THE sixth Annika Invitational at Mission Hills has reinforced golf legend Annika Sorenstam’s belief that it’s only a matter of time before China becomes a dominant force in women’s golf.

    Speaking during her latest visit to Mission Hills, the Swedish 10-time Major winner predicted an exciting decade ahead on the LPGA Tour for Asian females in general and Chinese in particular.

    “It takes time to build champions, but in the next 10 years you’ll see more and more success stories from China … on both the men’s and women’s Tours,” said Sorenstam.

    More than 60 players from around Asia competed in the 2016 Annika Invitational over the Sorenstam-designed Annika Course at Mission Hills Dongguan last week.

    Among them were no fewer than seven of the top-10 players from the China Golf Association’s national junior rankings.

    However, overall victory went to An Ho-yu, a talented 12-year-old from Chinese Taipei on Friday.

    An posted an accomplished closing two-under-par 70 for a tournament total of five-under-par. That was two strokes ahead of second-placed Tseng Tsai-ching, also from Chinese Taipei.

    The top three players from last week’s Annika Invitational receive coveted berths in the Annika Invitational in the United States. Meanwhile, the overall champion will be invited to play in the World Ladies Championship 2017.

    Sorenstam was impressed with the overall quality of the play — and also the way in which the invitational has grown in stature since its inception in 2011.

    She said: “I’m very happy that we’ve been here six years now. We started as the first all-girls junior tournament in China and have grown nicely. It seems like every year we get a little bit better. It takes a while to establish a tournament but I really feel we’ve come a long way.

    “The more we can do these type of things then the better the youth movement in this part of the world will be.” (SD-Agencies)