Ricoh Women's Open: A preview, profiles and best bets for Royal Birkdale

The city of Liverpool has got lucky this year, with an unprecedented fortnight festival of links golf.

Next week the men will battle the sand banks of Hoylake, but first up the ladies will tackle the dunes of Birkdale.

For the ladies game this year’s Ricoh Women’s British Open offers a great opportunity to highlight the players and the sport. 

The one-off change to the schedule is required to avoid a clash with the Commonwealth Games, but it could be the perfect primer for the Open, not least because for the first time in years Britain and Ireland is not only admiring everyone else’s young golfing talent - we at last have some of our own to celebrate too.

The main contenders are a well known bunch who have all tasted major championship glory - the American pair of Stacy Lewis and Michelle Wie, Korea’s Inbee Park and Norway’s Suzann Pettersen. 

They will be challenged by New Zealand’s 17-year-old Lydia Ko, America’s 19-year-old Lexi Thompson and England’s 18-year-old Charley Hull. Ko and Hull have contended in the majors, Thompson has won one (earlier this year). They are precocious, exciting and hugely talented.

The scene is set then. England’s Golf Coast is set for two weeks of seaside golf that will decide the fate of the two biggest tournaments this side of the Atlantic.

Last year

For the second time the event made its way to the home of golf and the Old Course witnessed a dominant performance from America’s Stacy Lewis. She was in contention all week and, on a blustery final day, held firm when others cracked. 

The home contingent

Not for the first time in recent years Scotland’s Catriona Mathew was the leading Briton 12 months ago, but there is genuine hope that the burden of home pressure can be lifted from her shoulders this time around.

England’s Charley Hull and Northern Ireland’s Steph Meadow have contended in the year’s first two major championships and are the main hopes. For old time’s sake it would be fun if Laura Davies had a good round in her and could offer the cheering galleries a regal wave of her hand as the newly titled Dame Laura.

The course

Royal Birkdale GC is well known to all golf fans and is one of the most popular stops on both the Open Championship and Ricoh Women’s British Open rotas. A beautiful links course which meanders through the dunes it travels in every direction, offering a genuine test in the wind.

It has been used by this event three times in the 21st century. Sweden’s Sophie Gustafson won in 2000, South Korea’s Jeong Jang in 2005 and Taiwan’s Yani Tseng in 2010.

If the weather gets nasty - and it can do - then anything is possible. It’s one reason the Senior Open, played here last year, was won by 250/1 outsider Mark Wiebe.

Leading contenders (and Skybet odds)

Stacy Lewis (5/1): The 29-year-old American is not only the defending champion. She is also the world number one who finished third at this year’s Kraft Nabisco Championship and second at last month’s US Women’s Open. She’ll be desperate to complete a Ted Rogers (albeit she’s highly unlikely to think of it in those terms).

Michelle Wie (14/1): In 2005 Wie finished third at Birkdale as a 15-year