Symetra Tour event at Circling Raven draws near

WORLEY — Women professional golfers from around the globe will soon tee it up in the Circling Raven Championship Aug. 27-29 at Circling Raven Golf Club, including the current No. 1 player in the Symetra Tour’s season-long pursuit for 2022 LPGA Tour membership.

Two golfers with Idaho ties and a high school amateur who earned an exemption through winning a national junior championship are also in the field.

The inaugural event is scheduled for Aug. 23-29, the first in a three-year partnership with the Symetra Tour, the official qualifying tour of the LPGA Tour, the top women’s professional golf tour worldwide.

It will feature a field of 132 competitors battling for $200,000 in prize money, one of the highest purses on the Symetra Tour this year.

Spectator tickets can be purchased at cdacasino.com or by visiting the Circling Raven Golf Shop. Single-day passes are $5 and $20 for the whole week, which includes practice and pro-am rounds.

Two-day and three-day passes are also available. The competitive rounds will take place Friday-Sunday, Aug. 27-29, with earlier days dedicated to practice rounds, pro-ams, and more.

Lilia Vu from Fountain Valley, Calif., headlines the field for the tournament that will be played on Circling Raven, a Gene Bates design that is the No. 1 ranked public course in golf-rich Idaho. She is currently at the top of the money list on the Symetra Tour.

Named “Race for the Card,” the 10 players with the highest cumulative money won by season’s end earn their LPGA Tour membership for 2022.

Vu helped lead Team USA to victory at the 2018 Curtis Cup, was a member of the 2018 Arnold Palmer Cup and USA World Amateur teams, and as a UCLA Bruin, was a first-team All-American and All-Pac 12 performer. She has won twice on the Symetra Tour this season, as has Ruixin Liu from China and Casey Danielson from Wisconsin, both of whom join Vu in the Circling Raven Championship field.

Symetra Tour “graduates” to the LPGA Tour include Nelly Korda, Inbee Park, Patty Tavatanakit, Lorena Ochoa and Madelene Sagstrom. Fourteen graduates competed in the recently completed Summer Olympics in Japan.

One player participating in the Circling Raven Championship with an Idaho connection is Gabby Lemieux, a native of Caldwell. A Native American from the Shoshone-Paiute tribe, Lemieux has a connection with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, which owns and operates the casino resort and golf club. She played college golf at Texas Tech and is a three-time Idaho Golf Association women’s amateur champion.

Sophie Hausmann will also compete in the CRC. A native of Germany who played college golf at University of Idaho, she was a two-time Big Sky Conference Player of the Year. Hausmann has won on the Symetra Tour this season.

High-schooler Allyn Stephens from Houston, Texas — daughter of Joe Stephens, a former player for the Houston Rockets of the NBA — earned an exemption into the tournament by winning the girls 14-18 age group title in the NB3 National Junior Golf Championship last fall.

Spearheaded by Notah Begay III, a Native American, erstwhile PGA Tour member, and current broadcaster for NBC Universal and The Golf Channel, the partnership between Begay and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe aligns well with their missions.

“We’re honored to have these women play in the Circling Raven Championship,” said Laura Penney, CEO of the Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort Hotel. “Like Notah Begay, we support empowering women and girls through the game. Doing so was one of the objectives the Coeur d’Alene Tribe set when it decided to build Circling Raven Golf Club.”

For more details about this year’s tournament, contact Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort Hotel and Circling Raven at 800-523-2464 or visit www.cdacasino.com.

The Symetra Tour enters its 41st competitive season in 2021. Since Symetra’s inaugural sponsorship year in 2012, the Symetra Tour has grown from 16 tournaments and $1.7 million in prize money to $4 million in prize money awarded over the course of nearly two dozen events. With more than 600 alumnae moving on to the LPGA, former Symetra Tour players have won more than 400 LPGA titles.

Follow the Symetra Tour on the web at www.SymetraTour.com, Facebook.com/Road2LPGA, Twitter.com/Road2LPGA, and YouTube.com/Road2LPGA.