Saso won the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open at The Olympic Club.
Yuka Saso might be the LPGA’s newest major champion, but that didn’t stop her from asking for an autograph at the Marathon LPGA Classic.
“I said, ‘Is this for you?’ ” asked Stacy Lewis, “and she kind of put her head down and said, ‘Yes.’ So I put her name on it and everything.”
Saso, the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open champion who is currently ranked No. 8 in the world, played alongside Lewis for the first two rounds in Toledo. The 20-year-old became a member of the LPGA after her triumph at The Olympic Club. Lewis raved not only about her talent, but her fun energy as well.
“I’m 16 years older than her,” said Lewis, “but if that’s what’s coming up, we’re in a great spot.”
Saso, who modeled her swing after golf idol Rory McIlroy, tied for fifth at the Marathon at 11 under after the event was reduced to 54 holes due to inclement weather. Nasa Hataoka won the event at 19 under.
The Filipino star is getting a crash course in all things LPGA.
“I was in the driving range and (tournament director) Judd Silverman came and welcomed me saying this is like one of the oldest tournament in LPGA,” said Saso after Saturday’s round.
“That day I just found out, so I was really happy and thankful that I was able to come here and able to play. You know, golf course is really in good shape, and the people here is so nice. They’re like cheering. There is a lot of people, too.”
Saso, like Hataoka, won’t be at the next major, however, as she has pulled out of the Amundi Evian Championship. Five of the top-15 players in the world have decided not to go to France, including Danille Kang, Lexi Thompson and Hannah Green.
Saso will compete next week in the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational with Minjee Lee as her partner.
At a Solheim Cup practice session earlier this week at Reynolds Lake Oconee, American players did everything but play golf.
At a Solheim Cup practice session earlier this week at Reynolds Lake Oconee, American players did everything but play golf. It was decided that Amy Olson is basically good at everything she tries. Jennifer Song and Brittany Altomare excel at archery. Jennifer Kupcho proved the best at distance darts. And Michelle Wie West convinced fellow assistant captain Angela Stanford to jump in the lake fully clothed.
“I think people think that you just show up that week and you gel as a team,” said Stanford. “That’s not how that works.”
Twelve players stayed on in Georgia for the team bonding session, organized by U.S. captain Pat Hurst, before heading on to this week’s Volunteers of America LPGA Texas Classic. Six of America’s top-ranked players chose not to attend.
With COVID-19 restrictions keeping players from having dinners with Hurst and potential teammates throughout the year, this was a rare chance for players to spend time together face-to-face outside the ropes.
“I think it’s really important,” said Salas, who looks to make her fifth Solheim Cup team.
“I think especially when the team dynamic starts shifting. As I used to be one of the newbies, now I’m sort of the veteran. And now we’re not seeing – it’s just the rotation is now starting – now it’s been almost 10 years.
“So I think it’s important not only to show your face, to show that you’re capable of being a team player, but to also get out of that uncomfortableness and be around your potential teammate. Because at the end of the day, that’s who you’re playing for. That’s who you’re grinding and fighting with for three days or for however many matches you’re playing.”
Stacy Lewis of Team USA putts during the second day morning foursomes matches of The Solheim Cup at Des Moines Golf and Country Club on August 19, 2017, in West Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
Americans have won six of 15 events on the LPGA this season, and Nelly Korda moved to No. 1 in the world after claiming her first major title at the KPMG Women’s PGA.
Stanford, 43, heads into this week as defending champion of the VOA, just down the road from where she was raised in Saginaw, Texas.
When asked about the importance of having over-40 players in contention on the LPGA, Stacy Lewis went beyond the winning to say that the example players like Stanford set, and the perspective she carries is vital for the tour, particularly in transition times like this.
Lewis noted that players left some bottles on the ground at the Oconee event, and Stanford picked up after them.
“It’s little stuff like that,” said Lewis, “of setting a good example for the younger players. At some point we’re going to hand the tour over to them, and they need to know how to do it like the older players taught us.”
As for big things, Lewis points to pro-ams, saying that watching the way older players interacted with sponsors made a lasting impression on her as a rookie.
“Pro-ams are huge for our tour,” she said. “You know, I think that’s something that some of the younger players don’t get.
“They see it as a hassle and it interferes with practice, but it’s the most important day of our week. So it’s little things like that of what sells our tour and what really makes it work. Sometimes it takes a downturn in our tour or the economy for the younger players to see that. So hopefully we can spread the word about just we have to make our tour better as a whole.”
Cheyenne Knight, who joins Stanford and Lewis as Texans who have won the VOA, first met Stanford more than a decade ago in Fort Worth. Knight said she was so shy that she didn’t even know what to say, but that the next time she out at Shady Oaks, Stanford had left her a pair of shoes from the 2009 Solheim Cup.
“It was so cool,” Knight said. “I think I still have them, honestly.”
Angela Stanford and Gerina Piller of the United States Team react after Stanford made a putt on the 16th hole during the afternoon Four-Ball matches at the 2013 Solheim Cup on August 16, 2013, at Colorado Golf Club in Parker, Colorado. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Lewis said she flew into Texas on Tuesday morning and played nine holes and her body hurt in places she hadn’t felt in years after Monday’s all-sports session.
The badminton, pickleball, fishing and shooting range, as Stanford said, laid the foundation for what comes next at the Inverness Club in September.
“There is so much that week,” said Stanford. “The last thing you want to do is try to figure out a teammate.
“I just think it matters more than people think it matters.”
***
The top seven players from the USA Solheim Cup standings automatically qualify, along with the top two players in the Role Rankings not already eligible plus three captain’s picks.
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.”
Stacy Lewis rallied to make the ANA Inspiration cut Friday at the Dinah Shore Course and then kept the momentum going on Saturday.
Stacy Lewis rallied to make the ANA Inspiration cut Friday when she shot 5-under 31 on the front nine at the Dinah Shore Course, her closing nine of the day. That allowed her to make the cut on the number of 1-over 145.
Lewis then opened her third round on the front nine and rolled out a 6-under 30, just the fourth nine-hole score of 30 in the history of the tournament.
That means Lewis had played her last 18 holes in 61. She added birdies on the 12th and 13th holes to reach 8-under for the day and had Lorena Ochoa’s course record of 62 in her sights.
But Lewis, who won the ANA Inspiration in 2011, triple-bogeyed the par 3 14th and finished with a 67.
“I don’t know. I hit a lot of fairways I think is the key, but just hit a lot of really good iron shots, and I really didn’t miss a golf shot until 14,” Lewis said. “So just hit it really solid and got the putter going late yesterday, so kind of found something there. But pretty crazy. I mean, you add those two nines I shoot 61, so pretty sweet.”
She is tied for 17th at 4-under heading into Sunday.
Gabriela Ruffels tees off on the 7th hole during the ANA Inspiration at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, April 1, 2021.
Ana Thursday 13
Ruffels using ‘home’ course edge
Gabriela Ruffels battled for low amateur at the 2020 ANA Inspiration, finishing second to Rose Zhang. Zhang played in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur this week, missing a playoff for the title by one shot, but Ruffels is back in the ANA Inspiration as a professional because of her 15th-place finish last September.
She credits some home connections for a good week. She is tied for 11th at 5-under entering Sunday.
“It’s really cool firstly staying at home, especially for a major,” said Ruffels, whose parents live at Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells. “I feel like you don’t get that that much, sleeping in your own bed and going home and seeing my dog. It just makes it that much more relaxing and comfortable.”
The desert connections mean Ruffels is not thrown off by desert conditions.
“I practice at Toscana Country Club and playing out here and playing in these conditions I don’t think it can hurt you,” she said. “So, yeah, definitely feeling more comfortable.”
Yani Tseng, a 15-time LPGA winner and former World No. 1, was once at the top of the game and an icon in her native Taiwan. What happened?
Yani Tseng has not won on the LPGA for 3,243 days. She hasn’t competed for 663 days.
Where in the world is Tseng and what happened to her?
The first question is easy to answer. She’s back in San Diego gearing up for her return to the LPGA at a place that couldn’t be more familiar. The 2021 Gainbridge LPGA at Lake Nona later this month gives 32-year-old Tseng a chance to ease back into competitive golf. In 2009, she bought Annika Sorenstam’s old house at Nona, with big plans on how to fill her enormous built-in trophy case.
Two years ago, Tseng sold that house and moved back to California, where her journey in America first began and where it’s an easy flight back to her aging father in Taiwan.
“I didn’t sell it for a good price though,” said Tseng, smiling behind her mask during a recent FaceTime call. She was at The Farms Golf Club in Rancho Sante Fe, her bag slung over her shoulder as she headed over to the practice area.
The second question – What happened to Yani? – takes more time to unpack.
At the end of 2012, Tseng finished the season No. 1 in the world. Five years later, she’d fallen to 102nd. At the end of 2018, she was 328th. She’s 919th going into the Gainbridge LPGA event.
“I was playing really good during practice rounds,” she said, “but once it got to the tournament like my mind, I was losing control of my mind, my swing, my body. I don’t trust as much.”
In the spring of 2019, Tseng suffered a back injury that sent pain shooting down her left leg. She opted to rest rather than have surgery and was set to return in 2020 at the Founders Cup in Phoenix, but the COVID-19 pandemic instead sent her back to Taiwan, where she remained until the start of this year.
Tseng, a 15-time winner on the LPGA who is four points shy of the LPGA Hall of Fame, wants to prove to herself and to everyone else that she can still do it again – play golf at the highest level. The powerful yet sensitive player tries not to worry so much about what others think, but it’s still there. Especially when she’s back in Taiwan, where it’s impossible to escape her celebrity status.
“People ask, ‘What’s going on Yani? Why, why, why,’ ” she said. “Sometimes I want to know why too.”
• • •
Two years ago, Tseng wished none of it had happened. That she’d never become the youngest player to win five majors. Never been World No. 1 for 109 consecutive weeks. That’d she’d never dominated a worldwide tour to the point that she couldn’t legally have a beer in her home country without it making the evening news.
“Now that I’m getting older,” she said, “people are telling me to drink more. Maybe they think I need to relax.”
Dips and plateaus are nothing new in golf. Few get to experience the gift of going out on top like Lorena Ochoa or Sorenstam. But Tseng’s downward motion wasn’t a dip. It was a dive so spectacularly awful that she can’t fully explain it.
“I don’t know how many times I cried,” she said, “how many times I cried on the course.”
The seeds of doubt first crept in ever-so-slightly. Tseng’s current instructor, Chris Mayson, said Yani tells a story of finishing fifth in a tournament in Asia, and fielding a “What happened?” question from a reporter. The next week she posted another top 10 and was met with “Why are you in a slump?” As crazy as it sounds, that sent Tseng searching for answers.
When she got to No. 1 in the world, Tseng thought she needed to spend 12 hours on the range pounding balls because, in her mind, that’s what a top-ranked player should do. It wasn’t how she got to No. 1, but that didn’t matter.
“I was looking at (what) I imagined World No. 1 should be,” she once said, “someone much better than I am.”
Stacy Lewis battled against Tseng in her prime and eventually replaced her as No. 1. You could play alongside a rhythmic talent like Inbee Park, said Lewis, and not even realize she’d shot 65.
“With Yani,” she said, “you got caught watching.”
Lewis never sought out a sports psychologist until she reached the top of the game. The unending scrutiny got to her.
“When you get to be No. 1 in the world,” said Lewis, “people just think they can say whatever they want to you. It’s a really tough place to be.”
Add in the element of being a country’s first No. 1, as was the case for Tseng, and the pressure boils as hot as a pot at her favorite shabu-shabu restaurant in downtown Taipei.
Tseng won 12 events worldwide in 2011, and that included an extraordinary victory at the LPGA’s first-ever event in Taiwan, where more people watched her in the first round than the galleries Tiger Woods brought in at the 1999 Johnnie Walker Classic.
Spectators snake up the fairway at No. 9 to watch Yani Tseng and her group during Saturday’s round of the inaugural 2011 Sunrise LPGA Taiwan Championship. Yani Tseng took the lead after the third round. (Golfweek photo)
At a downtown press conference in Taipei, the same security guards who looked after Lady Gaga whisked Tseng from one stop to the next. Fans climbed into trees to get a glimpse of the nation’s newest icon. LPGA player Sophie Gustafson climbed to the roof of the clubhouse to take a picture of Yani-mania. She’d never seen anything like it.
When a victorious Tseng walked off the 18th green on Sunday and into the arms of her 92-year-old grandmother, Cheng-chu Yang, 20,000-plus fans went nuts.
It was a good pressure at first, Tseng said. But looking back, she hadn’t a clue how to handle it.
“My family, nobody knows what’s going on,” she said. “The team in Taiwan, nobody knows. It’s the first time ever and we weren’t ready for it.”
LPGA commissioner Mike Whan said Yani led the league in smiles when she was No. 1. He compared going to Taiwan with Yani to heading to Boston with Tom Brady.
“She literally couldn’t get out of a car without someone taking a picture,” he said. “The press conference was like something out of a presidential election. It was crazy how many cameras were in one room.”
The crowd cheers for hometown hero, Yani Tseng, at the first tee prior to Thursday’s round. Thousands showed up to watch the action. (Golfweek photo)
• • •
Tseng’s first instructor, Tony Kao, told her to focus on one thing at age 10: Hit the ball as far as possible.
By age 12, she could work the ball both ways and carry it 240 yards off the tee.
When Tseng first joined the tour she worked with a kind, mild-mannered coach named Glen Daugherty. One time the 19-year-old rookie forgot to pay her electricity bill at her home in Beaumont, California, and couldn’t see well enough to pack. She asked Daugherty to bring the shirts she had shipped to his house down to Florida for the Ginn Open. There was so much to learn in those early days.
Back then, Tseng held back some of her power in favor of consistency. Daugherty once said that no one on the LPGA had the leg drive that Tseng possessed, but that she didn’t need all that natural strength to succeed on the LPGA.
Yani Tseng during a Golfweek photo shoot at Lake Nona in Orlando, Florida, a number of years ago.
Tseng has seen a number of instructors over the years, including Gary Gilchrist, Dave and Ron Stockton, Claude Harmon III and Kevin Smeltz.
In the spring of 2018, when she showed up to work with Mayson for the first time, she was swinging the club 109 mph and tee shots that were going maybe 50 feet in the air were by design.
“She was very, very fast with her backswing and got really long,” Mayson said. “To hit a fade, she was coming way over the top. I hate to say it was a 20-handicapper move, but it kind of was.”
There wasn’t one miss, Tseng said. The ball went everywhere. She started hitting those low bullets hoping to keep it in play.
“It got lower because when you’re scared to hit the ball,” she said, “you’re afraid to see the ball go too far.”
Together they turned around Tseng’s ball-striking, to the point that she felt like she was hitting the ball better than when she was on top of the world.
“She’s by far the best female ball-striker I’ve ever seen,” said Mayson.
But then something else went terribly wrong.
“Did I tell you I got the yips?” Tseng asked.
As Tseng started to find fairways and greens again, the pressure to make putts sent her into another tailspin.
“At the end,” she said, “it felt like I needed to hole my second shot.”
Yani Tseng reacts to missing her putt at No. 17 during the final round of the Kraft Nabisco Championship. (Golfweek photo)
She turned to Derek Uyeda, who works with several PGA Tour pros, including Phil Mickelson and Xander Schauffele, for help. Tseng started to draw a line on the ball, and placed her trust in that line. It’s 70 to 80 percent there now, she said.
Of course, nothing can truly be measured until she tests it in competition.
“I feel like my skills are better than before,” she said, “my ball-striking is better than before … just the mental not quite there yet.”
• • •
When Tseng took a medical exemption in 2019 and went home to Taiwan, she enrolled in a 10-day meditation retreat. No talking, no cell phones, no computers, no eye contact, no food after noon each day.
Tseng cried for the first five days.
“I finally let it go,” she said of the weight of the world and the internal demons that plagued her heart. She had sought the advice of so many over the years, looking for answers. In the quiet, remote dorm room, she was forced to look within.
“I don’t want to live my life so hard,” she said. “I’ve been so hard on myself.”
Tseng also did laundry every day, even though she brought a suitcase full of clothes. The player who pushed and pushed and pushed for so long, struggled to be still.
Tseng left the retreat with a peaceful mind. Her relationships with friends and family got so much better as a result that she went back a few months later.
In the fall of 2019, Tseng went out to the Taiwan Swinging Skirts LPGA event as a spectator and discovered something else.
“You know,” she said, “I still love this game.”
She even missed the pressure.
Yani Tseng is introduced to the media during an LPGA press conference near Taipei 101. (Golfweek photo)
Vision54 performance coach Lynn Marriott vividly recalls watching Tseng play a money game against good friend Suzann Pettersen during a practice round at an LPGA stop near Sacramento. There was a child-like quality to how she viewed competition. Of course, there were not yet any scars.
“It’s called competition, but pure play,” said Marriott, “she totally had it. It was unencumbered.”
When asked what advice she’d give to other phenoms, Tseng said just be yourself.
“I was playing golf for someone else,” she said. “I was trying to be a person that people wanted me to be instead of, this is just me.”
Of course, she continued, it didn’t help that she was trying to find out who she was at the same time. Trying to grow up as a human being while being revered as a superstar can, at times, feel like an impossible ask.
This time around, Tseng wants to take things slow. She’s lowering the personal expectations and trying to let go of all the embarrassment that’s plagued her inside the ropes in recent years. She doesn’t want to set her sights on No. 1 anymore, she just wants to feel comfortable on the course again.
Physically she’s better, but she knows it’s still a battlefield in her mind.
“I just want to get back to the real Yani,” she said.
Now, at least, she knows who that person really is.
Stacy Lewis wanted to improve her putting in 2021. She’s also hoping this year includes a Solheim Cup pick.
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida – Stacy Lewis packed her clubs away for the Christmas holiday but knew exactly where she wanted to pick up in 2021: putting.
Husband Gerrod Chadwell found the answer sitting in the garage.
“I was starting to hit it better,” said Lewis, “but just putting horrendously really.”
There’s an untold number of putters in the couple’s Houston garage but Chadwell went straight for a T.P. Mills design that she received eight years ago and never put to use.
“It’s more of a center-shafted, really different than what I’ve ever played,” said Lewis. “He’s like, just putt with it. You’re going to be able to see what you’re doing wrong and what you need to change. A lot of it was with setup, just the way I was set up, the way I was holding onto the putter.”
Lewis, 35, kept the “new” putter in the bag for Round 1 of the Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions and was pleased to find immediate results. The former No. 1 cruised to an opening 66 that included three straight birdies on Nos. 12-14 and 26 putts.
Lewis’ T.P. Mills putter (Golfweek photo)
On the par-3 14th, Lewis thought she might win the “Outback Steak for Life” prize after her finely struck 6-iron tracked toward the flagstick. Alas, the ball wound up 5 feet from the hole.
Big steak fan?
“Yeah, meat and potatoes let’s go,” said Lewis. “I was all in.”
The first time Lewis played in the TOC, daughter Chesnee was 3 months old. The goal ever since has been to get back to this event so they could take Chesnee to Disney World. Soon after she won the Ladies Scottish Open last August, Lewis told Chesnee that the trip was on. She decided to wait until after the event to take in the parks in case her back got too sore from carrying Chesnee around.
“I’m probably more excited, because she has no clue what it is yet,” said Lewis. “She loves Mickey and Minnie. She’s gotten into ‘Frozen.’ I just can’t wait to see it through her eyes.”
Of course, a victory this week would go a long way toward Lewis’ big goal for 2021: making the Solheim Cup team.
Lewis revealed that U.S. captain Pat Hurst talked to her about being an assistant captain in Toledo before she won in Scotland.
“She’s had to go back to the drawing board again,” said Lewis. Michelle Wie and Angela Stanford, who also won late last year, have already been named assistant captains.
While Lewis has called Texas home for quite some time, she was actually born in Toledo. The Solheim Cup would be a special week at historic Inverness for the hometown player, even if there might be fewer fans this year than normal due to COVID-19.
“All my family is there,” she said. “I mean, it’s No. 1 for me.”
The woman known as the “Smiling Cinderella” once again finds herself atop the board at a major, this time in her U.S. Women’s Open debut.
HOUSTON – Even with a mask on in her native Japan, Hinako Shibuno can’t go far without getting recognized. Her life quite literally changed overnight in the summer of 2019 when she won the AIG Women’s British Open while competing in her first LPGA major. It was, in fact, her first time playing anywhere outside of Japan, and she captured the hearts of British fans with her captivating smile and refreshingly quick pace-of-play.
“I turned from a normal person to a celebrity overnight,” said Shibuno, through an interpreter, of how life changed after that maiden victory.
The woman known as the “Smiling Cinderella” once again finds herself atop the board at a major, this time in her U.S. Women’s Open debut. The 22-year-old carded a 4-under 67 over the Jackrabbit Course at Champions Golf Club to move to 7-under 135 and take a three-shot lead over amateur Linn Grant of Sweden.
There are actually two amateurs in the top three in Texas, including Longhorn standout Kaitlyn Papp, who is among a trio at 3 under, four shots back. Papp birdied three of her last five holes take a share of third with Amy Olson and Megan Khang, two American LPGA vets still trying to win for the first time.
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While the board is peppered with names who’ve never hoisted a trophy at this level, three former No. 1s lurk five shots back: Cristie Kerr (69), Stacy Lewis (68) and Ariya Jutanugarn (70).
Lewis, of course, is a member at Champions and is sleeping in her own bed this week about 40 minutes away. The two-time major champion looks and sounds especially relaxed playing a hometown major.
“I just know how hard these golf courses play,” said Lewis of keeping her patience early on. “I know that you can’t make big numbers. That’s really what I’ve avoided so far this week is the big numbers.”
Going home at night to spend time with daughter Chesnee and husband Gerrod Chadwell also helps to take her mind off what’s at stake this week.
“I go home and I’m thinking about Christmas presents I need to buy for which people and what deliveries came today,” she said.
“It just has a different feel for me this year. Doesn’t necessarily feel like a U.S. Open.”
Kerr’s ascent up the board comes as surprise given how uncertain it looked at the start of the week that she would even play. A golf cart accident last Friday at the LPGA stop in Dallas left the 20-time winner battered and bruised. The 2007 USWO champ fought through to a 69 on Friday at Cypress Creek and sits in a prime position to contend for a third major.
The Jutanugarn sisters – Ariya and Moriya – find themselves in a share of sixth. The Thai stars missed an LPGA stop in Florida last month after testing positive for COVID-19. The Jutanugarns are two of seven sets of sisters to have competed in the same U.S. Women’s Open.
Ariya won the 2018 U.S. Women’s Open. No sister act has ever pulled off a double-win.
With the 2021 Olympics coming to Japan, a second major title for Shibuno would rocket her fame into another stratosphere. Because she didn’t take up LPGA membership last summer, she’s had to rely on sponsor exemptions to get into regular-season events this year. She missed the cut at the Women’s British and finished outside the top 50 in her other two major starts.
Earlier this year, Shibuno indicated that she had planned to go to LPGA Q-School this fall until it was canceled due to COVID-19. She decided that she wanted to compete in the U.S. after she competed alongside So Yeon Ryu and Nasa Hataoka at the Japan Women’s Open Championship last October.
“I realized that they were on totally different levels with me,” she said. “That incident made me want to go to the U.S. and compete in more high-level tournaments.”
A victory this week would give Shibuno another chance to take up membership.
When asked if she would join, she smiled and said, “By all means, yes.”
A total of 23 players broke par at Champions Golf Club, where the Open is being contested over two courses for the first time in history.
HOUSTON – Amy Olson faded an 8-iron into the par-3 16th at Cypress Creek, landing the ball two paces short of the flag to a tucked hole location on the right side of the green. She could see the ball trickle into the hole from 141 yards away. Olson, 28, threw her hands in the air and screamed, “Yes!” as she walked toward her caddie.
There was a slight cheer from the few folks on hand, but even aces are celebrated low-key style in the pandemic age. Still, it was a shot to remember for the Day 1 leader at the 75th U.S. Women’s Open. Olson topped the field of 156 at 4-under 67. Yu Jin Sung delivered the day’s second ace from 169 yards on the fourth hole at Cypress. She jumped up and down with glee.
A total of 23 players broke par on a sun-splashed Champions Golf Club, where the championship is being contested over two courses for the first time in history. The Cypress Creek course (74.590) played a full stroke harder than Jackrabbit (73.462) in the first round.
“I definitely allowed myself to celebrate there and enjoy the moment,” said Olson. “Honestly, pace of play was really slow out there today, so I had some time to kind of calm myself and come back to it.”
A trio of players trails Olson by one stroke, including 2019 AIG Women’s British Open winner Hinako Shibuno, Moriya Jutanugarn and A Lim Kim.
Amateur Linn Grant of Sweden is among those in a share of fifth at 2 under, along with 2020 AIG Women’s British Open winner Sophia Popov, Charley Hull, Gerina Piller and 19-year-old Yuka Saso of the Philippines.
Piller finished T-5 at last year’s U.S. Women’s Open but has struggled for much of the 2020 season. The Texas resident took time away from the tour in 2018 after giving birth to son A.J.
“After coming back from having the baby, I think my body, you may not see it physically, but I know it’s changed and my swing has changed, and it’s taken me a while to kind of get comfortable in that,” said Piller, who played the Jackrabbit course, “and I’m 35 years old, there’s no need to try to reinvent the wheel here.”
Champions founder Jack Burke Jr., the oldest living Masters champion, was on the first tee to watch Texas native Angela Stanford hit the opening tee shot on the Cypress Creek. Stanford won the LPGA stop in Dallas last week but struggled mightily on Thursday, making two double-bogeys in her first four holes. She opened with a 9-over 80.
Stacy Lewis, a Houston resident who grew up playing tournaments at Champions as a kid and is now a member, shot 1-over 72 at Cypress Creek.
“I know I’m not out of this thing by any means,” said the former No. 1, “but I do need to play a good round tomorrow.”
Lewis planned to grill hamburgers or steak at home with her family and try to get her daughter, Chesnee, to bed on time. She can’t get over the simplicity of playing a major at home.
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Olson is here on her own this week. Her husband, Grant, and parents plan to join her at next week’s CME Group Tour Championship. Grant is a linebackers coach at their alma mater, North Dakota State, where Olson won an NCAA record-tying 20 times. With football season being pushed to the spring, Grant wanted to get in a little hunting. If it weren’t for COVID-19 testing protocols, he would most likely have come on the weekend.
Being on top of the board at a USWO isn’t entirely new to Olson, who led a rain-delayed Round 1 at the 2011 championship at The Broadmoor when she was a junior in college. The 2009 U.S. Girls’ Junior champion said she had a carefree attitude back then and likely didn’t think much about it.
While she has contended in several majors in her time on tour, most notably finishing runner-up to Stanford at the 2018 Evian Championship. Olson admits that given how easy the wins came in her amateur career that expected to hoist a trophy early on in her LPGA career.
Lewis said Champions’ courses suit Olson in particular because her high ball-flight presents a distinct advantage. Past experience helps, too.
“It has been, I think, a test of my patience,” she said. “But the biggest thing I’ve learned is just perspective and what do I consider success, and at the end of my life it’s not going to be a number of tournaments that I’ve won, it’s how I live my life, so trying to maintain that perspective, I think, is really important for me.”
Lewis wonders how the nation’s fifth-largest metro area doesn’t have a consistent spot on the LPGA schedule.
Stacy Lewis is ecstatic about the opportunity to compete for a U.S. Women’s Open title in her own backyard.
She graduated from The Woodlands High School, which sits roughly 30 minutes from Champions Golf Club, the site of this week’s tournament. And she’s been a member at Champions, nestled in the northwest suburbs of Houston, for about four years.
In fact, the 13-time LPGA Tour winner and two-time major champ openly admitted that when she had yet to qualify for this event it weighed heavily on her, knowing full well the chances to play in front of friends are family are few and far between.
And while she’s eager to show off her skills and her town this week, she’s also wondering how the nation’s fifth-largest metro area doesn’t have a consistent spot on the LPGA schedule. Events have rolled through on occasion — like the short-lived LPGA Tour Championship, which was played at the Houstonian Golf & Country Club in 2009 — but the last regularly scheduled LPGA Tour event in Space City ceased to exist after 1986.
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Lewis is at a loss to explain how this has come to pass.
“Houston is one of the biggest cities in the world, and there’s so many companies that are headquartered here, and I kind of throw it out to them to say, ‘Hey, let’s get us here more often. Let’s have a tournament here every year, because there’s plenty of good golf courses that are able to do that’,” she said. “In general, we don’t play a lot in Texas. The Dallas event has only been here recently. Like I said before, just having the kids to be able to come and have role models and have aspirations, to want to be in this tournament one day, that’s what we’re missing this week.
“From that aspect, I think it’s kind of sad for the kids in the area. But hopefully, this will maybe spark an interest and get us coming back.”
Lewis understands the pandemic has thrown a wrench into many plans, but she still sees Houston as a viable long-term candidate for an LPGA event.
“I think the way things are going right now, who knows, with what companies want to do,” she said. “But you’ve got all these energy companies in this area, and I just make a pitch to anybody that is supporting women in their organization and in their company to want to come out and to see this and to see the best in the world.”
So she’s hopeful someone steps up. As was the case with the Vivint Houston Open, in which Astros owner Jim Crane helped take the municipal Memorial Park Golf Course and turn into a PGA Tour home, she’s hoping another community leader will take a similar chance on the LPGA.
“Maybe they can do something to help within the tournament to help their business, so it’s a win-win for both,” Lewis said. “It usually just takes one person believing in us and having the idea.”
Rookie week at the U.S. Women’s Open is impossible to forget, even for big-name players like Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb and Stacy Lewis.
As the 75th U.S. Women’s Open kicks off this week in Houston, 41 players will be experiencing the game’s ultimate test for the first time. Rookie week at this championship is impossible to forget – the nerve-wracking, awe-inspiring, did-that-just-happen moments are seared in the memory banks. Golfweek asked a number of LPGA players to share highlights from their U.S. Women’s Open debuts. It won’t be long now before names like Hinako Shibuno, Yealimi Noh and Bianca Pagdanganan have stories of their own.
Annika Sorenstam, 1992 Oakmont Country Club (T-63)
It was really rainy there. It was so wet that year. That’s when Patty Sheehan and Juli Inkster got in a playoff. The course was known for fast greens. They roll 12 and the members think it’s slow. The first day I only played four holes; I teed off at like 7:30 at night. The next morning, we were hitting balls warming up, and it was so lush. I was hitting wedges and my divots were huge, thick and heavy. Just mud. I remember just hitting one after another and these divots were flying, and I wasn’t really paying attention to where they were flying. My caddie said maybe you should aim somewhere else. I said why? Well, there’s a player over there giving you the evil eye. I looked over and it was Dottie (Pepper). It had landed on her head like several times, this wet divot. I was like oops.
Maybe not the entry I had planned.
Lydia Ko, 2012 Blackwolf Run (T-39, low amateur)
I know what it was like for my cousin. She fainted that week because it was so hot. And then the next day my aunt fainted. I think that was the first U.S. Open they came to and the last as well. It was obviously extremely tricky. It’s a golf course I’d seen from Se Ri’s win (in 1998) so it was super cool for me, especially being South Korean-born to go to a golf course where there’s so much history and where she really changed the game and women’s golf. It was cool to kind of see that and go oh, that shot she hit on 18. It is probably, even to this day, maybe the trickiest, or top two trickiest U.S. Women’s Opens I’ve ever played in. I was so nervous that I hit my driver and hit my second shot on the green and I couldn’t line up my putts. I use the line on my ball for putting and I just couldn’t do it. I tried a few times and I couldn’t … I remember putting without a line that first hole.
Amateur Lydia Ko hits her tee shot on the par-4 14th hole during the second round of the 2012 U.S. Women’s Open.
Morgan Pressel, 2001 Pine Needles (MC)
It’s funny, the things I remember are the rain delays, because it was a time that I was in the locker room with all of these people I had looked up to. It was the locker room, and then there was a little dining room. I never wanted to leave. I just wanted to sit there because it was an opportunity for me to talk and say hi to all these people I had only ever seen on TV.
"I got to sit in the locker room with players I had looked up to my whole career. My whole young life!"@LPGAGirlsGolf alum @mpressel, who made her U.S. Women's Open debut at age 12, knows exactly how inspirational #USWomensOpen players can be for the next generation. pic.twitter.com/zt03YdsaLL
I birdied my very first hole. I honestly don’t remember if I started on 10 or 1, but there was a bunker on the right side and we had talked about it with my caddie, that the bunker wasn’t really in play. I remember flying it past the bunker because of how excited I was. We had a good laugh after that, and then I hit it to 4 feet and made the putt. So I was like OK, first time out here. It was a cool birdie, and a great way to start a U.S. Open.
Stacy Lewis, 2007 Pine Needles (MC)
I was still in college. I had (former Arkansas coach) Kelley Hester caddying for me because she was going to Georgia that summer. I remember I played pretty terrible. It wasn’t the best first U.S. Open experience. I remember kind of being overwhelmed by the golf course. It was hard. I just remember not feeling prepared. It was unlike anything I’d ever played before.
As you do it more times, you kind of forget what that experience is like. You almost forget what it’s like to be that rookie or to be that amateur that’s playing for the first time.
I like seeing the girls here with their dads caddying because that’s what I’ve always had. You try to help them out, but they just need to experience that themselves. I was having a good summer too. I won nationals that year – won the Southern, the Western, semis at the North & South. I was playing well.
Stacy Lewis hits her drive from the seventh tee during the 2007 U.S. Women’s Open. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Getty Images)
Ally Ewing, 2014 Pinehurst (MC)
My first U.S. Open was Pinehurst. I had won the North & South there the previous summer so qualifying for that was so exciting to me. I’d played well there, and then I just got eaten alive. Pinehurst is just a really distinct golf course. I have never walked away from a golf tournament feeling like I had executed more shots then I was given credit for. So I walked away from Thursday/Friday saying, you know, I hit some really good shots that didn’t work out. It’s just an unforgiving golf course.
Angela Stanford, 2000 Merit Club (MC)
I played with Carol Semple Thompson. We had played on the Curtis Cup together that year. I remember standing on a tee and I swear she said this is my 27th in a row. (Editor’s note: Thompson, an amateur, did not play in 27 consecutive but she did compete in 32 U.S. Women’s Opens, her last coming in 2002.)
I remember thinking holy cow … how in the world did she do that? So this (year) is 21 (for me). Just looking back on that, I remember thinking I hope I get to play 10, and this will be my 21st in a row!
And I remember being terrified of Karrie Webb.
Karrie Webb, 1996 Pine Needles (T-19)
What I remember was that (my caddie) said the word patience so many times that I ended up like, I’m sick of hearing the word (bleeping) patience! But that’s my biggest memory. I had to learn how to play U.S. Open golf. You know, I’d play well up until then but had not come across a course as difficult. And I wasn’t used to making as many bogeys and working as hard for pars. And it is, it’s about patience. I think that’s still, for me, my biggest battle at any major is patience. I have, at times, been really good and then other weeks be a couple over early and start pressing and thinking about end scores and I know better than that. That’s just always going to be my Achilles’ heel at majors is patience.
Brittany Altomare, 2009 Saucon Valley (MC)
My dad caddied for me. My grandfather had actually just passed away when I had qualified, like a few weeks before. It was kind of like a special moment, playing in it. I didn’t know that you could call and make practice round times. You go and you register and look at the screens for practice rounds and Lorena had an opening in her group. My dad was like just do it! So literally my first U.S. Open and professional tournament I played a practice round with her. I was more nervous on Monday than I was teeing it up on Thursday. But she was like the nicest person ever. She was engaging with me and asking me questions. It could not have been a better experience.
Brittany Altomare tees off on the 15th hole during the second round of the 2009 U.S. Women’s Open. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
