Germany’s Aline Krauter, a junior at Stanford, will be in the ANA Inspiration field instead of playing the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
Top female amateurs face a difficult decision on how to spend the first weekend of April with the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and the ANA Inspiration, the LPGA’s first major, still overlapping. The tournaments will be played on opposite sides of the country on March 31 to April 3.
Krauter is the reigning British Women’s Amateur champion.
“It is such a fantastic opportunity for me to gain experience playing amongst the world’s best in the season’s first major,” Krauter said in a media release on Monday. “I could not think of a more historic venue to play my first major championship at. I am honored to have been given this amazing opportunity to test my game at the next level.”
The ANA Inspiration has traditionally welcomed a handful of the world’s top female amateurs to compete in the field. This year, only Rose Zhang, the 2020 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion, and Krauter were invited. Both players appeared on Augusta National’s list of confirmed entries for the ANWA, and Zhang – who will also play for Stanford beginning next fall – remains on the list.
Counting Krauter, Stanford would have sent four players to Augusta National, second only to USC, which is sending six players.
A year ago, before the 2020 ANWA was canceled and the ANA Inspiration moved to September because of COVID, five amateurs accepted an invitation to compete in the ANA Inspiration. Four of those players are committed to the 2021 ANWA, with Gabi Ruffels having turned pro. She will compete in the ANA as a professional after earning a return spot with her T-15 finish in September.
Germany’s Aline Krauter, a junior at Stanford, will be in the ANA Inspiration field instead of playing the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
Top female amateurs face a difficult decision on how to spend the first weekend of April with the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and the ANA Inspiration, the LPGA’s first major, still overlapping. The tournaments will be played on opposite sides of the country on March 31 to April 3.
Krauter is the reigning British Women’s Amateur champion.
“It is such a fantastic opportunity for me to gain experience playing amongst the world’s best in the season’s first major,” Krauter said in a media release on Monday. “I could not think of a more historic venue to play my first major championship at. I am honored to have been given this amazing opportunity to test my game at the next level.”
The ANA Inspiration has traditionally welcomed a handful of the world’s top female amateurs to compete in the field. This year, only Rose Zhang, the 2020 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion, and Krauter were invited. Both players appeared on Augusta National’s list of confirmed entries for the ANWA, and Zhang – who will also play for Stanford beginning next fall – remains on the list.
Counting Krauter, Stanford would have sent four players to Augusta National, second only to USC, which is sending six players.
A year ago, before the 2020 ANWA was canceled and the ANA Inspiration moved to September because of COVID, five amateurs accepted an invitation to compete in the ANA Inspiration. Four of those players are committed to the 2021 ANWA, with Gabi Ruffels having turned pro. She will compete in the ANA as a professional after earning a return spot with her T-15 finish in September.
In a new twist to this year’s ANA Inspiration, the first major championship of the year, no amateurs will be playing.
The field at the 50th anniversary of the ANA Inspiration certainly won’t feel like old times with one key component missing – the amateurs.
Last year, two amateurs finished in the top 15 at the Dinah Shore Tournament Course: Rose Zhang (T-11) and Gabriela Ruffels (T-15). Three more – Lei Ye, Emilia Migliaccio and Olivia Mehaffey – made the cut.
This year, only Zhang, the 2020 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion, and Aline Krauter, who won the British Women’s Amateur, were invited to the year’s first major.
Both instead are confirmed to compete in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, held the same week as the ANA from March 31-April 3.
Zhang, 17, tied for 17th at the ANWA in 2019. The Stanford signee is currently No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. Krauter, 21, a junior at Stanford, will make her debut at the ANWA this spring.
“The ANA Inspiration has a long history of celebrating the world’s top amateur competitors and providing them with the opportunity to compete in a major championship,” LPGA Chief Tour Operations Officer Heather Daly-Donofrio said in a statement provided to Golfweek.
“To broaden competition opportunities for LPGA Tour members as we continue to deal with COVID-19 and to ensure a manageable field size, the 2021 tournament has limited invitations to the reigning U.S. Women’s Amateur and British Women’s Amateur champions.”
When asked if the tournament would return to its tradition of inviting up to seven amateurs in the future, a tour official said they would continue to adjust moving forward as the pandemic requires.
Since the ANWA was first announced in 2018, there have been calls for the LPGA to move the ANA Inspiration’s dates to avoid having two heavy-hitting women’s events compete for coverage as well as forcing top-ranked amateurs to make a difficult decision.
Gabriela Ruffels plays a tee shot on the 18th hole during the second round of the ANA Inspiration on the Dinah Shore course at Mission Hills Country Club on September 11, 2020 in Rancho Mirage, California. On Wednesday, Ruffels announced that she’s turning pro. (Photo: Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
The 2020 ANWA was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and last year’s ANA, won by Mirim Lee, was held in September.
Zhang’s final score of 280 in blistering desert heat set a record for amateurs at the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills. Ruffels’ 281 matched the previous mark set by Caroline Keggi (1988) and Michelle Wie (2004).
Both Wie and Keggi hold the record for lowest finish by an amateur at the ANA, a tie for fourth.
Check out the host sites for the future women’s golf major championships and the course’s ranking.
The LPGA and golf’s powers that be have upped their games in recent years when it comes to the level of golf courses that host women’s major championships, and the upcoming three years promise several great layouts for the best female players in the world.
Tops among the upcoming courses to host women’s majors are Carnoustie’s Championship Course in Scotland, Muirfield in Scotland and Pebble Beach in California.
The women have five majors each year, compared to four for the men. They are the ANA Inspiration, the U.S. Women’s Open, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, the Evian Championship and the AIG Women’s Open.
The ANA Inspiration and the Evian Championship are played on the same courses each year, the Mission Hills Dinah Shore Tournament Course and the Evian Resort Golf Club in France, respectively. The other three move from course to course, and they offer a tremendous lineup in the next three years, which is as far out as the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship has been planned.
Mission Hills Dinah Shore Tournament Course
Of the three upcoming years, 2023 has the strongest lineup, with the U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Baltusrol’s Lower Course (with a restoration recently completed by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner), and the AIG Women’s Open at Walton Heath near London.
Based on Golfweek’s Best ratings of courses around the world, utilizing votes from more than 750 volunteer raters on a 1-to-10 basis, we can compare the design, playability, conditioning and memorability of various courses.
Any course that averages above a 7 on Golfweek’s Best’s averaged ratings is a great course, with not a dog track in the bunch. Any layout averaging above an 8 is among the best in world, with only 61 courses achieving that status among the nearly 4,000 courses in the Golfweek database.
The average Golfweek’s Best rating – with data based on the past 10 years of ratings with a cutoff date of Jan. 28 for the purpose of this story – for the 2023 women’s host sites is 7.57. Evian Resort Golf Club is not included in those ratings, as it has not been rated enough times to qualify.
Because the ANA Inspiration has a static site, it and its 6.38 rating can be removed from the rankings for an even better comparison of the other sites that change each year. Not counting the Dinah Shore Course, the other three sites in 2023 with available data average an excellent 7.97 rating.
The 2023 averages surpass those of 2021 and 2022. In 2021, the average rating of the four courses including the Dinah Shore course is 7.32, and the three courses not including the Dinah Shore course average 7.62. In 2022, the average including the Dinah Shore course is 7.24, and the year averages 7.53 without that course.
That level of course rating puts the women’s majors on nearly equal footing as the men’s host sites in their four majors. And when taking out the Masters and its exceptionally ranked Augusta National layout because it is a static site year to year, the other three men’s majors and their roving upcoming sites barely surpass the three roving women’s sites. The roving men’s major sites through 2024 (the last year for which they all have been announced) average a 7.82 rating, while the roving women’s sites through 2023 (the last year for which they all have been announced) average 7.71.
Enough of that math. Following is how each course – with the exception of the unrated Evian Resort Golf Course – stacks up:
Rose Zhang has been awarded the Mark H. McCormack Medal as the world’s top-ranked female amateur.
Rose Zhang, a 17-year-old amateur, finished 11th in last month’s ANA Inspiration, an LPGA major. That performance, coupled with her recent victory in the U.S. Women’s Amateur plus the AJGA Rolex Girls Junior Championship, bumped Zhang to the top spot in the World Amateur Golf Rankings.
As a result of that, Zhang has been awarded the Mark H. McCormack Medal as the world’s top-ranked female amateur.
The U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship was her first victory of the season and she followed it with a win at the Rolex Girls Junior Championship only two weeks later. She set the course record, 64, at Dalhousie Golf Club at the Rolex tournament. These wins helped her ranking tremendously, and helped her move past Yu-Chiang Hou to take the top spot in the rankings.
“To win the McCormack Medal and join a list of such prestigious winners is such an incredible accomplishment and blessing,” said Zhang. “Over the past couple months, I’ve really persevered to better myself in all aspects of my golf game and physical condition. Receiving this award is continued validation that hard work pays off and it motivates me to continue this journey. It reignites my passion and love for this amazing sport.”
She becomes the third consecutive American winner of the women’s McCormack Medal following Jennifer Kupcho (2018) and Andrea Lee (2019).
Zhang started playing golf at the age of 9 when a set of clubs made its way into the Zhang family household. Within the first couple of swings, her family knew that there was something special on the horizon. She started to get lessons and a few months later she had won her first junior tournament.
Prior to the U.S. Women’s Amateur, Zhang was dealing with a wrist injury from overuse, and her coach, George Pinnel, advised her to withdraw from the event. Putting aside her coaches orders, she chose to play anyway, leaving with some hardware. She started working with Pinnel at the age of 11 and has been with him ever since.
Zhang’s finish at the ANA Inspiration tournament also left her as the low amateur. Her final score of 280 was the lowest 72-hole score ever posted by an amateur, lower than the previous best of 281 by Caroline Keggi in 1988 and Michelle Wie in 2004.
Zhang is a senior in high school and has committed to continue her academic and athletic career at Stanford.
Golfweek’s JuliaKate E. Culpepper recaps the top golf stories of the week including Stewart Cink winning the Safeway Open, John Daly reveals he was diagnosed with bladder cancer, and Brooks Koepka withdrawing from the U.S. Open.
Golfweek’s JuliaKate E. Culpepper recaps the top golf stories of the week including Stewart Cink winning the Safeway Open, John Daly reveals he was diagnosed with bladder cancer, and Brooks Koepka withdrawing from the U.S. Open.
Mirim Lee sank a tricky 6-footer to win her first major title, but when the ball went in the hole the normal roar was replaced with silence
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — Mirim Lee stood over a tricky 6-foot putt to win a major championship.
If she made it, she would win a dramatic three-way playoff to capture the 2020 ANA Inspiration, her first major victory. She stood over it, analyzed the break, hit the putt and it went right in the middle of the cup.
And then silence.
Everything about this year’s ANA Inspiration has been different and weird. Playing in September, no fans, 100-degree heat, but nothing was more strange than watching a player make a clutch putt to win a major and have there be no noise when the ball went in the cup.
Because of safety measures put in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, no fans were allowed at the course this week. It was the correct decision, but also, it was a bummer. That’s because this finish was full of drama and deserved some fanfare.
There were about 100 people watching the climactic playoff hole, but they either didn’t understand that Lee had just won, or didn’t know if they were supposed to cheer.
And, Lee herself also didn’t let out a roar, or raise her arms to the heavens or anything. She made the putt, pulled her ball out of the cup, smiled and looked around. Finally, Nelly Korda offered her a congratulatory hug, which she accepted. That’s when some applause finally trickled in from the volunteers, workers and other players who were watching.
The post-victory ceremony also was muted.
Under normal circumstances, it involves an interview with the player, a trophy presentation, a photo shoot, and then the famous signature leap into Poppie’s Pond in front of thousands of fans roaring and clamoring to take video of it.
Mirim Lee celebrates winning the 2020 ANA Inspiration at Mission Hills Golf Club. (Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports)
On Sunday, almost none of that happened. There was a quick interview inaudible to the people in attendance. There was no trophy presentation per se. LPGA commissioner Mike Whan, tournament director Teo Sodeman and Shigeru Hattori, the senior VP of ANA, each stood six feet apart to the left of the trophy. Then they sort of pointed at it and told Lee to grab it. She grabbed it, first trying to lift it by the handles, and then holding onto the base. She held it up and smiled, turning in all directions not knowing which photographers and video cameras were most important.
Then Lee placed the trophy back on the pedestal and did the customary emptying of her pockets as she readied for her leap into Poppie’s Pond.
She was nervous. Some golfers plan, maybe even test out, some leaps at home on the off chance they one day win the ANA Inspiration. It was clear Lee had not thought that far ahead.
She tepidly walked toward the pond, hesitantly approached the edge and daintily dropped in. The word “leap” is kind to describe her effort. On the other hand, her caddie Matt Gelczis channeled Greg Louganis and flew into the lake with a dive. Then he threw his hat in celebration as Lee smiled and again swam around a little before finding the cameras and waving.
She got out, put on the winner’s robe, took a few set up photos and that was it.
Lee’s win was amazing. A chip-in eagle on the 18th hole in regulation to force a playoff, which she won with a birdie. Wow!
In any of the other 48 versions of this tournament, she would have been showered with applause and hugs and doused with water by her friends on tour. But this wasn’t like the other 48. Let’s face it, this is 2020. And nothing goes the way you want it to in 2020.
It deserved so much more fanfare. But as we learned Sunday, you can’t have fanfare without fans.
Shad Powers is a columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at shad.powers@desertsun.com.
The LPGA had a dreamy finish in store for the ANA Inspiration, but it all came to a crashing, truly comical halt at Mission Hills.
It seemed almost destined to happen.
Build an eyesore of a wall on an island green and balls will bounce. Bogeys will turn into birdies. Even an eagle! It’s the same for everyone, of course. But the LPGA had a dreamy finish in store, and it all came to a crashing, truly comical halt.
Mirim Lee won the tournament outright with her three chip-ins, including an electric eagle on the 72nd hole. No one can dispute the way she coolly kept her head in the game while the blonde bombers traded blows in the spotlight.
But Lee’s eagle came on the heels of a 5-wood that might have found the water had the Great Wall of Dinah not stopped it cold. That was the plan all along for Lee, and no one can blame her.
The blue wall behind the 18th green at the ANA Inspiration during a Golf Channel broadcast. (Beth Ann Nichols/Golfweek)
“I definitely thought to utilize the back and the backboard,” said Lee after her victory dip. “When I had practice rounds, I had practiced that shot, so it was a definite for me to use the space there.”
Golf fans can’t blame Lee, but they can blame the LPGA and tournament organizers for constructing a wall that’s even bigger and closer to the green than the usual grandstand when there were plenty of other ways available to give ANA the attention it deserves.
It’s a wonderful thing, carrying on sponsorship duties and providing an opportunity for play during a global pandemic.
Yet the wall created unnecessary controversy. It wasn’t easy to accept an obstruction on an island green even with seats there for important guests. But we did because someone has the pay the bills, and on the LPGA title sponsors are vital at the majors.
Take out the seats and the guests though, and it simply didn’t make sense.
Brooke Henderson’s second shot on the 72nd hole came in so hot it went underneath the wall and got stuck. Her sister/caddie Brittany crawled inside the blue mesh to retrieve the ball as Katherine Kirk worked out how she might hit a shot from the ledge of Poppie’s Pond, where it says “Do not dive. Do not step.”
“That’s closest to the hole from the diving board today,” joked Golf Channel’s Jerry Foltz after Kirk managed to not only hit a nifty little shot, but also stay dry.
Judy Rankin tried to hold back about the wall throughout the week on the broadcast only to ultimately say what most were thinking as the wall took center stage.
“The fact is, it has been way too artificial,” said Rankin. “There was no real reason for it to be there. There were no spectators, or clients or anything like that. And it has affected play way too much.”
On the heels of the Sophia Popov snub, this was another bad look for the tour.
Tune in for the big finish! Nelly Korda! Brooke Henderson! Lexi Thompson!
Fans who don’t normally watch the LPGA might have flipped over to Golf Channel for the conclusion, only to become instantly perplexed by the presence of a wall.
The LPGA can make it right in 2021, by taking the finishing hole back to its roots as an island green and eliminate the grandstands. At the very least, move them as far out of play as possible and downsize. Make the closing par 5 a true championship test, one that puts risk back into the equation.
This week felt similar to 2007 when the Women’s British Open was first contested at the Old Course, and they played the Road Hole as a par 5 and it ranked the easiest hole for the week. (Thankfully that was fixed in 2013.)
The depth of talent in the women’s game and quality of play has never been better. There’s plenty to showcase.
But sometimes the LPGA just can’t get out of its own way.
Mirim Lee holed out three times, the last for an eagle on 18, to take the victory over Brooke Henderson and Nelly Korda in a playoff.
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — It was a two-horse race at the ANA Inspiration between Brooke Henderson and Nelly Korda on Sunday afternoon.
No one told Mirim Lee.
Lee dazzled with her chipping game for a long birdie on the 16th hole and an unlikely eagle on the 18th hole, then managed a birdie on the first playoff hole to defeat Henderson and Korda for the 2020 ANA Inspiration title at Mission Hills Country Club.
While it is Lee’s fourth LPGA victory, it is the South Korean star’s first major championship.
Lee, playing in the second-to-last group of the day ahead of Henderson and Korda, managed a 5-under 67 on Sunday mostly on the strength of her short game. In addition to the 80-foot chip-in on the sixth hole and a 60-foot chip-in on the 18th, Lee chipped in from off the green on the sixth hole for another birdie.
Henderson birdied the 18th hole to get to 15-under par and reach the playoff with a round of 69. Korda, who held at least a share of the lead after all four rounds this week, parred the final hole for her Sunday 69.
On the playoff hole, again the par-5 18th, Korda laid up on her second shot out of the rough, while Henderson was short of the putting surface but near the island green in two and Lee was just off the back of the putting surface in two.
Korda two-putted from about 30 feet for her par, but Henderson missed an 8-foot putt for her birdie. Lee then rolled in her birdie putt from about the same distance before breaking into tears over the biggest win of her career.
Lexi Thompson dominated Mission Hills Saturday during the ANA Inspiration and is in contention for her second major title.
Lexi Thompson did nothing Saturday to disrupt the historically good run she is on at the ANA Inspiration. With a 3-under 69, Thompson finished tied for third entering Sunday, a familiar position for her at Mission Hills Country Club.
Thompson won the ANA title in 2014 in a final-round duel with Michelle Wie, then lost the title in 2017 when she famously was hit with four penalty shots on the back nine Sunday for a violation with marking a ball the day before that was picked up on video. Instead of cruising to the title, she lost the championship to Seo Yeon Ryu in a playoff.
But Thompson also had a third-place finish in the event in 2019 and was fifth in 2016. In all, she has five finishes of seventh or better in the last six years.
Now she is in position for a second victory at Mission Hills, a win many fans still feel she deserves. She will start Sunday’s final round just two shots off the lead.
“It would mean the world to me to win another major, especially on this golf course as it’s one of my favorites we play all year,” Thompson said. “Just going to go out tomorrow and keep hitting good shots and hopefully a few more putts will fall on the back nine.”
Lexi Thompson during the third round of the 2020 ANA Inspiration at Mission Hills Golf Club. (Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports)
Low score
Nelly Korda was on a pace through two rounds that could have threatened the ANA Inspiration 72-hole scoring mark. That is 19-under 269 established in 1999 by Dottie Pepper. In winning her second ANA title, Pepper shots rounds of 70-66-67-66. She cruised to the victory over Meg Mallon by six shots. At 12-under through 54 holes, Korda or Brooke Henderson would have to shoot 65 in the final round Sunday to match Pepper’s record.
Queen of the lake
While the tournament is missing much of the pageantry of usual years, at least one veteran Hall of Famer and past champion of the event was at the Dinah Shore Tournament Course on Saturday. That was three-time winner Amy Alcott, winner in 1983, 1988 and 1991 and the player who first dove into the lake around the 18th hole long before it was called Poppie’s Pond. Alcott is a homeowner at Mission Hills, so she can be in her backyard to watch play.
Aces high
Linnea Strom checked of Sweden produced the first 2020 hole-in-one of the tournament Saturday when she aced the par-3 eighth hole. Strom used an 8-iron from 161 yards. The ace capped a three-hole run by Strom that saw her make a double bogey, a bogey and the eagle with the ace. She finished the day with an even-par 72.
Amateur hour
The best finish by an amateur in the history of the ANA Inspiration came in 1988 when Carolina Keggi of the University of New Mexico finished fourth. That record might be in some jeopardy Sunday.
Rose Zhang, the reigning U.S. Women’s Amateur champion, is tied for seventh at 8-under par, just four shots off the lead. Zhang, who won the ANA Junior Inspiration and made the cut in the major in 2018, shot 4-under 68 on Saturday including a hole out for an eagle on the second hole.
Zhang is two shots ahead of Gabi Ruffels in the battle for low amateur this year. Ruffels managed a 71 on Saturday despite two double bogeys on the back nine.
