Aditi Ashok puts behind a tough 2022 with two good results in early 2023

After a difficult 2022 where she barely managed to keep playing rights on the apex LPGA women’s professional golf tour, Aditi Ashok is on her way back with two impressive displays in quick succession on the Ladies European Tour.

The two-time Olympian opened her 2023 campaign with a long-awaited win at the LET’s season-opening Magical Kenya Ladies Open in the first week of February and followed up with a third-place finish at the Lalla Meryem Cup in Morocco seven days later.

Aditi earned her LPGA card in the 2016 season in her very first year as a professional and has maintained her status on the world’s top women’s tour ever since. Champion of the 2016 Hero Women’s Indian Open, Aditi was the first Indian to win on the LET and has till date added a further three wins.

Kast year though was not an easy one for the Bangalore golfer who caught the nation’s imagination with a fighting fourth-place finish at the Tokyo Olympic Games. From 26 starts , she made the cut 15 times with two top-five finishes early on in the season at the Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Raton where she was tied for 13th place and the LPGA Drive On Championship where she shared 15th place.

A difficult period followed and thereafter the 24-year-old’s best performance was a tied 25th place at the Dow Jones Great Lakes Bay Invitational in July. By the season’s end, Aditi was fighting to maintain her LPGA status, which she did. It will mark her seventh year in a row at the very top.

The results in Kenya and Morocco, where she faced a far tougher field to end in third place therefore suggest she is on track to return to her high standards of the past and at 24, better equipped to handle the immense pressure the very top of the women’s professional game brings with its playing rights.

Aditi will shortly be teeing off at the $5 million Aramco Saudi Ladies International presented by Public Investment Fund at the Royal Greens Golf and Country Club in Jeddah which ends next Sunday.

At the Lalla Meryem Cup last week, the third place finish behind the Swedish duo of Maja Stark and 2022 rankings topper Linn Grant meant that Aditi heads the LET’s Race to Costa Del Sol rankings for a second week running on 730 points, having picked up 500 from the Magical Kenya Ladies Open and 230 in Rabat.

In fact, Aditi was in contention early on the final day playing alongside Stark at the Royal Dar Es Salam course but the Swede was not to be denied her sixth LET title on the day and responded strongly to the challenges thrown at her by both Aditi as well as countrywoman Linn Grant.

Be that as it may, it augurs well for Aditi Ashok that her 2023 campaign has begun on the most positive of notes and holds out promise for the months to come on the LET and the LPGA.