“Easy,” Lewis said of making her picks. “And a lot of it I think is probably more the stats and more the preparation that we had done prior to this week. Because they don’t know this — I have really been set on them for quite a few weeks now.”

The decision tree was trimmed in part due to Jessica Korda’s injury — and pregnancy — that removed the three-time veteran from consideration, leaving the only potential choice being taken care of when Andrea Lee supplanted Lexi Thompson for the final points spot at last week’s Canadian Open.

Lewis has five rookies on the roster, with Knight joining Lee, Rose Zhang, Allisen Corpuz and Lilia Vu as the US try to stop Europe from three-peating for the first time amid a run of the Americans losing four of the last six Solheim Cups.

“These five, they are rookies, but they are so experienced, just as far as the amount of golf they have been able to play,” Lewis said. “Rose [Zhang] is the only true rookie, but she’s probably got [more] experience than a lot of us combined, in big events, that is. So not worried about the rookies at all to be honest, and I love having Lexi, Danielle [Kang], those that have been around and played a lot. We are going to rely on them quite a bit just for behind the scenes and leading the way there.”

With an inexperienced roster including only two players in Kang and Thompson that have won previous Cups, here’s everything you need to know about Lewis’ picks with three weeks remaining until the matches are held at Finca Cortesin in Andalucia, Spain.

Ally Ewing

Ally Ewing. Chloe Knott/R&A

This will be the third Solheim Cup for the 30-year-old, her debut coming in 2019 as an injury replacement for Lewis. The three-time LPGA winner, most recently at the 2022 Kroger Queen City Championship last September, has consistently been at the top of leaderboards this summer, with four top-11 finishes in her previous seven starts. Earlier this month she had a five-stroke 36-hole lead at the AIG Women’s Open before settling for a T-6 finish. Ewing’s Solheim record is 2-5-1.

Cheyenne Knight

The fifth rookie for Lewis’ squad, Knight got her second LPGA victory in the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational in July, a two-person team event. The 26-year-old has multiple ties to Lewis, both growing up in The Woodlands, Texas, as well as Knight winning the 2012 KPMG Stacy Lewis Junior Girls Open as an amateur. Knight finished 11th on U.S. points list. She is 12th this season in driving accuracy (80.5 percent)—one of four U.S. team members hitting over 80 percent of fairways, alongside Corpuz (82.5 percent), Lee (81.6 percent) and Khang (80.6 percent.)

Angel Yin

Angel Yin. Stacy Revere

Yin, like Ewing, also has played in two previous Solheim Cups (2017 and 2019). She surged onto the Solheim radar with a playoff loss at the Chevron Championship in April. She is the only golfer on the U.S. team without an LPGA victory, but has been a consistent player in the 2023 campaign, posting nine top-30s over 13 starts this year. Yin’s career Solheim record is 3-2-1.

US Solheim Cup Full Roster
Lilia Vu
Nelly Korda
Allisen Corpuz
Megan Khang
Jennifer Kupcho
Danielle Kang
Andrea Lee
Lexi Thompson
Rose Zhang
Ally Ewing
Cheyenne Knight
Angel Yin

The post Ewing, Knight and Yin are in as Stacy Lewis completes her US Solheim Cup line-up appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The 26-year-old shot an opening five-under 66 to sit three behind first-round leader Ayaka Furue of Japan at Evian Resort Golf Club in France on Thursday.

Canadian Brooke Henderson and Nelly Korda of the United States are tied for second, while fellow American Cheyenne Knight lies in solo fourth.

Hull feels refreshed after three weeks spent at home “chilling”.

“It’s the English summer at the moment and a heatwave, so I would have missed out if I hadn’t taken a break,” said the Rolex Rankings No. 38. “I went for a lot of walks to get in my 15,000 steps per day and also had some enjoyable time in pub gardens.”

Hull started at the 10th and birdied the par-3 14th, the par-4 17th and the par-5 18th, before picking up three further shots at the par-3 second, the par-4 third and the par-4 sixth hole.

She said: “I played pretty solid all day, but it’s a Major and there are three more rounds, so anything can happen.”

This is her ninth appearance in the championship and she feels that she has the experience to navigate the sloping fairways and undulating greens.

“This course can be tricky to score around, but after eight or nine years you start to figure it out. I don’t really think too much, because the course where I grew up, Kettering Golf Club, is pretty much as slopey as this on the fairways, so I’m lucky I don’t have to think too much about adjusting, I’ve always automatically adjusted (to playing side hill lies).”

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The post Charley Hull on the charge at Amundi Evian Championship as Ayaka Furue leads Nelly Korda in France appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Keely Levins
It took a while for Stacy Lewis to grab LPGA career win No. 13. Nearly three years to be precise. A lot has happened to the 35-year-old former World No. 1 between her victory at the 2017 Cambia Portland Classic and her triumph Sunday at the Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Scottish Open. Most notably, she and her husband, University of Houston women’s golf coach Gerrod Chadwell, welcomed their first child, Chesnee, in 2018.

“It’s amazing,” Lewis said of winning for the first time as a mom. “The only disappointing thing is that she’s not here to take a picture with this [the trophy], but I have been trying to get a trophy from the day she was born. That’s been my goal. I just called them, got to FaceTime with them. My husband said she was hitting the TV screen with her plastic golf clubs when I made that putt. So it’s just pretty cool. I can’t wait to get home with them in a week or so and celebrate.”

Lewis shot a one-over 72 in the final round for a five-under 279 total at Renaissance Club in North Berwick, Scotland. She then made 23-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole to claim the title over Azahara Munoz, Cheyenne Knight and Emily Pedersen, who all made pars. The win came with its own milestone: The $225,000 first-place prize puts Lewis’ career earnings over $13 million, making her just the eighth player in LPGA history to reach the mark.

Heading into Sunday, Lewis was nervous about what lay ahead. Pace of play from her group on Saturday, which included Munoz and Jennifer Song, was troublesome for Lewis, who was worried that it would mess with her rhythm. And yet she was paired with both again on Sunday.

“Honestly,” Lewis said after her third round, sitting one shot back of Munoz in second place, “my biggest challenge is to figure out with that pace of play how I can get into a good rhythm and how to keep myself in a rhythm of playing golf and not feeling like you’re waiting so long in between holes and shots and different things.”

Lewis’ worries proved warranted as pace of play was an issue again in the fourth round (it took the group five hours and 16 minutes to complete 18 holes). They were put on the clock on the 11th hole, where Lewis made double bogey, her only double of the tournament, that erased a lead created by two early birdies in the round.

However, Lewis focused on what she could control and was able to regain her rhythm, playing the last seven holes even par.

To deal with the situation, she made a promise with herself to not bring it up with her caddie. By not talking about it, she hoped she wouldn’t think about it as much.

“I stayed more in a rhythm of my game and kind of the way I was thinking about shots,” Lewis said. “I knew that was going to be the biggest challenge of the day, and overall, I felt like I did a really good job with it.”

Mark Runnacles
After nearly three years since her last LPGA title, Lewis had plenty to smile about on Sunday.

While excited about her victory (her first in a playoff after going 0-3 previously), Lewis is thinking about more than her own game when she verbalizes her concerns about slow play. She’s trying to help the tour overall. “I do think an effort needs to be made across the board to play faster, because obviously I wasn’t watching it on TV, but I’m sure it couldn’t have been fun to watch on TV,” Lewis said.

It was fun, however, for Lewis to be a winner again. Since returning to the tour in 2019 after having Chesnee, Lewis has struggled to find the game that helped her claim two major titles. She played 19 times last season, coming away with three top-10 finishes but missing eight cuts and falling to No. 96 in the Rolex Rankings.

But what she showed in Scotland hints that there’s more left in Lewis, who no doubt hopes career win No. 14 will come a tad bit quicker than No. 13.

The post Stacy Lewis grabs first title in nearly three years, winning four-woman playoff at the Ladies Scottish Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Keely Levins
Entering this week’s Volunteers of America Classic, LPGA rookie Cheyenne Knight knew she was in jeopardy of losing her tour card. The former University of Alabama All-American was 114th on the money list and needed a top-five finish in this, the final full-field tournament of the LPGA season, to get inside the top 100 and avoid a return to the LPGA Q-Series. That’s a big ask for any LPGA player, particularly a 22-year-old who had missed nine cuts in 2019 and whose best finish of the season was a T-29.

But Knight did the unlikely at Old American Golf Club in The Colony, Texas. With a closing 66, after earlier rounds of 66-67-67, Knight wound of the winner by two strokes over Jaye Marie Green and Brittany Altomare.

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Though the final result sounds like a somewhat comfortable victory, Sunday’s play was closer than that would lead on. The leader board had been tight throughout the tournament, and the back nine in steamy Texas was no different. Knight, Altomare and Green separated themselves from the rest of the field, but weren’t able to separate themselves from one another until the final hole.

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While Knight was on the 16th hole, Altomare, playing in the group ahead, birdied the 17th to take a share of the lead at 17 under. Knight made her par on 16, and on the short par-5 17th, matched Altomare with a birdie of her own to retake the outright lead. All the while, Green hovered two shots back.

Walking to the 18th tee, Knight’s concerns about keeping her card had been overtaken by thoughts of whether she could hold on for her maiden win. Finishing in the top five was as good as guaranteed; now she needed to focus on how to finish off the victory.

Knight hit the fairway and caught a break when Altomare up ahead made bogey, her approach going through the green and her notoriously hot putter failing to help her convert a must-have up and down. Once Knight hit the green with her approach (albeit more than 30 below the hole), and Green missed the putting surface, she could relax—slightly. A nice lag and quick two-footer later, the native of Aledo, Texas, was crying as friends sprayed her with champagne and her parents rushed on the green to hug her. Surprisingly, she had just become the first Alabama player to win an LPGA title.

“I’ve always dreamt of a putt to win an LPGA event. I said when I got my card that this was the event I was most looking forward to and who would have thought this helped me like secure my card,” said Knight, who’d played in this event, a little more than an hour from where she grew up, as an amateur in 2016. “It’s just been such a good learning experience because I thought I was planning on going back to Q-School and with this win, it just means everything knowing that I can persevere and knowing that I’m strong enough to do anything.”

Chuck Burton

Knight finished with a 33 on the back nine. That’s a number that holds great significance to her, as it was the one her late brother Brandon, wore as a high school football player. Brandon was killed in a car accident in 2008 when Cheyenne was 12, when his vehicle was struck by a drunk driver.

“I think I had a second caddie out there, and I know he’s watching in heaven, just so proud of me,” Knight said.

The post Cheyenne Knight closes out emotional first LPGA victory on home turf in Texas appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.