ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A total of 144 players will take on the challenge that Brook-Lea Country Club presents starting Thursday with the first round of the fifth annual Danielle Downey Credit Union Classic.
Three featured groups highlight the competition for the 15th event of the 2019 Epson Tour season.
Patty Tavatanakit, Dewi Weber, Michelle Piyapattra (No. 10 tee, 1:15 p.m.)
Most recent Epson Tour champion Patty Tavatanakit (Bangkok, Thailand) leads the way for this trio after capturing her first professional win at the Donald Ross Classic. Through three starts, the two-time Women’s Golf Coaches Association (WGCA) First Team All-American selection for UCLA has launched all the way to No. 12 in the Volvik Race for the Card. She’ll look for a third straight top-five finish this week.
Dewi Weber (Groningen, Netherlands) found a groove in French Lick, Ind., the same one that she began her rookie campaign with. To start the year, Weber captured five consecutive top-15 results. Following her fifth top-10 showing of the season, the three-time medalist for the University of Miami (FL) is now at No. 20 in the Volvik Race for the Card. She has been a member of the Dutch National Team since 2010.
Finally, Michelle Piyapattra (Eastvale, California) is back in the state where she starred collegiately for Columbia University. A three-time All-Ivy League First Team selection for the Lions, Piyapattra was also named the 2012 Ivy League Player of the Year. Now in her fifth year on the Epson Tour, she has played the weekend in six straight starts with a season-best tied for fourth result last week in southern Indiana.
Elin Arvidsson, Perrine Delacour, Kendra Dalton (No. 1 tee, 1:26 p.m.)
Last month, Elin Arvidsson (Falkenberg, Sweden) tied a career-best finish when she went tied for 10th at The Forsyth Classic presented by Decatur Park District. The Texas Tech University alumna has played the weekend nine times in 13 starts, including six straight. During her collegiate days in Lubbock, Arvidsson captured medalist honors in the 2013 Challenge at Onion Creek with a 54-hole score of 2-under par 208.
Perrine Delacour (Paris, France) currently leads the Volvik Race for the Card with $112,705 through 13 events played. A two-time winner at the Four Winds Invitational and Prasco Charity Championship, she has eight consecutive top-10 performances. Delacour was a Epson Tour graduate in 2013 and is right on her way again. The French National Team competitive member started playing golf at the age of nine.
One of three New York natives in the field this week is Epson Tour rookie Kendra Dalton (Poughquag, New York). She was a three-time All-WCC First Team selection at BYU, as well as a two-time WCC Player of the Year for the Cougars. In her first season on the “Road to the LPGA,” Dalton has made six cuts in 13 starts and captured a top showing of tied for sixth at the Prasco Charity Championship last month.
Laetitia Beck, Min Seo Kwak, Esther Lee (No. 1 tee, 8:47 a.m.)
In eight events played this year on the Epson Tour, Laetitia Beck (Caesarea, Israel) has advanced to the weekend each time with six top-20 performances and three top-10s. Beck is the first woman from Israel to ever compete on the LPGA Tour and even represented her native country at the 2016 Summer Olympics ending tied for 31st. She has 83 career starts on the big stage since her rookie season of 2015.
Min Seo Kwak (Seoul, Republic of Korea) is on a hot streak as of late with six top-10 finishes over her last nine starts including a season-best solo third at the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout. Currently the No. 7 in the Volvik Race for the Card, Kwak was a 2014 Epson Tour graduate courtesy of two victories. Last year in Rochester at the Danielle Downey Credit Union Classic, she captured a tied for 19th result.
Rounding out the final featured group is Esther Lee (Los Alamitos, California), who cracked the Volvik Race for the Card top-10 after going tied for fourth in French Lick, Ind. at the Donald Ross Classic. She has played the weekend 10 times in 12 starts with four top-five results and a season-best runner-up in the Valley Forge Invitational. Lee was a four-time tournament winner at the University of Colorado.
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