The BMW Ladies Championship, the only LPGA Tour event in South Korea, will be played from 22 to 25 October 2026 at Pine Beach Golf Links near Gwangju. Defending champion Sei Young Kim faces three other top-ten players in a 68-strong field. The all-electric BMW i7 and BMW iX3 are the prizes for the first holes-in-one on two par-threes.
Pine Beach hosts again
BMW Group Korea organises the event, which BMW calls the sixth edition. For a second year running it will be played at Pine Beach Golf Links in the south-west of the country, near Gwangju. The layout combines two courses. The front nine comes from the Pine Course and the back nine from the Beach Course, and many holes run right along the coast.
Golf is very popular in South Korea, and many Korean players rank among the best in the world. That makes this stop one of the most closely watched on the women’s tour.
A strong field led by the defending champion
Sei Young Kim (KOR), currently world number nine, won last year and is back to defend her title. To repeat, she will have to get past three other players from the world top ten: Haeran Ryu (KOR, No. 3), Hyo Joo Kim (KOR, No. 4) and Lottie Woad (ENG, No. 7). Australia’s Minjee Lee (No. 16), who won the tournament in 2023, is also in the field.
“Winning the BMW Ladies Championship in my homeland was a wonderful feeling, and one that I hope to repeat. I will do my best, although competition at this event is unbelievably strong. That speaks volumes of the quality of the BMW Ladies Championship, which boasts one of the highest quality fields on the LPGA outside the USA. Whatever happens, I am really looking forward to my home tournament, the South Korean fans, and a week that is truly extraordinary, thanks to BMW.” – Sei Young Kim
The 68 players include 15 golfers from the Korean LPGA. There is no cut, so every player gets all four rounds.
Germany’s only player in the field is 27-year-old Esther Henseleit, an Olympic silver medallist and Solheim Cup winner. She said: “I always very much look forward to playing at the BMW Ladies Championship. The organisation, set-up and quality of the tournament are excellent, as we have become accustomed to at BMW golf events for decades. Unfortunately, that is not always the case for us ladies, which makes us appreciate this tournament all the more.”
Two electric cars for a hole-in-one
With no cut, every player has up to eight chances at one of the two Hole-in-One Awards. The first player to make an ace on the 13th hole wins a BMW i7. The first hole-in-one on the 15th wins a BMW iX3, the first model in BMW’s Neue Klasse line-up.
Four players have won a car this way so far. American Kristen Gillman made the first ace of her professional career at the first event in 2019 and won a BMW 740Li xDrive. In 2022, two awards went on the same day: Na Yeon Choi of South Korea won a BMW X7 xDrive40i and Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn won a BMW 740i. Last year, Lucy Li of the USA won a BMW i7 eDrive50 in the opening round.
A tournament that moves around the country
The first two editions, in 2019 and two years later, were held at LPGA International Busan in the south-east. The event moved to Oak Valley Country Club in the north in 2022. Seowon Valley Country Club, about an hour’s drive from Seoul, hosted it in 2023 and 2024, before the move to Pine Beach. The organisers say changing venues lets them bring the world’s top players to fans in different parts of the country.
Part of BMW’s wider golf programme
BMW has backed professional and amateur golf for almost four decades and is title partner of events on four continents. These include the BMW International Open in Munich (since 1989), the BMW PGA Championship in the UK (supported since 2005), the BMW Australian PGA Championship and the BMW Championship in the USA (title partner since 2007). The BMW Golf Cup, run since 1987, is an international series for amateur players with more than 800 qualifying tournaments worldwide.
The 2026 BMW Ladies Championship runs from 22 to 25 October at Pine Beach Golf Links.
Source: www.press.bmwgroup.com