washington Huskies team who won the NCAA College Championship for the first time in history earlier this year.

Cassidy joins them coming off three wins in New Zealand including two Jennian Homes Charles Tour victories and taking out the New Zealand Stroke Play Championship.

New Zealand Golfs High Performance Manager Gregg Thorpe is extremely pleased with the preparation the girls have had and is looking forward to watching their progress over the coming days.

"This group has a good mix of experience, skill and success, should they play to their potential they are certainly capable of a strong performance this week."

The World Amateur Team Championships are a biennial international amateur golf competition rotated among three geographic zones of the world: Asia-Pacific, American and European-African.

New Zealand Golf will provide a summary after each days performance along with a blog from team manager, Libby Steele.

Follow scores here: http://www.igfgolf.org/

Check out groupings here: http://www.igfgolf.org/watc/watc2016/espirito-santo-trophy-groupings/

- This story has been automatically published using a media release from Golf NZ