LANCASTER, Pa. — Regardless of how straightforward Nelly Korda has made golf look over the past two months, not even the most effective participant in her sport can count on a straightforward time on the U.S. Ladies’s Open.
The most important and richest occasion in girls’s golf prides itself on being the hardest check, and Lancaster Nation Membership has all the trimmings with its hilly, tree-lined terrain, partially blind pictures into a number of the greens and a routing wherein holes always change course.
“A beast,” Korda known as it.
Whether or not the hardest check identifies the most effective participant is up for debate.
Because the girls’s world rating started in 2006, solely two gamers at No. 1 captured the U.S. Ladies’s Open — Annika Sorenstam in 2006 at Newport (an 18-hole playoff win over Pat Hurst) and Inbee Park in 2013 at Sebonack Golf Membership on Lengthy Island, the yr Park received three straight majors.
Now it’s Korda’s flip, and he or she arrived at Lancaster on a stretch of successful not seen since Lorena Ochoa in 2008, the final individual to have six victories earlier than the calendar turned to June.
“It simply checks each facet of your sport,” Korda stated. “It’s tight off the tee. Visually it seems to be a lot shorter than it’s. There’s bunkers that visually you see that you just assume you’re going to hold that you find yourself possibly 10 yards quick.
“Should you’re within the tough and also you miss fairways, the greens are very small and really slopy, and the tough is thick across the greens, too.”
The 79th version of the Ladies’s Open will get began on Thursday, and Korda is as huge an attraction because the course itself, which beforehand hosted the Open in 2015.
Korda tied an LPGA file by successful 5 straight tournaments, a streak capped off on the Chevron Championship within the first main of the season. She is coming off a win in her most up-to-date match — that makes six wins in seven begins — on the Mizuho Americas Open at Liberty Nationwide in New Jersey.
“Proper now I believe Nelly is simply in a league of her personal,” stated Allisen Corpuz, the defending champion who picked up her first main — and first LPGA title — final yr at Pebble Seaside.
Tips on how to watch all the motion from the U.S. Ladies’s Open at Lancaster Nation Membership.
There was loads of buzz round Lancaster past Korda. The purse is $12 million, and the USGA determined to comply with the mannequin of the PGA Tour’s elevated occasions by paying 20% of the purse to the winner — $2.4 million.
This additionally figures to be the final U.S. Ladies’s Open for Lexi Thompson, who’s enjoying it for the 18th time and he or she nonetheless is barely 29. Thompson stated she is retiring from a full schedule after this yr. Barring a excessive end, she received’t be eligible subsequent yr and is unlikely to get a particular exemption as a result of she has by no means received.
Amongst those that might problem is Rose Zhang, the adorned newbie at Stanford who received in her LPGA debut as knowledgeable final yr, after which ended Korda’s successful streak with a victory on the Cognizant Founders Cup.
Zhang simply turned 21 and has not even spent a full yr as a professional. She nonetheless can admire what Korda is doing, and the way powerful the 25-year-old American might be to beat.
“I’m witnessing some loopy historical past, and it’s actually, actually inspiring to see her,” Zhang stated. “She’s virtually wanting unfazed. … Although she’s not appearing like a human being proper now — or enjoying prefer it — I believe she has numerous stress on her. And that’s why I’m saying she’s so unbelievable, as a result of she’s capable of deal with all that stress.”
Korda has two majors amongst her 14 titles on the LPGA, the opposite coming in 2021 on the KPMG Ladies’s PGA Championship that first elevated her to No. 1 on the planet.
Within the two years that adopted, there was a revolving door at No. 1 amongst 5 gamers. Korda had a well being scare with blood clot in 2022. She now could be again to full energy and dominating.
Gamers are impressed by what Nelly Korda is doing. However they’re additionally impressed.
“Nelly is nearly what we are attempting to goal for, as a result of if you happen to beat her you’re most likely going to have the trophy in your fingers,” stated Hannah Inexperienced, the one different a number of winner on the LPGA Tour this yr.
However the Ladies’s Open can have a thoughts of its personal, and there have been loads of surprises through the years, from Corpuz at Pebble Seaside final yr to A-lim Kim at Champions in Houston in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2020, even again to Hilary Lunke in 2003.
Korda has solely two prime 10s within the Ladies’s Open — a tie for tenth at Shoal Creek in 2018 and a tie for eighth at Pine Needles in 2022. Each instances, she completed 11 pictures out of the lead.
The U.S. Ladies’s Open doesn’t discriminate. It’s powerful for everybody.
“It’s vital to not get forward of your self and simply assume, ‘Oh, I’ve to beat Nelly.’ You’ve acquired much more individuals out right here who’re actually simply as pushed,” Zhang stated. “As a result of to get to the U.S. Open, it doesn’t simply take a fortunate likelihood. It requires numerous years of enjoying and having the ability to follow for this second. I imply, Lancaster is a tough place.”
