By Kent Paisley
Leona Maguire explained a day earlier that she was leaning on her underdog status to possibly assist her in overcoming a three-stroke final-round deficit to one of the LPGA’s best players, Nelly Korda. It didn’t work. Korda followed a career-best 62 on Saturday with a final-round 67 to post a two-stroke victory over Maguire in the Meijer LPGA Classic on Sunday.

Korda’s 72-hole score of 25-under par 263 at Blythefield Country Club in Grand Rapids, Mich., was a tournament record, as was her 10-under 62 in the third round.

“[I] actually really enjoyed today,” Korda said following her fifth LPGA victory and second of the season. “Honestly, there has been times where on Sundays I really, like, haven’t enjoyed it, like the stress kind of ate me and I didn’t stay in the moment and enjoy playing golf on a Sunday in a final group.”

Apparently, Maguire was hoping for more of that. “All the pressure is on Nelly,” Maguire said Saturday. “Everybody expects Nelly to win tomorrow. She’s ranked whatever she is in the world, top five. Nobody expects me to do anything tomorrow. I’ve really got nothing to lose.”

Maguire, 22, played accordingly, shooting a bogey-free six-under-par 66, to finish solo second, the best performance of her professional career. Moreover, she birdied three straight holes, Nos. 2 through 4, early on the front nine to erase Korda’s lead.

“Leona’s a really good player,” Korda said. “She kept me on my toes all day.”

Korda, 22, chipped in for birdie on six to jump ahead of Maguire again, but the pair entered the back nine tied for the lead. Korda birdied the 10th and 11 holes to secure a lead she did not relinquish. She eagled the 14th hole and birdied the 15th, but still was unable to shake Maguire, who trailed by one entering the final hole.

On the par-5 18th, Korda outdrove Maguire by 50 yards soaring her final drive over the fairway bunker 50 yards ahead of Maguire, who spent 135 weeks No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. Maguire responded by hitting a 5-wood second onto the green, leaving her a makeable eagle putt from below the hole.

Korda then missed the green with her second and was left with an awkward uphill lie above the front left greenside bunker.

“Right as I hit it [her second on the 18th] I was like, ‘Oh, no,’” Korda said of the shot. “I didn’t have a good lie. Honestly, one foot was in the bunker and I had to grip down on the shaft.”

Still, she hit it to five feet and closed out the win by making her birdie putt after Maguire’s playoff-bid eagle putt sped past the high side of the hole. Korda’s final putt was her first to win an LPGA event and resulted in her 17th birdie of the weekend.

Maguire’s strong play is another step in the right direction towards her becoming the first Irishwoman to win on the LPGA.

“Nelly is a great player and one of the best players in the world for a reason,” Maguire said. “It was great to be able to test my game against her. I’m really starting to feel like I belong out here. Even though it’s still my rookie year, I’m feeling more and more comfortable every week.”

Korda’s victory also is a boost heading as she pursues the first major championship victory of her career in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship that begins Thursday at Atlanta Athletic Club.

“Every week is a little different, so hopefully I carry it into next week,” Korda said.

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By Kent Paisley
Brooke Henderson was flying higher than a flock of Canadian geese at the end of 2019. She had just set the record for the most LPGA wins (nine) by a Canadian in only five years on tour and polished off her fourth straight season with multiple victories. At 22, her career trajectory was as high as her 48-inch driver was long.

Like much of the rest of the world, however, the COVID-19 pandemic grounded Henderson’s flight. The 2020 season was the first winless one of her career (with the caveat that she played just 10 events). In a testament to her overall consistency, Henderson’s current stretch of 29 starts without a victory, dating from the 2019 Meijer LPGA Classic to the ANA Inspiration two weeks ago, is the longest of her career.

“I’m eager to be back in the winner’s circle,” Henderson said on Tuesday at the Lotte Championship, which begins Wednesday and ends Saturday. “It’s not really something that you can push too hard towards. You kind of have to get the breaks and you have to play really well and be smart. Hopefully it’s in the near future.”

Henderson has made recent changes to her game and approach hoping that future becomes a reality as soon as this week. She comes to Hawaii as the event’s two-time defending champion after wins in 2018 and 2019 (and with the 2020 edition canceled due to COVID).

MORE: Juli Inkster, age 60, set to attempt to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open at Olympic Club

Last year’s shortened season forced Henderson to change her practice during off weeks to emphasize competition. It was a difficult adjustment, as she prefers to play as much as she can. From 2016 to 2019, she averaged nearly 30 starts per season, racking up 154 in her career to date.

“You can practice every day, but if you’re not in competition mode you won’t play as well,” Henderson said. “So just trying to capture that is a big thing for us.”

She’s also changed her putting style multiple times already in 2021, going back and forth from using a left-hand low grip on putts inside 10 feet most recently at the ANA to a regular grip from that distance during practise rounds this week.

These adjustments are amounting to Henderson’s next attempt to take off. She’s finished in the top 10 in nearly half of her starts since her last win, 10 percent higher than her career average, including a playoff loss at the 2020 ANA. She has the opportunity to become the first Canadian to 10 victories, a significant milestone in her mind that would come in a significant event to her career. The 2019 Lotte Championship is where Henderson tied fellow countrywoman Sandra Post for the most in Canada’s history (at eight).

Even with it being played on a new course in 2021—Kapolei Golf Club—the good vibes of the event have Henderson believing that setting another record in the Aloha state is within her grasp.

“It was sad to see that streak end last year, but I’m definitely excited to get back to winning multiple times. I’m just really excited for the next win,” Henderson said. “To be in double digits is really meaningful and so hopefully [it] can happen soon.”

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By Keely Levins
So Yeon Ryu dominated to start to the 2017 season, but the same can’t be said about the beginning of her 2018 season. In 2017, South Korea’s Ryu, 27, finished in the top 10 nine times in her first 11 events. In her first 11 events this year, she finished in the top 10 just twice.

But the direction of her season changed at the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give at Blythefield Country Club in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Sunday. The former world No. 1 shot rounds of 64-67-69-67 to win by two over Caroline Masson. Three shots back in third was another former world No. 1, Lydia Ko.

The win came at the right time for Ryu, who hasn’t been pleased with her season.

“If I look back on my season, I wasn’t really satisfied with it and I’ve been really, really struggling, I had a lot of crazy moments,” said Ryu. “I had some good rounds, I had some really bad rounds, so I couldn’t even really finish top-10 much compared to any other season. So all those reasons just drove me crazy.”

The win marks the sixth of Ryu’s career, which started on the LPGA in 2012. With the $300,000 winner’s check, she passes the $9 million in career earnings.

Winning at this point in the season is good for Ryu in more ways than just financially; it boosts her confidence heading into the season’s next major.

“I’m going to play the KPMG PGA Championship and that’s going to be our third major event,” says Ryu. “I haven’t played well at the major events this year yet, so hopefully this win going to give me extra confidence to focus on the major tournament.”

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Subsequent rounds of 76 and 68 (the third best on Sunday) left her tied for 42nd in her first start since the Evian Championship last September. It might not seem like much, but for Gulbis, it was more than a little satisfying.

Gulbis’ journey to simply playing four rounds again has been a sequence of surgery, followed by recovery, followed by surgery, recovery and surgery again. It turns out Tiger Woods isn’t the only player who struggles with a bad back. So debilitating was Gulbis’ problems she thought she was going to retire.

In a conversation with Golf World over the weekend, Gulbis explained her experience, beginning with her first back surgery occurred in 2008. It was a discectomy that attempted treat bulging discs. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very successful.

“I struggled with getting re-injured,” said Gulbis, whose lone career win came at the 2007 Evian. “I had to get cortisone shots. I was constantly in ice baths or getting physical therapy. I spent more time in physical therapy than practising.”

Gulbis wasn’t afraid to swing hard last week in L.A., where she made her first start since September 2017 and her first cut since 2015. (Harry How/Getty Images)

Gulbis played golf hurt, but it was more than that. Her quality of life was affected. Only in her 20s, she couldn’t walk up stairs without pain. She couldn’t sit in a car without her back hurting. A career as a competitive golfer no longer made sense. So she sat down with her coach, Butch Harmon, to come up with a plan on how to leave the LPGA on a good note.

But then Gulbis learned that Peter Jacobsen had had the same surgery, but his first had proven successful. Gulbis began contemplating having the procedure done a second time, weighing the options with her doctors and coach. There appeared little downside, with doctors telling her she had an 80-percent chance of success. She might not be able to play professional golf, but she should be able to live pain-free. So she decided to try it again, going Phoenix to have the procedure done at the Laser Spine Institute.

“I had the surgery, and I felt no pain two weeks later,” Gulbis said. “A month later I played on tour. Recovery was easy, we just moved forward from there.”

In the years following, Gulbis played full seasons, her best coming 2012, where she has three top-10 finishes, including a T-4 at the Evian.

Her results didn’t improve after that season, and a bad bunker shot in June 2017 brought the bad days back. Gulbis was playing in the ShopRite Classic and had an odd, one-foot-in-the-bunker, one-foot-out lie. The ball was buried. When she went to hit it, her back went out.

“I was stuck sideways,” Gulbis recalls. “I was bent to the left. I thought I was gonna be done. My back got better just from taking time off. But at the end of the year—I knew I’d have surgery after Evian, just for the quality of life.”

And so Gulbis had a third discectomy, one disc up from the one she had operated on previously. Another option for this type of surgery would be a spinal fusion, but Gulbis didn’t really consider it, thinking that athletes who move rotationally wouldn’t be able to come back and compete after that. Now, of course, she’s seen Tiger Woods’ recent play after spinal fusion.

“It’s been really inspiring to watch his success,” Gulbis said, “not just in how he’s played but how much he’s played. His speed and how far he’s hitting it, it’s made me look at how much golf I could play. He’s played events that have sidehills and rough and I wasn’t sure if I could play those. He’s been one of the best greatest success stories in back injuries.”

She and Woods haven’t spoken about their back surgeries, but she said she has a lot of questions and would like to see a scan of his back. When talking about other golfers who have dealt with bad backs, Gulbis also brings up Stacy Lewis as a success story.

Gulbis’ third discectomy, done in September, went well, but the recovery took a longer than anticipated. Gulbis had hoped to be back playing on tour in January but had to push her return back until the April event in L.A.

Gulbis intends to play a ‘mini-season’ in 2018, competing through the summer to keep her back as strong as she can. (Harry How/Getty Images)

“There’s a lot of things I can’t do,” Gulbis said. “I can’t practice as much. I’ve never seen a range ball I didn’t wanna hit, but now I have to have different discipline. My workouts are different. I have to be smarter. Everything I do has to have a purpose.”

Instead of playing a few events spread out over the season like she’s been doing, she and Harmon decided to organize her schedule as a “mini-season.” This was the first event, and in the coming weeks, she will continue to play consecutive events. After her impressive final round at Wilshire, there are a lot of positives Gulbis can take away from the first weekend of her mini-season. For one, her back doesn’t hurt. That opens her up to think seriously about her goals.

“Win a tournament, that’s my only goal,” Gulbis says. “I love to compete, that’s the only reason I do it. It’s my only motivation.”

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By Keely Levins

Canada’s Brooke Henderson claimed her first title of 2017, winning the Meijer LPGA Classic after shooting a Sunday 66. It was the fourth career win for the 19-year-old, who finished the tournament with a 17-under 263, two strokes better than Michelle Wie and Lexi Thompson, who finished in a tie for second at 15 under.

Henderson won twice in 2016 and one of those wins was a major: the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. But before this week’s stop in Grand Rapids, Mich., Henderson had only cracked the top five just once in 2017.

“It’s kind of been a litter bit tougher season for me,” Henderson said. “I haven’t got the results that I’ve been really looking for. But this week I played really well and things kind of started to turn around for me. So to get my fourth win is super exciting and I’m just excited for the rest of the summer now.”

The win, which came on Father’s Day, was special for Henderson, whose dad is also her swing coach.

Henderson is the 15th different winner on the LPGA this season. Thompson, who led going into the final round, would’ve been the first to win two events in 2017 if she’d won. No player was won more than one event so far this year, showing the extreme depth of field on the tour this year.

“You never know who’s going to win when you tee it up,” Thompson said, “so you just got to hope it’s you.”

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