A strong line-up that includes 17 of the TLPGA Tour top 20 will be in full action in this week’s 2015 Yeangder TLPGA Open, which will kick-start tomorrow at the Tong Hwa Golf & Country Club in Taipei, Taiwan. A total of 93 players from eight countries are looking to battle through wide, rolling fairways, undulating greens, and vicious traps to vie for the ultimate champion prize check worth NT$600,000.

The NT$3 million tournament will be contested over 54-hole stroke play with an elimination to be made to cut down the field to only the top 50 and ties into the final round. Last year’s winner, Australian Tamie Durdin will return to defend her title.

The 38-year-old from Adelaide started building her resume in her homeland in 2000 and moved to compete on the Japan LPGA Tour since 2005, earning two titles along the road. The victory at the 2014 Yeangder TLPGA Open was just her first tournament on the TLPGA Tour and it gave her a third career win.

Among the local favorites to secure the title are 2014 runner-up Hsieh Yu-Ling (謝瑀玲), LPGA Symetra Tour titlist Chien Pei-Yun (錢珮芸), and the recent Chung Cheng Heritage Tour winner Chen Meng Chu (陳孟竺).

Current TLPGA No.1 and 2013 Yeangder TLPGA Open runner-up Kuo Ai Chen (郭艾榛) will also join the title quest following a T9 finish last week in the LET (Ladies European Tour) and China LPGA Tour co-sanctioned Buick Championship in Shanghai, which has a total purse of US$600,000. Kuo’s last victory was at the Taifong Golf Club in January in the TLPGA Taifong Ladies Open.

Another player hopeful of mounting a strong performance is TLPGA No.2 Lin Tzu-Chi (林子麒), whose four consecutive rounds under par last week in Shanghai gave her a T11 finish. No.6 Babe Liu (劉依貞), and No.7 Yeh Hsin-Ning (葉欣寧) both could be looming to snatch the final victory.

Yeang Der Group initiated its first invitational women’s event in 2012, and starting in 2013, the first edition of the Yeangder TLPGA Open was held, where eventually Phoebe Yao (姚宣榆) of Taiwan was crowned. Durdin, in 2014, outlasted the 2012 invitational edition winner, Hsieh Yu-Ling and Chien Pei-Yun not until the last hole to take the crown.

This year, the TLPGA Tour is officially recognized as part of the World Women’s Golf Rankings system to give TLPGA members the valuable chance to earn world ranking points on the Taiwan-based Tour.

The venue of the2015 Yeangder TLPGA Open, the Tong Hwa Golf & Country Club, is 6,410 yards long and set to test the TLPGA golfers on and around the greens. Large water and sand hazards will be spotted around the broad, up-and-down layout that will certainly add to the entertainment effect for the spectators.