The oldest main championship title and largest purse in ladies’s skilled golf shall be on the road when the eightieth U.S. Girls’s Open tees off Thursday at Erin Hills Membership in Erin, Wisconsin.
It is the primary time Erin Hills is internet hosting the Girls’s U.S. Open, and the course recognized for its undulating fairways and greens that had been created by a glacier centuries in the past figures to offer one of the vital troublesome exams of the season for the world’s greatest golfers.
“It exams each a part of your recreation,” two-time main champion Nelly Korda mentioned Tuesday. “It is very demanding. It is agency. It is quick, as nicely. Even in the event you suppose you’ve got hit it good, you possibly can exhale once you see it cease. I might say even the climate performs a giant function with the pictures out right here, with the putts.”
Listed here are among the large storylines for the second main championship of the season:
Can Nelly get going?
World No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler wanted a couple of months to get going earlier than he gained twice on the PGA Tour this season, together with his third main on the PGA Championship.
It has been the identical form of season for world No. 1 golfer Nelly Korda on the LPGA Tour. A yr in the past, Korda had already gained six instances earlier than the second main of the season.
This yr, she has but to raise a trophy in seven begins.
“Yeah, it has been a really fascinating yr for me,” Korda mentioned Tuesday. “Positively have had a bit of fine and a little bit of unhealthy. Form of a combination in form of each occasion that I’ve performed in. I might say simply persistence is what I’ve realized and form of going again house and actually locking in and working towards arduous.”
It isn’t as if Korda hasn’t performed nicely this season. She had a top-25 end in all however one in every of her begins, together with runner-up within the Hilton Grand Holidays Match of Champions within the season opener. She tied for fifth in her final begin on the Mizuho Americas Open.
Korda ranks second on the LPGA Tour in strokes gained: whole (2.40) and off the tee (1.03) and is ninth in tee to inexperienced (1.59). She additionally ranks within the high 25 in strategy (0.65) and placing (0.86).
She’ll be on the lookout for a greater outcome within the U.S. Open. She has three missed cuts, a tie for eighth and a tie for sixty fourth in her previous 5 begins. Final yr at Lancaster Nation Membership in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Korda carded a ten on the par-3 twelfth gap, her third gap within the first spherical. She carded a 10-over 80.
Korda rebounded to put up an even-par 70 within the second spherical however nonetheless missed the reduce.
“Oh, yeah, plenty of ups and downs,” Korda mentioned. “I imply, it is the most important take a look at within the recreation of golf. Positively has examined me quite a bit. I find it irresistible.”
Korda will play the primary two rounds with England’s Charley Hull and Lexi Thompson. They’re going to tee off on No. 1 at 2:25 p.m. ET on Thursday and on No. 10 at 8:40 a.m. on Friday.
“On the finish of the day, this is the reason we do what we do is to play these golf programs in these circumstances, to check our video games in each side,” Korda mentioned. “Not even simply our video games, our psychological [strength], as nicely. I take pleasure in it, and I am excited to see what this week goes to carry.”
Ko eyeing profession Grand Slam
Lydia Ko can turn into the eighth golfer in LPGA historical past to finish the profession Grand Slam if she wins the U.S. Girls’s Open in her 14th strive. She has a pair of top-10 finishes within the match and missed her first reduce final yr.
Solely 27, Ko has already collected three main championship victories on the 2015 Evian Championship, 2016 Chevron Championship and 2024 Girls’s British Open.
Ko is enjoying with defending U.S. Girls’s Open champion Yuka Saso and newbie Rianne Malixi within the first two rounds. They’re going to begin on the No. 1 tee at 8:40 a.m. ET on Thursday and on No. 10 at 2:25 p.m. on Friday.
“I feel so long as I am enjoying, it is all the time good to have a purpose, in order that once I’m engaged on issues, I am all the time going ahead and never making an attempt to suppose, ‘Oh, did I this, so who cares?'” Ko mentioned. “So it is simply extra to only maintain myself extra motivated. Hopefully not, however even when I by no means win a U.S. Girls’s Open, I do not suppose I will get up from my sleep and go, ‘I by no means gained.'”
Louise Suggs, Mickey Wright, Pat Bradley, Juli Inkster, Karrie Webb, Annika Sorenstam and Inbee Park gained 4 totally different majors of their profession. Webb is the one one who gained totally different majors in finishing the tremendous profession Grand Slam.
Sweden’s Anna Nordqvist, who gained the 2009 Girls’s PGA Championship, 2017 Evian Championship and 2021 Girls’s British Open, may also full the profession Grand Slam this week.
Saso’s three-time strive
Saso will try and turn into solely the seventh golfer to win the nationwide championship 3 times.
Betsy Rawls (1951, 1953, 1957, 1960) and Wright (1958, 1959, 1961, 1964) completed first within the U.S. Girls’s Open 4 instances, whereas Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1948, 1950, 1954), Susie Maxwell Berning (1968, 1972, 1973), Hollis Stacy (1977, 1978, 1984) and Sorenstam (1995, 1996, 2006) gained 3 times.
“I may name myself a two-time main champion, and higher than that, two-time U.S. Girls’s Open champion,” Saso mentioned of successful final yr. “I feel it is an important match to have beside my title, and, I do not know, possibly as a result of I dreamed of successful this, and successful it twice is significantly better.”
Saso is already the one golfer to seize the Harton S. Semple Trophy whereas representing two totally different international locations. When Saso defeated Nasa Hataoka on the third gap of a playoff on the 2021 U.S. Girls’s Open on the Olympic Membership in San Francisco, she represented the Philippines, the place she was born.
Final yr, Saso was enjoying for Japan, her father’s homeland, when she beat Japan’s Hinako Shibuno by three strokes with a 72-hole whole of 4-under 276.
Saso had twin citizenship in each international locations earlier than having to resign her Filipino citizenship in 2022 underneath Japanese nationality legislation, which she was required to do earlier than turning 22.
Erin Hills is a giant course
Erin Hills Golf Course, positioned about 35 miles northwest of Milwaukee, is a par-72 course that can play 6,829 yards. It is the second-longest course on the LPGA Tour to date this season.
Erin Hills hosted the 2017 U.S. Open, which Brooks Koepka gained with a 72-hole whole of 16-under 272.
It does not determine to play that simply this week, particularly if the wind blows. There’s an opportunity of thunderstorms Friday with 10 to twenty mph winds. Forecasts name for sunny skies and 5 to 10 mph winds on the weekend.
“It is positively a very large course,” mentioned 2023 U.S. Girls’s Open champion Allisen Corpuz. “I hit much more hybrids and woods than I might have needed to into greens [during Monday’s practice round]. I feel simply any main, ball-striking is all the time actually vital. I feel particularly with the inexperienced complexes right here [and] lots of run-offs, just some tight fairways that can positively be key right here.”
Erin Hills does not have a single water hazard, however there are 132 sand bunkers and 3½-inch fescue tough, which can make issues difficult.
“It is very demanding off the tee with all of the bunkers,” Korda mentioned. “The bunkers should not straightforward. Generally you simply do not also have a stance in them as a result of they’re so small. Then the pictures into the greens and in addition the greens. Simply an general good take a look at of your total recreation.”
America Golf Affiliation has alternate tees out there if the wind does not blow or the course will get moist.
“We additionally maintain a really shut eye on firmness, and clearly pace, moist circumstances, very windy circumstances,” mentioned Shannon Rouillard, the USGA’s senior director of championships. “It is actually vital that the take a look at stays relative and applicable to the circumstances that we’ll face, whether or not they’re moist or whether or not we’ll expertise some larger wind circumstances.”
