Inkster returning from injury next week in Arkansas

• By Randall Mell
• Jun 22, 2012 7:25 PM ET

Juli Inkster will make her return to the LPGA next week at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship.

After being sidelined for six months with the first significant injury of her Hall of Fame career, Inkster is scheduled to tee it up Friday in the 54-hole event in Rogers, Ark. Inkster is coming back from surgery in January. Doctors repaired a torn tendon and damaged ulnar nerve in her right elbow.

“It feels good,” Inkster told Golfchannel.com. “I did everything I needed to do to return.”

Inkster, the winner of 31 LPGA titles, seven of them major championships, turns 52 on Sunday.

“I don’t really know what to expect,” Inkster said of returning to competition. “But I am looking forward to it.”

Inkster got a warm up under her belt at the CVS Charity Classic earlier this week, teaming with Dana Quigley to finish ninth in the two-day better-ball and scramble competition. Inkster went almost three months without hitting a golf ball after her surgery. As the mother of two, she kept herself busy with family while away from competition and practice. She and her husband, Brian, had a pair of graduations to coordinate with their oldest daughter, Hayley, graduating from college and their youngest, Cori, graduating from high school.

“I just hung out at home, went on some school trips, had the graduations,” Inkster said of her six months away from the game. “I have no idea where the time went.”