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| Karen Lunn |
By competing on the LET Access Series, Lunn – who is an eight-time tournament winner on the Ladies European Tour – is showing her support for the LET’s new feeder tour, which has been formed to give players not part of a major tour an opportunity to compete and progress on to the Ladies European Tour.
“Obviously as a tour we really want to promote the Access Series. We’re really pushing forward with it now so I think the more players that can support the events it can only help,” ” said Lunn, who won the Women’s British Open at Woburn in 1993.
Lunn is currently 11th on the LET’s 2010 Henderson Money List following six events played this season and, despite battling injury, she recorded a fourth place finish at the UniCredit Ladies German Open presented by Audi in May. She also finished second at the European Nations Cup in April, representing Australia alongside Karrie Webb.
She is keen to see the Access Series develop. “I think it’s great for young players to get to play with tour players but it’s great for us to try to help promote the events as well. The idea is to hopefully get some of the other federations throughout Europe and perhaps the rest of the world interested. If we can get one or two events in a lot of the different countries in Europe, that would be fantastic,” she said.
“It’s what we need. As a board we’ve decided that we are going to push forward with the Access Series. It’s high on our agenda and we’re going to support it as much as we can. I think that we’ll see a lot of interest over the next few years and hopefully end up something like the Challenge Tour. There’s a big difference between amateur golf and professional golf when you first turn pro. It’s all about learning and it’s a great way to learn.” Lunn is also keen to compete because she loves the region, having previously competed at the Biarritz Ladies Classic for a number of years.
She continued: “We’ve got a week off and it’s only a three day event at a beautiful golf course in a beautiful part of the world so my sister’s going to caddie for me and we’re going to make it into a little holiday and catch up with some friends. We used to have a tournament in Biarritz and I used to love going there.” Lunn is also keen to get back to her winning ways and feels confident after recent successes. “When you’re playing well you feel like you can compete in whichever event you’re playing in but obviously there are a lot of other good players playing as well so I think that it’s a pretty high quality field,” she said.
The field of competitors includes players from 18 different countries including as far afield as Australia, Estonia, Greece, Morocco and Serbia. The winner of the third LETAS tournament will follow Frenchwomen Caroline Afonso, who won the Terre Blanche Ladies Open and Jade Schaeffer, who triumphed at Dinard.
