Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship – Syndication Server

2024 Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship prize money payouts for each LPGA player

Korda’s 10th LPGA victory pushes her past $9.5 million in career earnings.

Nelly Korda’s playoff victory over fellow American Ryann O’Toole at the Seri Pak Championship moved her past Laura Davies on the LPGA’s all-time career money list. Korda now checks in at No. 28 with $9,523,989 in official career earnings.

Korda earned $300,000 for her 10th career victory. She now has $586,716 in earnings this season after two wins in three starts.

LPGA rookie Gabriela Ruffels, making her third LPGA start as a tour member, finished one stroke out of the playoff and in a share of third. She earned $120,026.

Rose Zhang began the week in California taking final exams and finished it with a check for $20,287. Zhang tied for 22nd in her first start since January.

Here’s the total purse breakdown for the field at Palos Verdes:

Pos	Player	Score	Earnings
1*	Nelly Korda	-9	$300,000
2	Ryann O’Toole	-9	$186,577
T3	Gabriela Ruffels	-8	$120,026
T3	Alison Lee	-8	$120,026
T5	Andrea Lee	-7	$70,313
T5	Jasmine Suwannapura	-7	$70,313
T5	Jiyai Shin	-7	$70,313
T8	Sarah Schmelzel	-6	$48,011
T8	Ruoning Yin	-6	$48,011
T10	Jenny Shin	-5	$38,476
T10	Gemma Dryburgh	-5	$38,476
T10	Charley Hull	-5	$38,476
T13	Lucy Li	-4	$29,827
T13	Linn Grant	-4	$29,827
T13	Leona Maguire	-4	$29,827
T13	Allisen Corpuz	-4	$29,827
T13	Mao Saigo	-4	$29,827
T18	Hyo Joo Kim	-3	$23,954
T18	Mi Hyang Lee	-3	$23,954
T18	Frida Kinhult	-3	$23,954
T18	Linnea Strom	-3	$23,954
T22	A Lim Kim	-2	$20,287
T22	Rose Zhang	-2	$20,287
T22	Patty Tavatanakit	-2	$20,287
T22	Moriya Jutanugarn	-2	$20,287
T22	Malia Nam	-2	$20,287
T27	Minami Katsu	-1	$15,179
T27	Karis Davidson	-1	$15,179
T27	Xiyu Lin	-1	$15,179
T27	Yuka Saso	-1	$15,179
T27	Jin Hee Im	-1	$15,179
T27	Ayaka Furue	-1	$15,179
T27	Yuna Nishimura	-1	$15,179
T27	Brooke Henderson	-1	$15,179
T27	Ashleigh Buhai	-1	$15,179
T27	Lindy Duncan	-1	$15,179
T37	Lilia Vu	E	$11,799
T37	Isi Gabsa	E	$11,799
T39	In Gee Chun	1	$10,215
T39	Alexandra Forsterling	1	$10,215
T39	Albane Valenzuela	1	$10,215
T39	Kaitlyn Papp Budde	1	$10,215
T39	Madelene Sagstrom	1	$10,215
T44	Ally Ewing	2	$8,529
T44	Alexa Pano	2	$8,529
T44	Paula Reto	2	$8,529
T44	Lizette Salas	2	$8,529
T48	Dani Holmqvist	3	$7,456
T48	Jennifer Kupcho	3	$7,456
T48	Lauren Hartlage	3	$7,456
51	Ana Pelaez Trivino	4	$6,947
T52	Mone Inami	5	$6,538
T52	Auston Kim	5	$6,538
T52	Aditi Ashok	5	$6,538
T55	Maria Fassi	6	$5,924
T55	Peiyun Chien	6	$5,924
T55	Bianca Pagdanganan	6	$5,924
T58	Maude-Aimee Leblanc	7	$5,414
T58	Hae Ran Ryu	7	$5,414
T60	Savannah Grewal	8	$5,005
T60	Jaravee Boonchant	8	$5,005
T60	Sophia Schubert	8	$5,005
T63	Yu Liu	9	$4,750
T63	Celine Borge	9	$4,750
T65	Eun-Hee Ji	10	$4,545
T65	Yealimi Noh	10	$4,545
67	Jiwon Jeon	11	$4,393
68	Sofia Garcia	12	$4,290
69	Jing Yan	16	$4,188

LPGA: Alison Lee rebounds with 66 after chat with hype man, mentor Fred Couples

“My boyfriend can go on and on and tell me how great I am … (but) I’m like, you’re supposed to say that.”

Alison Lee felt like she’d been put on ice after finishing the 2023 LPGA season with three consecutive runner-up showings. For Lee, it was a shame that the season had to end at all.

But then her offseason got even longer after a nasty dog bite left her hospitalized and on the sidelines for two extra weeks. She felt rushed heading to her first start to the season in Singapore and left shaken by the poor start.

“You know, my biggest fear, too, is losing it, right?” said Lee. “Like I had such a great end of the year last year. Golf is such an unpredictable game. Anything can happen. I can have a really good stretch of events and then the next week you can play terribly.

“That’s what your mind always goes to even though you shouldn’t.”

Lee’s mind went there after a T-51 at the HSBC Women’s World Championship that included rounds of 77 and 79. But the former UCLA star dug deep to keep herself from getting too down. She saw her putting coach and her swing coach. A call from hype man Fred Couples helped, too.

2024 HSBC Women's World Championship — Alison Lee plays her shot from the second tee during the first round of the 2024 HSBC Women’s World Championship at Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore. (Photo: Yong Teck Lim/Getty Images)

“My boyfriend can go on and on and tell me how great I am,” said Lee. “Doesn’t mean anything because I’m like, you’re supposed to say that.

“When you have someone like him [Couples] who’s a legend who says all these nice things – he doesn’t have to say any of that – for him to put some time aside and give me a little bit of confidence and tell me things that sometimes I don’t believe myself is a lot. It means a lot to me.”

At the newly renamed Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship, Lee got some confidence back after an opening 5-under 66 at Palos Verdes Golf Club in California put her two strokes back of Canada’s Maude-Aimee Leblanc.

There’s a lot on the line for the 20th-ranked Lee as she looks to qualify for the Summer Olympics in Paris and make another U.S. Solheim Cup team.

“Yeah, feels good,” said Lee. “I had a lot of nerves coming into this week for sure.”

Danielle Kang makes her 17th (!) ace at LPGA stop in Palos Verdes

“It’s sometimes luck,” said Kang, “but I absolutely pured it.”

Danielle Kang notched the 17th ace of her life during the opening round of the Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship on Thursday.

“It’s sometimes luck,” said Kang, “but I absolutely pured it.”

Kang struck a 5-iron exactly as she planned on the par-3 11th hole (her second of the day) from 174 yards. She wanted to land the ball short and let it run up to the hole.

“I just hit my 5-iron exactly where I wanted to hit it and we all just kind of stared it down, and Andrea (Lee) just reacted so cute,” said Kang. “She was just like, ‘Oh, my God, oh, my God.’ She screamed.”

Kang, who opened with a 71 at Palos Verdes Golf Club in California, said 17 is her lucky number.

“Actually, I’ve had four hole-in-ones on the 17th day,” she said. “I’ve had five holes-in-one on the 17th hole. … I’ve had three holes-in-one in on the 17th hole with the 17 number ball.”

The list goes on: Kang was 17 years old when she won her first U.S. Women’s Amateur title on the 17th hole at Charlotee Country Club. She won her first major title in 2017. She played in her first Solheim in 2017, too.

“Yeah, just there is so much that has happened at 17, that it’s just been my lucky number,” she said.

“And then I’ve been waiting for my 17th hole-in-one for a while.”

New moms Sophia Popov, Caroline Masson return to LPGA at Seri Pak Championship

Two new moms return to the LPGA this week at the Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship.

Major champion Sophia Popov, who first took a medical leave in 2022 to heal her right shoulder and then extended the time off after learning she was pregnant, gave birth to daugther Maya Mehles last June.

Fellow German Caroline Masson, 34, and husband Jason McDede, who caddies for Nelly Korda, welcomed son Benton last April. Masson’s last LPGA event was the 2022 CME Group Tour Championship.

“For us to be able to do this,” said Masson, “the three of us go on the road and make new memories, start this new adventure together, was really cool.”

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Masson, who won her first LPGA title in 2016 at the Manulife, said she always had respect for the moms on tour but that it doubled or tripled in the last few months as she started to get back into golf shape.

Popov said that respect extends to female athletes across all sports.

“As an example, I was home over the summer,” said Popov. “I had just given birth in June. I was watching Wimbledon. I was watching Elina Svitolina come back and she was eight months postpartum and made it to the semifinals. I was sitting on the couch going, there is no way at eight months I’m going to be able to do this. Like I am just so out of shape.”

Popov, who stunned the golf world by winning the 2020 AIG Women’s British Open while competing on the Epson Tour, said even a basic core exercise was exhausting in those early months.

“I had a lot of ab separation, so you’re trying to get your abs back working, functioning,” she said. “You hit a golf ball and you’re like, man, I need my core a lot. I didn’t even realize that before. Like it comes naturally, and you take it for granted.”

Playing the tour as a mom takes a group effort. Masson’s son Benton joined the all-mom press conference in his stroller on Wednesday afternoon at Palos Verdes Golf Club.

While the physical challenges of coming back after giving birth are steep, the changed perspective offers a chance to hit refresh.

“It gets repetitive,” said Masson. “Year after year, you go to the same places. After a while you don’t appreciate it as much. So just to build up that excitement and putting in the work and seeing the process and really getting a little bit better every day and every week has been really fun preparing for this.”

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It’s easier now to remember what’s important, too, added Popov, who played two weeks ago on the LET in Florida.

“I love to hear the cooing, the sounds,” said Popov. “I really don’t care how you play golf, mom, as long as you feed me after the round, we’re all cool.”

Rose Zhang returns to LPGA action during hectic finals week at Stanford

Zhang is one of five past winners of the Therese Hession Regional Challenge in the field this week.

Rose Zhang’s pre-tournament press conference at the Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship got moved because of a final exam in her media psych class. Later that night, she had a 15-page paper due for a political science class.

“That class is a little bit more niche,” she explained, “so it requires more research and reading and integration of real-life context versus the context that we learned in class. So it’s a little bit more difficult there.

“But after these are done, I’ll be golden for the next couple days and going forward until I come back to winter quarter next year.

Just over a year ago, Zhang was at Palos Verdes Golf Club with her Stanford team for the Therese Hession Regional Challenge. The three-shot victory marked Zhang’s eighth title in 15 career collegiate starts. As a team, the Cardinal finished second that week without two of their starters.

This week marks the third time Palos Verdes has hosted an LPGA event. Zhang is one of five past winners of the Therese Hession Regional Challenge in the field this week, joined by World No. 1 Lilia Vu (2018), Andrea Lee (2019), Lindy Duncan (2012) and Carlota Ciganda (2011).

Fans look on as Rose Zhang and Rory McIlroy warm up on the range during Capital One’s The Match IX at The Park West Palm on February 26, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images for The Match)

Zhang teed it up in the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions in January, where she tied for seventh, and flew back to Florida in February for Capital One’s The Match IX with Rory McIlroy, Max Homa and Lexi Thompson.

Zhang skipped the second LPGA event in Florida, the Drive On, won by Nelly Korda, as well as all three events in the Asian swing.

Even so, there wasn’t much downtime during Zhang’s extended offseason. Trying to find a balance between part-time student and full-time golf professional remains a priority for the 20-year-old.

Though Zhang hardly returns to the LPGA refreshed, she called her winter quarter back at Palos Verdes “fulfilling,” pointing toward time spent with her non-golf friends. The lack of sleep and academic grind, she said, has tested in her ways that golf can’t. She’s also recovering from a recent battle with the flu that left her bedridden.

“But we’re out here thriving,” she said smiling. “I think a lot of the stress has come on to me, especially this week, it’s finals week, everyone is dying back at Stanford as well. All my friends are just going through it.”

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As for her golf game, Zhang admits that finding time to practice has been difficult. Trying to balance 20 units in 10 weeks with all the other obligations that come with sponsorships as well as a social life has cut into time spent on her game.

When asked whether she’d considered not going back to campus in the future, Zhang, who has a residence in Las Vegas, said it’s a possibility.

“I mean, I’m pretty excited to come back out here to be fair,” she said. “Actually, school stresses me out a little bit more than golf does.

“I have considered taking online classes while I’m here on tour, so that’s a to-be-determined plan. As of now, I’m taking the spring quarter off and then we’ll evaluate what I do in the fall.”

Legendary Seri Pak returns to LPGA in 2024 as tournament host at Palos Verdes

The 2024 Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship, March 21-24, will feature a field of 144 players and a $2 million purse.

LPGA pioneer Seri Pak will return to the tour in 2024, joining Annika Sorenstam and Michelle Wie West as tournament hosts. The South Korean will host the newly renamed Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship at Palos Verdes Golf Club in suburban Los Angeles. (Pak, who went by Se Ri during her LPGA career, is now going by Seri.)

Last year the Palos Verdes event, won by Ruoning Yin, was called the DIO Implant LA Open.

The 2024 Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship, set for March 21-24, will feature a field of 144 players and a purse of $2 million, up $250,000 from last season.

Pak, 46, retired from the LPGA in 2016 following a career that transformed the women’s game. As an LPGA rookie, Pak won two majors in 1998, including the U.S. Women’s Open at Blackwolf Run that inspired generations of South Koreans to follow in her footsteps. She won 25 times on the LPGA and amassed 39 titles worldwide.

Seri Pak was the only Korean player on the LPGA Tour in 1998. When she retired in 2016, there were more than 40 Korean LPGA Tour regulars. Pak’s spectacular win in the 1998 U.S. Women’s Open inspired many Korean women to take up golf. (Getty Images)

When Pak joined the LPGA in 1998, she was the only South Korean on tour. When she retired eight years ago, 34 South Koreans were competing full-time on the LPGA, and among those, 27 had secured an LPGA win. Pak’s victory didn’t just inspire South Koreans to pursue the game, but to dominate it.

“In America, you would say it’s Tiger Woods,” major winner Hyo Joo Kim once said. “In Korea, it’s Seri Pak.”

Pak left the game with $12,583,713 in career earnings and 123 career top 10s. She became the first South Korean inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame.

“It is an honor to return to the LPGA Tour as host for the Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship at Palos Verdes Golf Club,” Pak said in a release. “Mentoring the next generation of golfers and giving back to the game I love is at the core of everything I do. I’m excited to kick off this new partnership and elevate this tournament to new heights on the LPGA Tour.”

Fir Hills, a Silicon Valley-based investment firm, has entered a multi-year agreement with the LPGA as a tournament sponsor.

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