For Minjee Lee, who captured her second career major title with relative ease at the US Women’s Open on Sunday, that proved to be the case since the 26-year-old Australian’s winning moment wound up happening more than 24 hours earlier. Indeed, it came on Saturday afternoon, when a string of four straight birdies on Nos. 9 through 12 at Pine Needles, plus two bogeys from Mina Harigae, turned a tight leaderboard into a potential rout. At that point, Lee was 13-under and held a four-shot lead on Harigae.

As Sunday’s final round came to a close, the fourth-ranked player in the world was still at 13-under with a four-shot lead on Harigae. And her 271 total had set the all-time 72-hole scoring record for the longest continuously played championship in women’s golf.

Of course, nobody knew at the time that the swing in the middle of the third round would be decisive; there was so much golf left to play, which is why the winning moment is always identified in hindsight. And yet, on a dry, windy Sunday in Southern Pines, the course showed its teeth for the first time, and the field’s scoring average was more than two shots higher than it had been a day earlier. That reality more or less eliminated the chance of anyone coming out and catching the now eight-time LPGA champion.

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Only Lee herself, wearing a bright green shirt with the letters WAAC emblazoned on the front — ”Win At All Costs”, both a South Korean clothing company and a fitting mantra — could bring about a close finish, and the only she could do that was by falling into a late spiral akin to events of a year ago when Lexi Thompson blew a five-shot lead with eight holes to play.

That wasn’t happening. In fact, the collapse never felt remotely possible. In her Saturday night press conference, there was no talk of caution or prudence. “I’m just going to try and make as many birdies as I can,” Lee said, telegraphing an intention to remain aggressive despite the huge lead.

True to her word, she came out at the start of her final round championship-hot with two straight birdies — the first a tap-in after narrowly missing an eagle putt and the second a bomb from almost 40 feet away. That was the official signal to the field; there would be no caution at the top of the leaderboard.

Whether you believe the championship was truly over then, or whether it came as late as the 12th hole, when she made an eight-foot birdie putt to extend her lead to six shots, Lee only looked anything close to nervous on a shot or two on the front nine. And in those few moments, she made sure that bogey was the worst score she could make. Excellent eight-foot par saves at the ninth and 11th holes, followed by a 12-footer for par on 13 and an up-and-down from the sand on 14 only contributed to the sense of inevitability.

The only drama was whether she might tie or break another US Open scoring record of score in relation to par (16-under), and when she hit a massive 3-wood onto the green from 271 yards away on the par-5 15th, it seemed tangible. She made birdie there, but a bogey on 16 and a Scheffler-at-Augusta-National-esque three-putt on the 18th green meant she’d have to “settle” for the reward that received as much attention as any storyline all week: a $1.8 million first-place prize money payout from an eye-popping $10 million purse.

“Even with a three-shot lead I never felt comfortable today,” Lee said afterward, having fooled everybody watching all afternoon. “I felt like I still needed to play well. I still needed to hold my ground. That’s pretty much what I did. To start aggressively, I think it was the right move, and then after that I had quite a big shot lead, so I was able to just play my game to finish.”

For her troubles, Lee earned the largest single-tournament prize in the history of women’s golf. (Later this year, the winner of the LPGA’s CME Tour Championship will surpass that figure, with a $2 million top prize.)

Minjee Lee

That massive purse that the USGA handed out this week — after adding a presenting title sponsor in ProMedica in order to nearly double the previous year’s $5.5 million pot — also opened up a novel possibility. For the first time in the history of women’s golf, the second-place finisher would also make a million dollars … but only if there was a solo second.

Harigae, in the final group with Lee, started the day at 10-under, and dealt with severe nerves on the front nine. Despite the jitters, the 32-year-old journeywoman who had a mere $2,000 in her bank account as recently as the summer of 2020, grinded out par after par, dropping just a single shot by the turn. Another bogey on 11 brought her into a three-way tie for second with Lydia Ko and Hye-jin Choi at eight-under, and for a moment it appeared that she’d lose her million-dollar payday. But Ko faded, making bogey on three of her last four holes, while Choi followed a birdie on 16 with a bogey on the last to drop to seven under.

When Harigae got up-and-down from 100 yards at the par-5 15th for birdie, she only needed to play par golf to secure second place, and that’s what she did. “That was probably one of the top rounds where I was really nervous. But I think I handled it pretty well for this situation. I’m proud of myself,” she said. “I belong up there.”

As far as catching Lee, though, Harigae only had fleeting glimpses. “Kind of pockets here and there,” she said. “Obviously she got off to a very hot start. Maybe that bogey on that par-3, maybe it cracked open the door for me a little bit, but she was just super solid out there.”

(She and her caddie and fiancé, Travis Keiter, are serious collectors of Jordan sneakers, and Keiter wore red high-top Barcelonas on Sunday. When asked if being Harigae’s fiancé meant a higher or lower cut than normal, he said, “I hope it’s a higher cut this week.”)

Other storylines played out, too, on Sunday. In her first tournament back from a long hiatus after undergoing surgery for blood clots in her arm, Nelly Korda finished in a tie for eighth place at two-under.

“The first week back you have rust, right?” she said of her performance. “You don’t really expect much from your game. You don’t know where your game is at. Knowing that I can play on a really tough golf course at a major and even kind of be in contention is definitely a positive.”

Ingrid Lindblad, the LSU All-American by way of Sweden who made waves after a Thursday 65 while partnered with her childhood hero Annika Sorenstam, finished as the low amateur at one under following a tough final-round 76. Her total of 283 was tied for the second-lowest 72-hole score for an amateur in US Women’s Open history.

“Everyone is cheering you on,” Linblad said, of her favorite experience from the week. “Maybe not if you’re related to Minjee Lee who’s in the lead, but everyone is cheering for you. And the people out here have been amazing, like they’re screaming, ‘go Tigers’ and ‘go Ingrid’ and like, ‘great job this week’ and everything. It’s been really fun.”

Lee, who was born in the West Australia city of Perth, is one of just three Australian women to win a major since the turn of the century, along with Hannah Green (2019 KPMG Women’s PGA) and one of her childhood heroes, Karrie Webb (an eight-shot winner at Pine Needles in the 2001 U.S. Women’s Open as one of seven major titles). She is also the third Aussie to win a US Women’s Open, Jan Stephenson being the first back in 1983.

Lee is hopeful that this will spur growth in her home nation. “I think this will be huge for all the little girls and even the boys and the children watching,” said Lee, whose brother, Min Woo, is a winner on the DP World Tour. “I know there’s been a really big boom in [Western Australia]. The girls have been a lot more interested in playing, so hopefully they watch me on TV and I can be a good role model to them and they’ll start getting more involved.”

At her post-round press conference, she flashed a bright, engaging smile, but was otherwise as serene as when she held a three-shot lead on Saturday night, and as composed as she looked — but not felt — on the course Sunday. When it comes to competitive role models, Minjee Lee is about as good as it gets in women’s golf, and if her brilliance under pressure is any indication, there will be plenty more winning moments to come.

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The post Minjee Lee shoots a record-low score for a record-high payday and a much-deserved US Women’s Open title appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The World No. 2 Korda opted not to speak with the media following her second round, but on Thursday, following a 70, she said she has had strange feelings that come with being back.

“I like kind of felt sick how much adrenaline I was feeling,” she said, “and then calmed myself down and played pretty well.”

It was more of the same on Friday, when Korda started on No. 9 and made six straight pars before carding a birdie on 15, dropping a shot on the third, then finishing her round with a final birdie on 8, the odd closing hole for those who start on the back nine. On Thursday, she mentioned the intense heat and how she spent most of the day under the umbrella as the pace of play slowed to a crawl. Friday was cooler, and with the mercury below 90, she stayed within range of the leaders and kept the possibility of a weekend charge alive.

Korda’s last start came at the Drive On Championship in early February, and a gruelling odyssey that included surgery and an intense recuperation programme in California gradually restored her to health. Korda wears a compression sleeve on her left arm for the now and will return on the weekend hoping to add a second major trophy and eight LPGA title overall to her collection. Success, though, won’t be measured by hardware, but simply by finishing 72 holes … with the promise of more to come.

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The post After blood clot, Nelly Korda in US Women’s Open contention as Minjee Lee and Mina Harigae lead appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

But on a scorching Thursday at Pine Needles, 22-year-old Ingrid Lindblad — “Iggy” to her friends — posted a six-under 65, the lowest round by an amateur in Women’s Open history, to take the early opening-round lead and start the conversation again about whether another amateur could one day win the most coveted title in women’s professional golf.

Lindblad, a native of Halmstad, Sweden, is No. 2 on the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking and the reigning SEC champion from LSU. She got into this week’s field as a late alternate. When tee times for the first and second rounds were released on Monday, she couldn’t believe who she was paired with — in addition to former US Women’s Open winner So Yeon Ryu she would be playing with her hero Annika Sorenstam, a three-time winner of the championship competing again for the first time since 2008.

“When I saw that I’m playing with her I was like in shock,” said Lindblad, who ended the day in solo second, one stroke back of leader Mina Harigae. “I was like, this cannot be true. Then on the first tee box I get her scorecard, I’m like, ‘I have Annika’s scorecard in my hands.’”

Like a lot of young Swedish golfers, Lindblad has long been influenced by Sorenstam. In 2014, she first played in a Sorenstam-sponsored event. By 2019, at the Annika Invitational in St. Augustine, Florida, the two knew each other well enough that after Lindblad won the tournament and realised she didn’t have a ride to the airport in Orlando, Sorenstam gave her a lift.

“She can be quite bubbly,” Sorenstam joked on Thursday, after shooting three-over 74 in her return round, “so it was more listening than talking.”

Sorenstam went on to compliment Lindblad’s game, highlighting not just the impressive length, but also her touch around the greens. For Lindblad’s part, to have Sorenstam fist-pumping a few of her birdies was a surreal and rewarding experience. After an opening birdie, she made her first bogey on the par-5 10th hole, but after that stumble, Lindblad was nearly perfect, making six more birdies over the next 16 holes and punctuating her round with a final long putt for birdie on the eighth.

“I felt like the course would be a little bit more narrow,” she said. “I missed a few tee shots today that I thought would be a little bit more off, but then I get to the ball and I’m like, ‘oh, it’s fine’… I hit a few shots close to the pin, and then my putting was great.”

Lindblad has known Annika Sorenstam since 2014, but playing with her at the US Women’s Open was its own treat. Jared C. Tilton

Also helping Lindblad was the veteran she has as a caddie. Only Sophie Gustafson isn’t a veteran caddie but rather a veteran player who played in the three previous US Women’s Opens at Pine Needles in addition to eight European Solheim Cup teams. Gustafson, 48, caddied after ending her playing career and met Lindblad for the first time this week. The two were connected by the coach for the Swedish National Team after Lindblad got her late spot in the field.

If an amateur having success in the first round of the US Women’s Open sounds familiar, it’s because it happened only a year ago. With a 67 at Olympic Club, American teenager Megha Ganne shared the Day 1 lead. She eventually played in the final threesome on Sunday before finishing T-14.

Appearing before the media, her hair tied in a braid, Lindblad was excited and a little surprised at the attention. When the USGA official read off her name, a prelude to listing the accomplishments of her round, she said: “Yes!” as if answering a roll call. When a reporter asked if she wished she’d turned professional a few days ago, considering the massive $10 million purse, she laughed and stated her commitment to remaining in college “for another year or so.”

Lindblad arrives at Pine Needles on the heels of an incredible season at LSU in which she was a finalist for the Annika Award — of course — as the nation’s best female collegiate golfer. In a late season stretch, she won four of five tournaments, finished second at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, and punctuated the torrid stretch with a victory at the SEC Championship. At the NCAA Championship, she finished in a tie for third, five shots behind the World’s No. 1 amateur Rose Zhang.

Now, she’s off to a hot start in what would be not just the greatest accomplishment of her competitive life, but one of the most remarkable stories in women’s golf. Lindblad is a fan of jigsaw puzzles — “at least a thousand pieces,” she said — and using those terms, she’s perhaps solved the borders at Pine Needles, but has a lot of space to fill in starting on Friday. The pressure will be unique, and so will the competition, but even at the young age of 22, she’s a proven winner who seems to have the talent and pedigree to follow in the footsteps of … well, you know who.

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The post Amateur grabs first-round spotlight at US Women’s Open — meet Annika Sorenstam fan Ingrid Lindblad appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“Finally late yesterday Travis [Kreiter, her fiancé and caddie] just did one little thing and I was like, ‘Hey, this feels like last year again.’ … it was basically keeping the top of my putter grip more level. So he just put his hand on top of the grip as I stroked and it was a lot better.”

The change took immediate effect. Harigae has been relatively cold on the LPGA this season (and has never managed a top-10 finish in almost 50 major appearances), but on Thursday, she was scorching on the greens, making nine birdies and two bogeys to surpass Swedish amateur Ingrid Lindblad by a shot. If anything, her round could have been even better. She went out in 30 before making her first bogey on the par-5 10th, a hole that played relatively easy at the top of the leaderboard.

Have a DAY @minaharigae ?

She carded an opening-round 64 to tie the second-lowest score in #USWomensOpen history ? pic.twitter.com/w6Wab8QHmX

— U.S. Women's Open (USGA) (@uswomensopen) June 2, 2022

Harigae, 32, made the cut at Pine Needles as an amateur playing her first US Women’s Open in 2007, but although she doesn’t remember much about that week, she does feel a certain connection to the state itself.

“I’m really happy to be back here in North Carolina, obviously being a big [Michael] Jordan fan,” she said, “so just kind of like going off the Jordan vibes. Must be the shoes, right?”

It must, at least for Harigae — she and Kreiter collect Jordan shoes. She started two years ago, and today she describes the hobby as “kind of out of control”. She’s managed to buy 10 pair just in the last two months, but says that her total number pales in comparison to Kreiter’s collection.

In the Tar Heel State, you could do a lot worse than riding the aura of the greatest Tar Heel of them all, and Harigae will channel Jordan — along with anything else that helps — as she tries to turn this first-round lead into a major triumph.

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The post Mina Harigae seizes Day 1 US Women’s Open lead by making nine birdies at Southern Pines appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Kent Paisley
A diamond’s brilliance forms under the perfect combination of time, pressure and heat. The gem rises to the surface through volcanic eruptions and other natural phenomena, then becomes mined from the land.

In much the same way, Mina Harigae, 31 and winless on the LPGA Tour since first earning her card in 2010, was mined from the rough as a captain’s pick by Pat Hurst for the 2021 U.S. Solheim Cup team. When Harigae competes this week at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, she will be the first 30-plus-year-old rookie to play for Team USA in the biennial match since 39-year-old Nancy Scranton did so in 2000.

Harigae’s game crystallized to Solheim Cup status under the alchemy of the scorching Arizona heat and the relentless pressure of needing to play mini-tour events simply to earn enough money to cover her next month’s living expenses when the LPGA Tour’s 2020 season paused during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I don’t know if my mom would like me sharing this, but I’ll be honest,” Harigae said. “At one point, I had less than $2,000 in my bank account. That’s why I had to play the Cactus Tour.”

Indeed, being a veteran making her Solheim Cup debut is the happy ending to a tumultuous few years. How she got there, and the perseverance she showed, is what makes this diamond shine so brightly.

Hariage’s struggles began midway through the 2019 LPGA season. Mired in steak of seven straight missed cuts from July to September, the longest run without weekend golf of her career, the former amateur standout (she won the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links title in 2007) struggled to find answers as the chances of keeping her card were slipping away.

“We were essentially lost,” said Travis Kreiter, Harigae’s caddie and fiancé. “I didn’t know how to help her. She didn’t know what to do.”

After a missed cut at the Evian Championship, the fourth of the stretch, Harigae pondered her future. Should she look for other jobs? Should she try to become a teaching professional? Should she drive for Uber? How could she stay in golf?

Searching for guidance, she emailed her mom. As parents often do, her advice cut right to the heart of the issue.

“Her answer was great, I’ll never forget it,” Harigae explained. “Her answer was, ‘You are a professional golfer. You make money by playing golf. That’s what you’re going to do.’ ”

Harigae finally snapped the missed-cut streak with a T-48 at the Volunteers of America Classic in October, her final start of the 2019 season. She finished 109th on the money list, granting her conditional status for 2020. But Harigae wanted better, so she signed up for Q-Series at Pinehurst, the first time she had to try and earn a full card through qualifying in her career (she first joined the LPGA after winning the Futures Tour money title in 2009). It concluded shortly before her 30th birthday for her self-described “last shot” to better her status.

Harigae holding the trophy after winning the 2007 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links.

In preparation, Harigae overhauled almost her entire game in just over a month. “I knew I could be better,” she said. “And if I worked harder than I ever had and if it still didn’t work out after that, it wasn’t meant to be. I knew I still had something left in the tank.”

Harigae worked with her swing coach, Jeff Fisher, on a more neutral swing, grip and plane. (“My last, final swing change,” she joked. “It was either going to be all in or bust.”) Kreiter got her also to change her putting grip to the claw, allowing Harigae to get through the ball, as her double-jointed elbows prevented her hand from swinging outward enough with a conventional grip.

Additionally, Fisher pointed Harigae to mental performance coach Dawn Woodard for advice. Woodard encouraged Harigae to acknowledge how she felt on the course and stay present, rather than looking in the rearview mirror of the epoch of her amateur dominance.

“We all drive around in a car with a dashboard of various lights,” Woodward said. “And just because a light comes on, we don’t have to panic. It doesn’t always mean something negative. Sometimes it just means let’s get prepared. We just need to change our oil, or put air in our tires. If we ignore our warning system, our emotions and alarms, things will continue to get worse. Then you’ll have a real problem.”

The work showed itself immediately. On the first day of Q-Series, following her opening hole, Harigae told Kreiter she was nervous. It was the first time in her career she candidly mentioned her on-course nerves to her caddie.

She finished T-20, good enough to improve her status for 2020 despite daily stomach aches from the stress of trying to earn back her job. There was no time to celebrate with the overhaul of her game still ongoing. Instead of taking her usual five weeks off to reset from the year, Harigae took a three-day break before returning to implement her changes.

Harigae went to Superstition Mountain Golf & Country Club, her home course out in Phoenix. For upwards of seven hours a day, she grinded on her game. Kreiter even built a net in their garage, letting Harigae practice when she got home. Harigae sent videos of her swing to her fiancé to see if her adjustments looked better.

Harigae also played and worked out with other LPGA members at Superstition Mountain, including future Solheim Cup teammate Jennifer Kupcho and rival Carlota Ciganda. She soaked up advice from her peers, particularly from the Ciganda, who she’d known since they played against each other in the 2004 Junior Ryder Cup. The Spaniard helped Harigae learn to hit low-flying 40- to 50-yard spiny wedge shots.

NurPhoto
Harigae has had the support of her caddie/fiancé Travis Kreiter as she’s overhauled her game and become a top player again.

Harigae’s game was in the best shape of her career. The problem, though, was there was no place to play. When COVID hit that March, the LPGA shutdown for two-plus months. With it went the chance to earn back the money she’d invested in her game the previous winter that led to a dwindling back account.

Matt Brooks, the Director of Golf at Superstition Mountain who’s known Harigae for eight years, offered her and other LPGA members based at the course chances to be part of “Beat the Pro” days after the tour paused. It earned each participant a couple of hundred dollars.

“I knew she was probably struggling a little bit because she didn’t have the greatest year on the prior year on the LPGA Tour,” Brooks said. “I was not aware of how close she was to going broke at that point.”

Harigae returned the favor by helping Brooks build a putting green in his backyard as part of a COVID-19 passion project, never mentioning to him her financial worries.

Instead, her money concerns drove her to the decision to tee it up on the Cactus Tour in late May in nearby Mesa, Ariz. It was one of the few opportunities available to play professional golf due to the coronavirus shutdown. Moreover, it was her best chance to make money even with a four-figure tournament purse compared to the usual seven-figure purse on the LPGA.

“Those few months it was living paycheck to paycheck almost,” Harigae said.

Harigae went on a world-beating run of four victories in five starts from April to June. She set the tone with a Cactus Tour-record 24 under in her first start at Longbow Golf Club, where she won the AJGA’s Heather Farr Classic in 2006. It was her first professional win since the 2009 Falls Auto Group Classic on the Futures Tour.

The post Solheim Cup 2021: How this LPGA veteran went from broke to playing for Team USA appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.