The Ladies European Golf Tour (LET) stops in Naxhelet from Friday to Sunday for the first edition of the “Mithra Ladies Open”: a round of the European Tour, but also a festive and family event open to all. Free of charge!
By Thierry Wilmotte
PMore than a quarter of a century after the last women’s Belgian Open, the Naxhelet golf course (Wanze) will host from Friday to Sunday a test of the Ladies European Tour (LET), endowed with 200,000 euros. The opportunity to see 126 of the best players at work, including the British icon Laura Davies (85 successes) and her compatriot Trish Johnson (19), as well as the best European players, for a dozen between them, participating in the American Tour .
Manon De Roey at the head of a beautiful Belgian colony
Among all these players, we will highlight the presence of Manon De Roey, Belgian number 1 who has just won her first LET tournament in Bangkok in the Aramco Team Series, and was 7th last weekend at the Jabra Ladies Open in ‘Evian, as well as Laura Gonzalez Escallon, who has frequented the American Tour for many years. We’ll also be following Charlotte De Corte, Lien Willems and Ellen Smets, while four players yet to make the leap to professionalism have also benefited from wildcards: up-and-coming Savannah De Bock, as well as Sophie Bert, Elise Bishop and Louise Cuyvers. . .
“A very open competition”
“I am delighted that there is a Ladies European Tour (LET) tournament in Belgium, and I can’t wait for it to start because I am playing well at the moment, and performing in front of my crowd is too rare an opportunity to make the most of it,” she confided. the resident of Antwerp who, like the other 125 players, will discover the Naxhelet course, a family golf course created 8 years ago on the initiative of the Jolly family, and which employs around 9,000 members. “The course is very open, so much so that I would almost consider it a links course as it is swept by the winds. It will be a challenge, but I like this challenge. And as all players will discover, the competition will be very open. »
27 years after the last Belgian Open!
The last women’s Belgian Open dates back to 1995 in Cleydael. An absence that will be corrected at least during the next three years, duration of the contract that joins the “Mithra Ladies Open” to the Ladies European Tour (LET), with an economic endowment that will evolve each year: 200,000 euros this year, 225,000 the next year and 250,000 in 2024.
“Breaking the image of elitist and serious golf”
“We want to break the image of elitist golf, serious and reserved for the elderly,” explains Françoise Jolly, president of the club and headliner of this event that will host a series of high-level athletes and other speakers from the world on Friday. of the “Naxhelet Women’s Excellence Challenge Forum” dedicated to the problem of the lack of visibility of women’s sport. Other activities will be offered to visitors, starting with a series of initiations supervised by the Francophone Golf Association (AFG). “We want this tournament and everything that surrounds it to be seen above all as a celebration, and a fortiori a celebration of women’s golf, but not only”, concludes the enthusiastic Françoise Jolly, surrounded by her whole family to make this tournament a reality. . exit.
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