2023 Cognizant Founders Cup: How to watch, who’s playing as LPGA honors its founding members and tour pioneers

Following an historic first win for Team Thailand on Sunday in the return of the International Crown, all four winning team members will tee it up this week in Clifton, New Jersey, for the 12th edition of the Cognizant Founders Cup. Atthaya Thitikul, Patty Tavatanakit, Ariya Jutanugarn and Moriya Jutanugarn arrive at Upper Montclair Country Club fresh off their victory at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco, where the foursome swept Australia in the finals to secure the team match-play title.

Ariya Jutanugarn earned MVP honors after teaming with her sister to win all five of their matches, while 20-year-old Thitikul finished off her perfect weekend with a birdie on the 16th hole that clinched the championship for Thailand. Thailand went undefeated — 6-0-0 — in pool play, becoming the first team to do so in tournament history, and they lost just one match in four days of play when Team USA’s Lilia Vu defeated Tavatanakit in the semifinals.

While the Thai players look to keep their momentum rolling, so does defending Founders Cup champion Minjee Lee, who was part of Team Australia’s runner-up squad at Harding Park. Last year at Upper Montclair, Lee made three birdies over her final seven holes to beat Lexi Thompson by two strokes.

The Founders Cup, which honors the 13 original founders of the LPGA and their philosophy to “leave the game better than you found it,” kicks off a stretch of four events in New Jersey over the next six weeks and starts on a particularly celebratory note after the World Golf Hall of Fame announced in March that seven of the LPGA’s founders — Alice Bauer, Bettye Danoff, Helen Dettweiler, Helen Hicks, Opal Hill, Sally Sessions and Shirley Spork would join the other six Founders as members of the Hall of Fame. Patty Berg, Marlene Bauer Hagge, Betty Jameson, Marilynn Smith, Louise Suggs and Babe Didrikson Zaharias were previously inducted into the Hall.

In addition to the tour’s founding members, the event also annually honors LPGA pioneers — with this year’s honorees being six-time LPGA major champion Betsy King and National Golf Coaches Hall of Fame member and former European Solheim Cup Team captain Pia Nilsson.

The full-field event features 144 players competing for a $3 million prize purse, with $450,000 going to the winner. This week marks the third straight year that the tournament is being played New Jersey, after being held at Mountain Ridge Country Club in East Caldwell in October 2021 and moving to Upper Montclair CC in 2022. The first nine editions (2011-2019) were held at Wildfire Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.

How to watch the 2023 Cognizant Founders Cup

You can watch the 2023 Cognizant Founders Cup on Golf Channel, Peacock, NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app. Check out the complete TV and streaming schedule:

• Thursday, May 11: 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m. ET, Golf Channel and Peacock

• Friday, May 12: 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m. ET, Golf Channel and Peacock

• Saturday, May 13: 5-7 p.m. ET, Golf Channel and Peacock

• Sunday, May 14: 5-7 p.m. ET, Golf Channel and Peacock

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Who’s playing in the 2023 Cognizant Founders Cup

The 144-player field is headlined by eight of the top 10 players in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings including:

• World No. 1 Nelly Korda, who has Joe LaCava — Tiger Woods’ former caddie — on the bag this week in New Jersey.

• No. 2 Lydia Ko, who’s playing in her fifth event of the season with her best finish in 2023 being a T-6 at the Honda LPGA Thailand.

• No. 3 Jin Young Ko,  already a winner this season after successfully defending her title at the 2023 HSBC Women’s World Championship.

• No. 4 Lilia Vu, the only multi-winner of the season so far with wins at The Chevron Championship and Honda LPGA Thailand.

• No. 5 Atthaya Thitikul, who has four top-10 finishes in 2023, including a season-best third place at the Honda LPGA Thailand.

• No. 6 Minjee Lee, the defending champion and a member of Team Australia, which finished runner-up at last week’s International Crown.

• No. 7 Lexi Thompson, who’s playing in just her third event of 2023 and was part of Team US, which finished third at the International Crown last week.

• No. 10 Georgia Hall, who has four top-10 finishes in 2023 including two runner-up finishes at the LPGA Drive On Championship and DIO Implant LA Open.

Also in the field are four previous champions — Stacy Lewis (2013), Sei Young Kim (2016), Jin Young Ko (2019, 2021) and Minjee Lee (2022) — plus Monday qualifiers Haru Nomura and Roberta Liti, and three sponsor invites: amateur Katie Lu, Alison Walshe, Paige Crawford, who won the John Shippen Cognizant Cup on Monday to earn her spot in the field.

Past winners of the Cognizant Founders Cup

Last year at the Cognizant Founders Cup

Australia’s Minjee Lee collected her seventh LPGA victory last year at Upper Montclair CC after finishing at 19-under 269 and beating Lexi Thompson by two strokes. Lee carded a nine-under 63 in the second round to take the 36-hole lead and she held on with rounds of 69-70 on the weekend. Thompson rallied from three down after 54 holes to grab a share of the lead after a birdie on No. 10 Sunday, but Lee took the lead for good with a birdie on No. 14 as Thompson made pars the rest of the way.

More about Upper Montclair Country Club

Famed golf course architect A.W. Tillinghast designed the original 18-hole course at Upper Montclair Country Club, which was founded in 1901 and initially featured a rudimentary five-hole course before Tillinghast’s design opened in the 1920s. Robert Trent Jones Sr. directed course renovations in the 1950s, which transformed the club into its present 27-hole design, with three nine-hole tracks known as the East, West and South courses. The front nine for the Founders Cup is the club’s South course, while the back nine is the club’s West course, which is rerouted for the tournament.

Upper Montclair has hosted multiple professional events including the LPGA’s Coca-Cola Classic (1979, 1980), the Chrysler-Plymouth Charity Classic (1983, 1984) and the Sybase Classic (2007-2009). Among winners of those events were Nancy Lopez (1979), Pat Bradley (1993) and Lorena Ochoa (2007, 2008). Other notable tournaments are the PGA Tour’s Thunderbird Classic (1962, 1966-1968) and the PGA Tour Champions’ NFL Golf Classic (1993-2000).

For the Founders Cup, the course will play as a par 72 (36-36), with a scorecard yardage of 6,536 yards.

The NBC Sports golf research team contributed to this report. 

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2023 Cognizant Founders Cup: How to watch, who’s playing as LPGA honors its founding members and tour pioneers originally appeared on NBCSports.com