There is a shadow hanging over this week’s second major of the 2020 LPGA campaign, the ANA Inspiration. Readers of a certain vintage may recall the popular BBC children’s programme Rentaghost which featured a Dutch character called Miss Popov who disappeared whenever she sneezed. In this year’s unlikely, and widely panned, LPGA remake it wasn’t hay fever which prompted Germany’s Miss (Sophia) Popov to complete a vanishing act, but instead merely victory at the first major of the season. Short of the PGA Tour losing its marbles and commissioning a Sherlock reboot that actually casts JB Holmes and Bubba Watson as the heroes, it’s hard to imagine a scenario which might leave an organisation with more egg on its face.

Popov, you will recall, thrilled the golfing world by winning in highly unlikely fashion at Royal Troon, a story which drew more eyeballs than normal for the women’s game courtesy of the strange summer we've been enduring. It then emerged that because she lacked a full LPGA card she would not gain a five-year exemption and that because this tournament should have taken place much earlier in the year the field is set in stone. To complete an introduction of astonishingly mixed metaphors, I shall remind you that last year’s Women’s Open was claimed by a Japanese player known as ‘The Smiling Cinderella’. What we never anticipated was a panto-style sequel in which the LPGA commissioner, an otherwise sensible fellow, played the role of stepmother and said: “Cinders, you won’t go to the ball.”

But what of those who will be playing this week? They return to the Dinah Shore Course at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California, a track that has hosted the tournament since 1972, becoming a major in 1983. It’s a resort course commonly defended by lush rough. Players who win there tend to have provided a hint of their competence in previous years (13 of the last 15 winners already owned a top-25 finish in the tournament) and more specifically in negotiating their passage from tee to green (the last eight winners had previously ranked top 15 for Greens in Regulation, seven of them top ten).

In the week of their success, however, and also in the weeks prior to their win, they also displayed a decent short game. An added obstacle this week will be the heat with temperatures forecast to top 100 degrees and maybe touch as high as 115. Caddies, for example, have already been cleared to use buggies.

Of the leaders in the betting, there are doubts. Inbee Park was part of the staking plan, and indeed collected a place payout, in the Women’s Open, but her odds were double what’s on offer this week. Danielle Kang’s price reflects her back-to-back post-lockdown wins rather than the T32-T49 she’s recorded in her last two starts (when she didn’t hit many greens and didn’t save par too often afterwards). Minjee Lee remains consistent and has finished tied third here, but that is one of only four top-tens in majors she’s earned in 30 starts and three of those were in the UK – not stats to make you confident of backing an 11/1 shot.

Last year’s winner and the world number one Jin Young Ko does not play this week, remaining at home in Korea. Her compatriot Sei Young Kim does tee it up and was close to selection, but she’s yet to win a major or impress with her long game at Mission Hills so the price puts me off. Nelly Korda likewise misses out because one top-40 (and that T13th) in five course starts is unpersuasive set against another sub-20/1 price.

First pick, therefore, takes us to 26-year-old Korean IN GEE CHUN who was a prolific winner on her home tour and in Japan prior to winning the 2015 US Open in just her seventh LPGA start. The following season she nearly added a second major win at this tournament and then did so in the Evian Championship. The next two seasons saw her rattle up eight top-three finishes without adding to her win tally and in the middle months of 2018, unbeknown to many, she was struggling with the dark side of her fans' obsessive micro-analysis of her game and life.

Frankly I would have been more or less unaware of this but for the decision to venture to Korea after the 2018 Ryder Cup, where I watched her win the International Crown and HanaBank Championship in successive weeks. A quiet and diffident determination to overcome her problems was striking and yet I was not entirely surprised that further wins failed to follow – the experience had undoubtedly been tough on her.