By Kent Paisley
LOS ANGELES — The sun was shining brightly for the first time all week at the Hugel-Air Premia LA Open shortly before the final group teed off Saturday afternoon. The clouds then rolled in as Jessica Korda, Jin Young Ko and Brooke Henderson emerged on the tee to open the curtains and dim the lights at Wilshire Country Club.

Henderson dominated the stage with her latest career blockbuster. She shot four-under-par 67 to finish at a tournament-record 16 under and beat Jessica Korda (72) by one shot. At 23, the Canadian reached a milestone in winning her 10th career LPGA title.

“To get my ninth win was such a big deal in Canada [in 2019], and since then I been just trying to chase that 10th one,” Henderson said. “To get it here, it’s just … I’m just so happy and it’s hard to believe.”

Henderson started the day four strokes behind Korda and doubled the largest previous comeback of her career, when she was two behind Lydia Ko in the 2016 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and won in a playoff for her lone major title.

On Saturday, Henderson made six birdies, including a run of three in four holes from Nos. 11-14. She took her first lead of the tournament with a birdie at 11, and her chip-in birdie at the uphill par-3 12th gave her a two-shot advantage.

It was a discouraging result for Korda, who made only two birdies on the day, including one at 18, and was baffled by the wind after posting previous rounds of 64-65-68.

“Really frustrating, really couldn’t get anything going,” said Korda, who won the season-opening Tournament of Champions and hadn’t missed a cut in 2021. “I was hitting it really good and then it wasn’t happening for me for some reason.

“The wind kept dropping and then coming back up. … I couldn’t make anything happen today. I tried. I tried to force a couple of birdies. I had a great little 8-iron into the par-5 15 and [it] takes the biggest bounce I’ve ever seen and goes over the green.” (She made par.)

Henderson, whose last win came in June 2019 at the Meijer LPGA Classic, preached patience and needing breaks to return to the winner’s circle before last week’s Lotte Championship, where she tied for 27th while trying to win the event for a third straight time. The 30 starts without a win were the longest streak of her career.

“I think probably the biggest break was 12, that chip-in,” Henderson said. “Those breaks can be really small or they can be really big. Today I had tons of opportunity where the people I was playing with showed me the line on putts. They were always just a little bit behind me, so I always had a read on every green. That just only happens when it’s meant to be.

“I felt like I was playing really great golf,” she said of her winless streak. “It just wasn’t my time. God has a plan for everything, and just really happy.”

The ninth tee at Wilshire happens to be next to the Canadian consulate. It hoists an enormous Canadian flag that’s visible on the southeastern part of the course. It provided a level of enjoyment to Henderson throughout the tournament.

“The Canadian flag, yeah, that was pretty cool,” Henderson said. “It’s a little piece of Canada right here in L.A.”

She’s got her own place in L.A. history now.

The post At 23, Brooke Henderson reaches impressive milestone with win No. 10 appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Kent Paisley
The Hollywood sign looms large over Wilshire Country Club, where the LPGA’s Hugel-Air Premia LA Open begins on Wednesday. It’s apropos of the drama that could be playing out this week and throughout the spring and summer on the LPGA Tour.

Since July 2019, Jin Young Ko has held the No. 1 spot on the Rolex Women’s Rankings, the stretch including 82 weeks of active play and eight weeks when the rankings were frozen during the COVID-19 hiatus. Yet her nearest rival, World No. 2 Inbee Park, has been steadily creeping closer to Ko on the points list in recent weeks. Park, who won her 22nd career LPGA title at the Kia Classic last month, trails Ko by an average of .67 points after opening the season 2.51 points behind. In addition to her Kia win, Park was T-7 at the ANA Inspiration and tied for runner-up last week at the Lotte Championship.

It isn’t just Park who is putting heat on Ko. Sei Young Kim and Nelly Korda, Nos. 3 and 4 in the latest Rolex Ranking, have both gotten off to solid starts in 2021. Kim also finished T-2 at the Lotte and T-3 at the ANA, and has posted top-25s in 17 of her last 19 starts dating back to October 2019.

“Yeah, definitely that’s my biggest goal, and I keep push myself,” said Kim, a 13-time tour winner, of becoming World No. 1. “Yeah, I wish I could reach what I goal this year.”

Korda, also T-2 last week, won earlier this year at the Gainbridge LPGA, was T-3 at ANA and T-10 at Kia. She’s the trying to become the first U.S. player to reach No. 1 since Stacy Lewis in 2014.

“It’s a cool accomplishment to be the highest-ranked American, but definitely my No. 1 goal as a professional golfer is to be the No. 1 golfer in the world,” Korda said early last year.

All three golfers will be competing this week in Los Angeles, the tournament that started in 2018 but was cancelled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic having 15 of the top 18 players in the world in the field.

Ko has been No. 1 in the Rolex Women’s Rankings since July 2019. Jed Jacobsohn

MORE: Lydia Ko ends winless drought with romp at Lotte Championship

While the race for No. 1 is tightening, it’s not as if Ko is making it easy for her rivals to continue their pursuit. The 25-year-old from South Korea has finished in the top seven in three of her four starts in 2021, with two solo fourth-place finishes at the Gainbridge LPGA and Kia Classic.

Ko did not return to the United States when the LPGA Tour initially resumed play last summer, competing on the KLPGA Tour until eventually making the trip from her home country in November. At that time, it was Kim who crept up on Ko’s lead at No. 1 by winning the KPMG Women’s PGA and the Pelican Women’s Championship in consecutive starts. But Ko responded with a runner-up at the U.S. Women’s Open and a victory at the CME Group Tour Championship. By taking the $1 million check in the season-ending tournament, Ko claimed the 2020 money title in four starts.

This week, Ko can lean on good vibes from her previous starts at Wilshire. She finished T-5 and T-2 in 2018 and 2019, respectively, hinting that the venue might be one where she can hold her own.

“I’m just trying to play my game, and focus on my game, not the other players,” Ko said on Tuesday. “Even Sei Young, or Inbee, or Nelly, or the other players, I don’t care really.”

Maybe she doesn’t, but those giving chase do. And they’re not likely to give up until they catch her.

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