When it comes to the USGA’s desire to challenge the best players in the world, the U.S. Women’s Open is no different from the men’s version.
“It’s the biggest test in the game of golf,” World No. 1 Nelly Korda said. “Definitely has tested me a lot. I love it.”
The LPGA schedule has reached its summer stretch, when majors dominate the landscape. This week, a field of 156 (including 26 amateurs) will test themselves at the 80th U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills in Erin, Wis.
The championship’s winning score has been just 3 or 4 under par in three of the last five editions, and players are planning for another stiff test in Erin Hills’ U.S. Women’s Open debut. The most difficult major is also the most lucrative: It featured a record $12 million in prize money in 2024, a number expected to rise again this week.
Erin Hills is on the lengthier side for the ladies as a par-72, 6,829-yard track. That won’t faze Korda, one of the longest drivers in the women’s game, but she’s got an eye on the various fairway bunkers that threaten to eat up tee shots.
Korda is having a much different start to this season than in 2024, when she won five starts in a row and seven tournaments in total. She’s notched three top-10 finishes but no victories just yet.
“Definitely have had a bit of good and a bit of bad,” she said. “Kind of a mix in kind of every event that I’ve played in. I would say just patience is what I’ve learned and kind of going back home and really locking in and practicing hard.”
With one more week in the top spot of the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda will become the first American woman to spend 100 weeks at No. 1 in her career.
She’s hardly the only player chasing history this week. Lydia Ko of New Zealand is building toward a career Grand Slam after picking up the Women’s British Open last August. She has yet to win the U.S. Women’s Open or Women’s PGA Championship.
“It’s a great golf course. I think it’s fun,” Ko said of Erin Hills. “I don’t think it’s, like, for one type of player, which is something that I tend to really prefer because it kind of brings the whole field into it. Hopefully I can hit some good shots and get a few good lucky bounces and kind of go from there.”
Ko, who captured the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore, is one of 12 different players to win the first 12 events of the LPGA season. Mao Saigo of Japan won the Chevron Championship last month, emerging from a five-woman playoff, a record for a women’s major.
The hottest player of the year is World No. 2 Jeeno Thitikul of Thailand, who has five top-fives and won her most recent start, the Mizuho Americas Open. She’s just 22, but she’s keen on adding her first major to her resume.
“I think to me, (the Women’s PGA), British Open and U.S. Open definitely going to test my patience,” Thitikul said. “… Playing in tough conditions, tough course, tough mental, because it’s a big stage playing against all the best players in the world, but patience has always been the key that I want to keep until the final round.”
The defending champion is Japan’s Yuka Saso, who became the youngest two-time winner of the U.S. Women’s Open (also 2021).
“I think the USGA prepares me very, very well for this event with its amateur championships,” the 23-year-old said. “But I think I’m used to it, and I think I really need to come here early and really need to get to know the golf course as much as I can in a short period of time.”
–Field Level Media
