The oldest main championship title and largest purse in girls’s skilled golf might be on the road when the eightieth U.S. Ladies’s Open tees off Thursday at Erin Hills Membership in Erin, Wisconsin.
It is the primary time Erin Hills is internet hosting the Ladies’s U.S. Open, and the course recognized for its undulating fairways and greens that have been created by a glacier centuries in the past figures to supply some of the tough checks of the season for the world’s finest golfers.
“It checks each a part of your sport,” two-time main champion Nelly Korda stated Tuesday. “It’s totally demanding. It is agency. It is quick, as nicely. Even in case you suppose you’ve got hit it good, you’ll be able to exhale if you see it cease. I might say even the climate performs an enormous position with the photographs out right here, with the putts.”
Listed here are a number of 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 stated Tuesday. “Positively have had a bit of fine and a little bit of unhealthy. Type 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 practising laborious.”
It isn’t as if Korda hasn’t performed nicely this season. She had a top-25 end in all however considered one of her begins, together with runner-up within the Hilton Grand Holidays Event 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: complete (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 in search of a greater consequence 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 submit an even-par 70 within the second spherical however nonetheless missed the reduce.
“Oh, yeah, numerous ups and downs,” Korda stated. “I imply, it is the most important take a look at within the sport of golf. Positively has examined me so much. I adore it.”
Korda will play the primary two rounds with England’s Charley Hull and Lexi Thompson. They will 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 situations, to check our video games in each facet,” Korda stated. “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 deliver.”
Ko eyeing profession Grand Slam
Lydia Ko can change into the eighth golfer in LPGA historical past to finish the profession Grand Slam if she wins the U.S. Ladies’s Open in her 14th strive. She has a pair of top-10 finishes within the event 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 Ladies’s British Open.
Ko is taking part in with defending U.S. Ladies’s Open champion Yuka Saso and novice Rianne Malixi within the first two rounds. They will 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 taking part in, it is at all times good to have a objective, in order that once I’m engaged on issues, I am at all times going ahead and never attempting to suppose, ‘Oh, did I this, so who cares?'” Ko stated. “So it is simply extra to simply hold myself extra motivated. Hopefully not, however even when I by no means win a U.S. Ladies’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 Ladies’s PGA Championship, 2017 Evian Championship and 2021 Ladies’s British Open, may also full the profession Grand Slam this week.
Saso’s three-time strive
Saso will try and change into solely the seventh golfer to win the nationwide championship thrice.
Betsy Rawls (1951, 1953, 1957, 1960) and Wright (1958, 1959, 1961, 1964) completed first within the U.S. Ladies’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 thrice.
“I might name myself a two-time main champion, and higher than that, two-time U.S. Ladies’s Open champion,” Saso stated of successful final yr. “I feel it is an awesome event to have beside my identify, and, I do not know, possibly as a result of I dreamed of successful this, and successful it twice is a lot better.”
Saso is already the one golfer to seize the Harton S. Semple Trophy whereas representing two totally different nations. When Saso defeated Nasa Hataoka on the third gap of a playoff on the 2021 U.S. Ladies’s Open on the Olympic Membership in San Francisco, she represented the Philippines, the place she was born.
Final yr, Saso was taking part in for Japan, her father’s homeland, when she beat Japan’s Hinako Shibuno by three strokes with a 72-hole complete of 4-under 276.
Saso had twin citizenship in each nations earlier than having to surrender her Filipino citizenship in 2022 below Japanese nationality regulation, which she was required to do earlier than turning 22.
Erin Hills is an enormous course
Erin Hills Golf Course, situated about 35 miles northwest of Milwaukee, is a par-72 course that may play 6,829 yards. It is the second-longest course on the LPGA Tour up to now this season.
Erin Hills hosted the 2017 U.S. Open, which Brooks Koepka gained with a 72-hole complete of 16-under 272.
It would 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 undoubtedly a very large course,” stated 2023 U.S. Ladies’s Open champion Allisen Corpuz. “I hit much more hybrids and woods than I might have wished to into greens [during Monday’s practice round]. I feel simply any main, ball-striking is at all times actually essential. I feel particularly with the inexperienced complexes right here [and] a number of run-offs, only a few tight fairways that may undoubtedly be key right here.”
Erin Hills would not have a single water hazard, however there are 132 sand bunkers and 3½-inch fescue tough, which is able to make issues tough.
“It’s totally demanding off the tee with all of the bunkers,” Korda stated. “The bunkers aren’t simple. Typically you simply do not also have a stance in them as a result of they’re so small. Then the photographs into the greens and in addition the greens. Simply an total good take a look at of your whole sport.”
The USA Golf Affiliation has alternate tees out there if the wind would not blow or the course will get moist.
“We additionally hold a really shut eye on firmness, and clearly pace, moist situations, very windy situations,” stated Shannon Rouillard, the USGA’s senior director of championships. “It is actually essential that the take a look at stays relative and acceptable to the situations that we will face, whether or not they’re moist or whether or not we will expertise some higher wind situations.”
