The LPGA Tour is hitting the meat of its schedule with three main championships happening within the subsequent six weeks, beginning with the KPMG Ladies’s PGA Championship, which tees off Thursday at Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco in Frisco, Texas.
South Korea’s Amy Yang is the defending champion.
It is the final main championship that will likely be performed within the U.S. this season. The Amundi Evian Championship will likely be performed in France on July 10-13, adopted by the AIG Ladies’s Open in Wales on July 31-Aug. 3.
Listed below are a number of the storylines to observe in Frisco this week:
Can Nelly finish her winless drought?
A yr in the past, world No. 1 golfer Nelly Korda had already received six instances earlier than the KPMG Ladies’s PGA Championship, together with her second main victory on the Chevron Championship. She collected seven wins in 2024 after ending first in The Annika in November.
This season, she’s nonetheless looking for her first victory. She hasn’t performed poorly, ending within the high 10 in 4 of her 9 begins and tying for second in final month’s U.S. Ladies’s Open at Erin Hills in Wisconsin.
“Yeah, it is golf,” Korda stated. “Yearly is simply so completely different. Final yr coming into this occasion, I had [six] wins. I feel even Hannah Inexperienced had a number of wins beneath her belt too coming into this occasion.
“It is simply golf. You form of simply should journey the wave, and the competitors is getting higher and higher yearly. To win as soon as, to win twice, it is actually good.”
There hasn’t been a repeat winner in 15 LPGA Tour occasions this season, and Japan’s Mao Siago and Sweden’s Maja Stark had been first-time main champions on the Chevron Championship and U.S. Ladies’s Open, respectively.
Korda was within the combine within the U.S. Ladies’s Open till the very finish, ending 5-under 283, two strokes behind Stark. Korda led the sector in strokes gained: off the tee (+1.82) and was fifth in method (+1.67) however she was 52nd in placing (-.42).
“I feel it simply makes you hungrier,” Korda stated. “For me, I hate making errors; clearly, I really like successful. You aren’t getting to win usually, however there’s nothing like being in competition, so I feel that is form of what makes me hungrier to return again and to work more durable and put myself into that place.
“On the finish of the day, I did put myself into that place. I used to be nonetheless in competition and feeling the adrenaline rush on 18, attempting to win a serious championship. That is the explanation why I play this recreation, and I find it irresistible a lot.”
Thitikul eyeing world No. 1
Whereas Korda has but to complete first this season, world No. 2 Jeeno Thitikul has already captured victories on each the Women European Tour (PIF Saudi Women Worldwide on Feb. 15) and LPGA Tour (Mizuho Americas Open on Could 11).
The 22-year-old will try and win her first main championship this week. If Thitikul does, she’ll inch even nearer to Korda as world No. 1 golfer. Thitikul, from Thailand, was the 2022 LPGA Rookie of the Yr and was briefly ranked No. 1 on the planet that season.
Her greatest end in a serious was solo fourth on the 2022 KPMG Ladies’s PGA Championship at Congressional Nation Membership in Bethesda, Maryland.
“By no means thought I used to be going to succeed in No. 1 on the planet after I was 19,” Thitikul stated. “However now No. 2 on the planet, I nonetheless really feel the identical how I put the work [in] as a result of I really feel like [no matter what number I am], my job is identical.”
Thitikul, who lives within the Dallas space, leads the LPGA in strokes gained: complete (2.70) and is second in scoring common (69.1).
She has six top-10s in 10 begins and missed just one lower, which is a giant motive why she leads the LPGA’s seasonlong factors race.
“Each main I simply wish to make the lower, to be sincere,” Thitikul stated. “It will be actually nice to win it, and undoubtedly I can inform that it could be like everybody’s goals to win a serious. To me, what I’ve now beneath my belt. I am fairly pleased with all I’ve achieved. If I can get it, it could be nice, but when not, I haven’t got something to remorse about.”
New venue for Ladies’s PGA Championship
It is the primary time the world’s greatest ladies’s golfers have competed at Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco, one in all two programs on the PGA of America’s new residence.
The course hosted the 2023 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship in Could 2023, and Steve Stricker defeated Padraig Harrington in a playoff with a successful 72-hole complete of 18-under 270.
The course, designed by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, will host the Ladies’s PGA Championship in 2025 and 2031, and the lads’s PGA Championship in 2027 and 2034.
“I really feel like this sort of golf course, it is dictated rather a lot by what time of the yr you play,” stated three-time main champion Lydia Ko. “It isn’t that agency and quick but, and I feel there could also be somewhat little bit of rain within the forecast. So I feel the course might be going to play rather a lot longer than possibly how the senior males performed it a pair years in the past.”
It figures to be sizzling and dry after Thursday’s opening spherical. Climate forecasts name for highs within the low and mid-90s with southerly winds from 10-18 mph.
“I feel all of it performs fairly tough relying on the wind,” Korda stated. “All of the par 5s are just about three-shot holes for me, so simply dialing in. The downwind holes, I feel are going to play in all probability the toughest simply because it is fairly exhausting to carry the inexperienced. In case you do hit it somewhat bit quick with that fluffy Bermuda, it form of simply stays, so you may’t play for a run-up.”
Chasing down Annika
At solely 28, Ko is already the youngest member of the LPGA Corridor of Fame. She’s a 23-time winner on the LPGA Tour, a 38-time winner world wide and the reigning Olympic gold medalist in ladies’s golf.
With one other victory or two, Ko may additionally go 10-time main champion Annika Sorenstam in profession earnings on the LPGA Tour. Sorenstam received a whopping 72 instances and earned about $22.6 million earlier than retiring after the 2008 season.
“In [a way], it is unfair as a result of she’s received 70-something instances,” Ko stated. “I am pleased with my 23, and I am hoping to have just a few extra by the point I am completed. We’re simply enjoying in a really completely different period.”
Ko has already earned about $20.8 million since turning professional in 2013.
“I feel I’ve stated a number of instances in ladies’s golf and girls’s sports activities usually, we’re simply on such a excessive,” Ko stated. “I feel it’s totally lucky on this era to have the ability to journey it.
“I am very fortunate to be born on this period, so it is form of exhausting within the sense of being even in comparison with Annika, who has completed rather more than me. I feel that is why it is our obligation as gamers, or simply the entire group, to have the ability to continue to grow it and provides extra alternatives for the longer term generations and the children which can be popping out right here to observe us play.”
Completely happy for Spaun
It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks for Stark since she held off Korda and others at Erin Hills to seize the largest victory of her profession. The previous Oklahoma State golfer is now ranked sixth on the planet.
She took final week off to let the gravity sink in. Stark stated she did not cry after successful, however she did shed some tears when J.J. Spaun captured his first main with a 65½-foot putt on the 72nd gap of the U.S. Open at Oakmont Nation Membership outdoors Pittsburgh on Sunday.
“I cried after J.J. Spaun received as a result of I used to be so excited for him,” Stark stated. “Identical to once you see the response and the way joyful he was, listening to he nearly give up final yr and identical to him crying, ending with two birdies and ending on this trend, that was simply loopy.
“Seeing his children, , hug him. That simply makes me emotional for anybody. I am identical to somewhat crybaby.”
