World no. 1 Lilia Vu is relishing her return to Singapore for this week’s HSBC Women’s World Championship even as she learns how to cope with the pressure of being the world’s best golfer.

While the 26-year-old is carrying hopes of surpassing her tied-14th finish from last year, she is also aware she will be the target to catch for many of her rivals.

However, Vu prefers to focus on having fun on the Tanjong course at the Sentosa Golf Club, which has been hosting the tournament since 2017.

“Golf is not a game of perfection, and I try to keep telling myself that. I’m still learning to manage that (pressure) as it’s definitely a new thing for me.

“I keep saying the reason I got to this point was because I try my best to win each tournament I played in. I try not to get too frustrated with myself whenever I don’t play perfect golf,” said Vu, an Asian-American of Vietnamese heritage.

Vu enjoyed a stellar year in 2023 where she clinched four titles on the LPGA Tour, including two Majors, attributing her success to her family where her late grandfather once built a boat to help the family escape from a war-torn Vietnam in 1982. 

“Everything comes from my family. I’m a very big family person. They believe in me more than anybody else and everything I do is for them.

“My grandpa passed away at the beginning of COVID in 2020. I remembered seeing him at the hospital before I left for a tournament. He was about to get discharged.

“Everything was fine, and he just told me to play my best and never give up. He was somebody who didn’t talk much. So, every word that he said to me always meant a lot,” said Vu.

Meanwhile, Celine Boutier, who is making her fifth start at the HSBC Women’s World Championship is hoping to extend her winning run in Asia, especially after her heroics in Malaysia where she outplayed Thailand’s Atthaya Thitikul in a thrilling nine-hole play-off last year.

The 30-year-old believes her self-belief and ability to handle pressure at the highest level has led her to winning six titles on the LPGA including her first Major, the Evian Championship which was contested on home soil.

“The key for me to handling pressure has been experience. It’s hard to really know how you’re going to react and how you’re going to feel in the situation. You got to experience it. The more you experience it, the more you feel comfortable with it and you learn how to deal with it,” said the World No. 3.

Reflecting on her breakout season in 2023 where she won four times including two play-offs, Boutier said: “Last year was definitely a very good year for me. I think I could not have imagined for it to go better.

I feel like I was able to take advantage of the few opportunities that I got when I was in contention, so that was definitely very positive. It’s definitely going to be one of the seasons I remember not just because of the wins, but also getting my first major,” said Boutier.

The 2024 HSBC Women’s World Championship will feature 15 out of the world’s top 20 and all the reigning major champions set to compete at Sentosa Golf Club. All the reigning major champions are also set to compete alongside 19 major champions, 43 LPGA winners with a combined total of 175 titles, seven former world No.1’s and 18 Solheim Cup players with 46 appearances between them.

The major champions in the field have a total of 28 titles between them and include all of last year’s major winners: Lilia Vu (The Chevron Championship and the AIG Women’s Open), Allisen Corpuz (U.S. Women’s Open), Ruoning Yin (KPMG Women’s PGA Championship), and Celine Boutier (The Amundi Evian Championship).

The HSBC Women’s World Championship boasts an international field with representation from 20 countries across the world.

Widely recognised as Asia’s Major, eight out of the top 10 ranked players on the field hail from Asian descent. This includes the world’s top three as well as the fifth and sixth-ranked players and joining them are South Korean-born world No. 7 Hyo Joo Kim, the champion of the 2021 edition, and world No.9 Lydia Ko, who recently clinched her 20th LPGA title at the first event of the season.

Tickets for this year’s 16^th edition of the HSBC Women’s World Championship are on sale. The tournament runs from 29th February to 3rd March 2024. For more information on the HSBC Women’s World Championship and all the latest news, visit the tournament website at https://www.hsbcgolf.com/womens.