Nelly Korda ended an 0-for-11 U.S. drought by winning the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club on Sunday.
For the first time in nearly three years, an American has won an LPGA major championship.
Nelly Korda has ended an 0-for-11 U.S. drought by winning the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club on Sunday.
Korda, 22, and Lizette Salas, 31, started the final round at 15 under, five shots clear of the field after 54 holes, setting the stage for one of them to break through. Angela Stanford was the last American to win a major at the Evian Championship in September 2018.
Korda made a move early, making birdie at the third. Then on the 5th, she gave herself a kick-in eagle after ripping a 7-wood from 243 yards out.
Salas birdied the hole but Korda moved ahead by a shot. Korda later eagled the par-5 12th while Salas bogeyed the hole, opening up a four-shot lead with six holes left.
On the 14th, Korda poured in a 20-footer for birdie to get to 21 under and a five-shot lead. She doubled the next hole but went to the last with a three-shot lead.
She closed the win out from there with a par on the last for a final-round 68 to finish at 19 under for her sixth LPGA victory, tying her sister Jessica. Americans have now won five LPGA titles this season. Salas finished solo second at 16 under. Kyo Joo Kim and Guilia Molinaro finished tied for third at 10 under. Danielle Kang and Patty Tavatanakit finished tied for fifth at 8 under.
Korda is now projected to ascend to the No. 1 spot in the Rolex rankings. Stacy Lewis was the last American to be ranked No. 1 in 2014. Nelly Korda has also moved to No. 1 in the Race to CME Globe standings.
On Friday, Korda became the fifth player in Women’s PGA history to shoot a 63, joining Patty Sheehan (1984), Meg Mallon (1999), Kelly Shon (2017) and Sei Young Kim (2020).
As if a major wasn’t pressure enough, Olympic women’s golf qualifying ends after the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
JOHNS CREEK, Georgia – Danielle Kang broke down and cried, and then she panicked when she found out that qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics had been extended 15 months. She was in when the rankings were frozen, but could she hold on?
“For me to have to re-accomplish something that has been my life goal and dream was really tough on me,” said Kang, whose Olympic dream began when she took up Tae Kwon Do as a youngster.
“I couldn’t stop looking at the Rolex rankings. I couldn’t stop worrying about what other people did up until this week, secured.”
While the pressure is on for other players at this week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship – the final event before Olympic qualifying ends on June 28 – No. 6-ranked Kang can focus solely on the task of winning a second major. To that end, she has swing thoughts written on her hand, her glove and likely up and down her forearms.
“I finally feel like myself,” she said, “because the one thing that was the pinnacle was to just hit that mark that I qualified for the Olympics as a USA athlete.”
While the likes of Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Martin Kaymer and Louis Oosthuizen won’t be at the Summer Games, so far no woman has taken a pass at Tokyo. Quite the opposite in fact: They’re all in.
“I just think men golfers, they just have so many big events,” said 2016 gold medalist Inbee Park. “They definitely play a different level of golf with a lot of different perspective. They have so many opportunities and so many different weeks with so many big tournaments. For us, I think it’s a little different. We’re not as big as men’s golf. So I think girls just treat it a little differently.”
The lucrative FedEx Cup starts two weeks after the Olympics
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Judy Rankin, while observing from afar, looks at the equality of exposure that exists in the Olympics as a reason in general that women might put the experience at a higher level than some men.
“Everything that the male athlete is asked to do and is given,” said Rankin earlier this year, “is the same thing that a female athlete is asked to do and is given.”
There’s no denying the level of fame a medal can bring. Park won seven major championships but turned into a mega-star in South Korea after she won the gold medal.
“When Inbee was teeing it up to win her fourth major in a row (in 2013), the Korean rating on TV was about 8,” said LPGA commissioner Mike Whan at the ANA Inspiration. “An you guys know because you follow, an 8 rating is Tiger Woods in the Masters. It’s a huge number. In Korea, that’s what you would expect. Here she was about to make history like nobody had ever seen. When she won the Olympics, the TV rating was 27.1.
“As she said, she went from being a really – what did she say? A really noteworthy golfer to being one of the most famous people in Korea in one weekend.”
Shanshan Feng became the first player from China to become a member of the LPGA and win a major title, but it was after her bronze medal in Rio that participation numbers in the junior ranks really took off.
In 2015, Feng said the number of juniors who had registered with the CGA to play in a tournament was around 3,000. That number, she noted, has since grown to around 100,000.
When she won a major title, Feng said most Chinese knew so little about golf that they didn’t even know what a major even meant.
“They didn’t have a clue,” she said.
Olympic medals, however, needed no explanation.
Leona Maguire of Ireland waves to fans after a par on the 15th green during round one of the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give at Blythefield Country Club on June 17, 2021 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
Even though plenty know about golf in Ireland, Leona Maguire noticed that many tuned into for the first time back home when she competed in the 2016 Olympics as an amateur. Leona had identical twin sister Lisa on the bag when she recorded the event’s first birdie. She called it the coolest week of her life.
“Because we were the second week,” said Maguire, “we were watching gymnastics and swimming and everything at home and all of a sudden, you’re there. Serena Williams walks by and Michael Phelps walks by. We got to go to the track and watch Bolt, and Phelps’ last day in the pool.”
Sadly, COVID-19 restrictions will keep first-timers from having a similar experience in Tokyo. The women’s competition for the 2021 Olympics will take place Aug. 4-7 at Kasumigaseki Country Club and participants aren’t likely to see much beyond the hotel and golf course.
“Unfortunately, it kind of sucks our parents can’t come if we do all qualify,” said Nelly Korda, who hopes to be joined by sister Jessica and brother Sebastian (tennis) in Toyko, “but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”
The Kordas’ mother, Regina, a former tennis player, is the only one in the family who has previously qualified for the Olympic Games, having represented Czechoslovakia in 1988.
Jessica, No. 13 in the Rolex Rankings, currently holds the fourth and final spot for Team USA but 18th-ranked Ally Ewing is one of several Americans who could unseat her with a victory at Atlanta Athletic Club.
“Honestly, what happens happens,” said Jessica on the eve of the event. “It’s out of my control. There’s nothing I can do.”
Sophia Popov said competing in Tokyo will fulfill a family dream that goes back generations. Her younger brother, Nicholas, swam for the University of Arizona and barely missed out on qualify for the London Olympics. Mom Claudia swam for Stanford and never saw her Olympic dream come to fruition.
Popov, the 2020 AIG Women’s British Open champ, said her mom and brother asked if they could get the Olympic rings tattooed and write “brother” or “mother” underneath.
“I was like, you can do whatever you want to,” said a smiling Popov. “… it’s also why I want to go so badly is because I have two other people to represent that I feel like could have been there in the past.”
Seven of the last 11 women’s major winners have been first-time LPGA winners.
JOHNS CREEK, Georgia – Yuka Saso’s picture hung from a skyscraper in Manila the day after she became the first Filipino player to win a major championship title. Saso graced the front page of every major newspaper in her home country and Postmaster General Norman Fulgencio announced her face would be featured on a stamp.
It’s no wonder Saso slept with the trophy that first night.
“Actually, my trophy stayed on the bed and I stayed on the couch,” she joked.
Saso is the latest in a long line of players who made their first LPGA title a major. Seven of the last 11 major winners, in fact, have been first-time winners on tour. Four of those seven players were non-members.
When Saso clinched the U.S. Women’s Open title at Olympic Club on the third playoff hole, she also seized a five-year exemption on the LPGA. That’s a new bonus – call it the Popov Rule – after Sophia Popov won the AIG Women’s British Open title in 2020 and an uproar followed that she wasn’t in the next week’s event let alone the next major and that, as a non-member, she only received a two-year exemption on tour.
The LPGA announced changes that addressed all of those issues earlier this year.
“She gets everything she deserves,” said Popov. “She’s a great player. She’s a great human being. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t have a five-year exemption out on Tour.”
Saso, who turned 20 on Sunday 20, was over-the-moon about meeting idol Rory McIlroy (and Phil!) for the first time as the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. McIlroy invited her inside the ropes, and the woman who spent hours watching YouTube videos of McIlrory’s swing, got to take her own video. She was more nervous meeting McIlroy that she was over the birdie putt she needed to win the U.S. Women’s Open.
“I didn’t know how to say hi,” she said.
Asked how often she’d watched highlights of her victory at Olympic, Saso said she doesn’t like watching herself.
“I’d rather watch Rory’s,” she said with a smile.
Jennifer Kupcho is the highest-ranked LPGA player, at No. 24, who hasn’t yet won on tour. She tied for second at the Evian in her rookie season and took a share of seventh at the Women’s PGA in 2021.
The last seven LPGA major winners happen to be first-time major winners, too. They hail from five different countries and none are Americans.
When Stacy Lewis first came on tour in 2009, she felt like roughly 30 players had a chance any given week. That number has more than doubled, she said.
“It shows that these girls are more prepared coming out,” she said. “That’s the biggest thing is they’re more prepared for the big stages and to handle the pressure of it, which is a great thing. You don’t necessarily want to have to have the huge learning curve and all of that.”
“Whether we continue to see it, I don’t know. It’s just so hard to win now.”
The two stars of their respective sports gathered to talk about breaking barriers and empowering change in women’s sports.
JOHNS CREEK, Ga. – Stacy Lewis’ daughter Chesnee joined her on the flash area platform after her final interview of the day. She carried a golf ball with her – not mom’s – and took to kicking it like a soccer ball. Chesnee isn’t old enough to come out and watch mom play during tournaments, but she does like to join her at practice.
“She’ll pick up a club and she’ll miss the ball completely,” said Lewis, “but she’ll sit there and hold her finish. So you know she’s paying attention. She’s watching.”
Stacy Lewis has always asked why. Never one to settle for personal success alone, Lewis has always looked out for the best interests of the overall tour. Why do the women, for example, play for less money on lesser-known courses? Those questions kicked into an even higher gear after she gave birth to a girl.
“You know, it’s just everything I do now is for Chesnee,” said Lewis, “and I hope when she’s older, she sees what I did as far as just having her while I was still playing (to) keep pushing the bar.”
Everything Stacy Lewis does now is to make the tour and this world better for daughter Chesnee. Her voice, her drive and the big and little things she advocates for behind the scenes are monumentally important to this tour. Chesnee came to say hi in the flash area today! pic.twitter.com/PTx6HcQ5uS
Lewis, a former World No. 1 and KPMG ambassador, has been an integral part of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship from the start. On Wednesday, she joined Duke head coach Kara Lawson at the annual KPMG Women’s Leadership Summit to talk about breaking barriers and empowering change.
Lawson, a Former WNBA and Olympic Champion, became the first female nationwide TV analyst for an NBA game and the first female assistant coach in Boston Celtics history.
“I think a lot of times those types of milestones say more about the decision-makers than they do the person,” said Lawson, who noted that not one day did she wake up in Boston thinking she couldn’t accomplish a task or that players wouldn’t listen to her because she’s female.
“I can’t be convinced about the opposite.”
Lawson wants to see women in key positions of leadership across all sports, just like Lewis wants to see all women’s sports get more network coverage.
“I think our biggest barrier is TV,” said Lewis, “and it has to do with the viewership and the number of people watching … that ultimately is what’s going to drive the money in.”
Being on the same stage as Lawson – though virtually this year – was energizing for Lewis, who wanted to jump on the floor and play for the Blue Devil coach after listening to her speak. In many areas, the accomplished pair could relate.
Boston Celtics guard Carsen Edwards talks with former assistant coach Kara Lawson before the start of a game against the Brooklyn Nets at TD Garden. (Photo: David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports)
“It’s nice to hear the same struggles,” said Lewis, “but also the same kind of triumphs, too.”
Lawson said it’s important not to wait for someone else to recognize something that she already believes about herself. She knows what she has, what she brings, and in her mind, she’s already there.
“I don’t wait for people in my head,” she said. “That confidence has carried me a long way.”
Since the Leadership Summit began seven years ago, 20 percent of the women who participated have been promoted to the C-suite and 50 percent have been promoted.
“That’s one huge impact statement there,” said Paul Knopp, KPMG U.S. Chair and CEO. “We realize we play a small part in that, but these women continue to mentor and go to leadership development opportunities through this program. They network with the women every year that are at the summit.”
In 2019, two-thirds of LPGA events had some type of women’s leadership event convening onsite.
Condoleezza Rice, the 66th U.S. Secretary of State, followed Lawson and Lewis in Wednesday’s all-star lineup.
It’s important for Lewis to show Chesnee that women don’t have to choose between their career and raising a family. The two-time major winner was at the Masters doing an event when she first told former KPMG Chair and CEO Lynne Doughtie that she was pregnant. Lewis admits she was scared to tell her sponsors, wondering if they drop her.
Doughtie wrapped her up in a bear hug, and the next week Lewis found out that KPMG would pay out the entire year she was pregnant event if she didn’t compete in the minimum number of events that her contract stipulated.
“It was the biggest relief,” said Lewis, “just to know that they had my back.”
All but one of her sponsors did the same thing and Lewis was outspoken about the need for it to become standard practice for all female athletes.
“It’s just encouraging to see it across all sports, in business,” said Lewis, “things are changing.”
The PGA of American says the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship will have approximately 8,000 fans per day at Atlanta Athletic Club.
The PGA of American announced on Monday that the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship will have approximately 8,000 fans per day onsite June 22-27 at Atlanta Athletic Club in Johns Creek, Georgia.
“We are excited by the continued upward trajectory and vast potential of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship,” said PGA President Jim Richerson. “We’re thrilled to return this Major Championship to the South for the first time in over 40 years and to introduce the best women players in the world to Atlanta Athletic Club’s historic Highlands Course. This is a special golf course with plenty of championship tradition and we’re expecting it to provide the backdrop for a memorable competition in June.”
Face coverings will be required for all spectators, staff and volunteers, including those who have received the COVID-19 vaccine. Masks should be worn at all times – both indoors and outdoors.
Social distancing measures will also be in place and sanitizing stations will be available throughout the grounds.
Tickets for the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship are now available, with packages ranging from $20 for individual Tuesday and Wednesday practice rounds to $89 for a Championship Week ticket, good Tuesday through Sunday. Ticket prices are slated to increase the week of the championship. There are also a limited number of volunteer opportunities open.
