By Tod Leonard
Look closely at the USGA logos surrounding The Olympic Club this week. The most prominent one is the trophy placed among the words, “76th U.S. Open,” with “The Olympic Club” in smaller type. Notice what’s missing? The word “women.”

Through their careers, those from the USGA will remind us, players such as Annika Sorenstam and Karrie Webb have not referred to their victories in the national championship as the “U.S. Women’s Open.” To them, they triumphed in the “U.S. Open,” plain and simple. They can take as much pride in that achievement as any male champion.

MORE: Think an amateur can’t win the Women’s Open? Rachel Heck might change your mind

And it is to that end that the USGA won’t apologize for or minimize how difficult the challenge will be this week on the Lake Course. There are murmurs on the grounds among players and caddies that because of the rough, dampness, wind gusts that could reach 20 mph and general ferociousness of the layout, any red number in a single round will be hard to come by. Some think the winning score could bring back comparisons to Jack Fleck’s 1955 U.S. Open upset of Ben Hogan at Olympic, when they both finished 72 holes at seven over par.

John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s senior director of championships, said on Wednesday morning that he heard such talk from a couple of caddies with whom he chatted during a USGA function on Tuesday night.

“These players are good!” Bodenhamer said. “They’re going to find a way to hit those fairways, they’re going to make putts, and you’re going to see players under par. You’re just gonna! I’ll say that now. I don’t know what it will be. But they’re damn good, and we want to showcase that. And it is hard, and when they do excel and they shoot under par on a hard place, I think it just showcases that side of what they do.”

Bodenhamer chuckled when adding, “We’re going to hear some grousing—I had to pitch out three times today; boy, that green was pretty darn fast; what was that hole location about?”

His response: This is the U.S. Open.

“We don’t want to dumb it down,” he said.

Of primary concern for the players is the primary rough, and the fact that the fairways run straight into it without an intermediate trim to soften the blow of missing the short grass by a couple of feet, or even inches. LPGA Tour veteran and major winner Angela Stanford called the rough “shocking” and said, “I told the USGA guys that somebody lost the key to the lawnmower. Holy cow.”

Rachel Heck, the NCAA women’s national champion from Stanford, said she got her first taste of The Olympic Club rough on Sunday—on her very first hole, the 528-yard par-5 No. 1. She recounted driving into the rough, trying a 5-iron that only advanced 40 yards into more rough, hitting her third shot across the fairway into—yes, more rough, and then she finally found the green.

“So that was good off the bat to see that,” she said.

Damp conditions and no first cut of rough will make the Olympic Club play more difficult for the U.S. Women’s Open. Robert Beck

The rough has since been evenly trimmed to 2¾ inches, which is what it will play for the championship, Bodenhamer said.

“The rough is penal,” he said. “But it’s U.S. Open rough. That’s what we want it to be.” He insisted that players could come close to reaching greens with mid-irons out of the rough. “Anybody can pitch out,” Bodenhamer said. “You’re going to see some birdies, but you’re going to see some double bogeys. The individuals who can minimize the double bogeys or three-putts are going to find success here.”

Bodenhamer said that the rough has been mitigated to some degree by fairways that are 10 to 20 percent wider than the men faced in the last U.S. Open contested at Olympic in 2012. Similar to the Women’s Open setups at Oakmont in 2010 and Pinehurst in 2014, the course will play significantly shorter. The listed yardage for the 2012 U.S. Open at Olympic was 7,170 yards. This week, the Lake’s tipped-out yardage is 6,457—or 713 yards shorter. (Seven of the 11 par 4s will play at less than 400 yards, with No. 7 playing at 263 and the 18th at 326.)

The USGA says this is the kind of storied venue and test the women have been clamouring for, and whatever the conditions, they have seen an excitement among the players this week that rivals any buildup they’ve experienced in 76 years.

“To see the players arrive on-site and immediately start to, through their [social media] channels, to be so genuinely thrilled to be at the Olympic Club with all of its history … that’s very tangible to us,” said Beth Major, the USGA’s senior director of communications who has worked at major championships for more than two decades. “That’s what we’re trying to accomplish, to give these players the greatest stage to showcase their talents.”

Paula Creamer, who won her only major in the 2010 U.S. Women’s Open at Oakmont, summed it all up in three words on Wednesday.

“Venue,” she said, “is everything.”

The post Under some fire for Olympic Club setup, USGA sticking by the test it plans for U.S. Women’s Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Tod Leonard
Jessica Korda was so distracted, so excited that she forgot just a couple of minor things as he rushed out of her Florida home for her trip to California for the U.S. Women’s Open. She could play maybe the hardest major of her life as if eyes were smeared with Vaseline peering through a Coke bottle, right?

“We were leaving the driveway, and I go, Oh, my God, I don’t have contacts,” Korda recalled on Tuesday at The Olympic Club.

She rushed back in to get them, and all is good, but it shows how a little family exuberance can get the best of anybody. On Saturday, the big sister watched her TV, enthralled, as 20-year-old Sebastian Korda won his first ATP title in the Emilia-Romagna Open in Parma, Italy.

“We were so excited to see him win,” Jessica, 28, said. “He’s been in the finals a couple times, he’s been close, and he just kept knocking on the door until it finally opened.”

The victory produced the Korda Triple for 2021 only five months into the year. In January, Jessica Korda captured the LPGA’s Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions. One month later, 22-year-old Nelly Korda won the Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Raton.

This week, in the U.S. Women’s Open, the Korda sisters are grouped together for the first time at the start of a major, though they seem mostly nonchalant about it.

“Our parents are so excited,” Jessica said. “They’re like, We don’t have to walk 36 holes. We can all come at the same time. Nelly and I are just, you know, it is what it is. We like playing together, so there’s no issue.”

Sebastian Korda plays a forehand in their mens singles first round match against Pedro Martinez in 2021 French Open. Adam Pretty

One subject on Tuesday was not Olympic Club, but the Olympics and the possibility that all three Kordas could represent America. Right now, at 50th in the world, Sebastian Korda is the third-highest ranked American men’s player and also is inside the top 56 who would qualify for the Olympics. Only the top four Americans can go, and Korda is in a good spot, with Tommy Paul at No. 52 and Tennys Sandgren at 66. In the first round of this week’s French Open, Korda lost to Pedro Martinez in straight sets.

In golf, there are a maximum of four golfers per country, and heading into this week, Nelly Korda is fourth in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, followed by Danielle Kang (6), Lexi Thompson (9) and Jessica Korda (11). That would be the team if it were decided today, but women’s qualifying doesn’t end until June 28. The closest American to Korda is Ally Ewing, who moved up to No. 15 with her win last week in the LPGA Match-Play.

“It would be really cool,” Jessica said of all three Kordas in the Olympics. “I think that’s something that’s so far in the future that I’m not necessarily looking at it just yet. I know that’s probably not the right thing to say, but we still have a lot of majors left, and girls are playing well, and I’m kind of teetering. If it happens, great. If not, honestly, I’ll be OK.”

The majors have been elusive to the Kordas, though as Nelly politely pointed out to a reporter, they do have one on the mantle—their father Petr’s triumph in the 1998 Australian Open in tennis. Jessica has played in 50 majors and has top-10 finishes in all of them, but has never won. Nelly has 24 major starts, with three top-3s, but no wins. That includes her playoff loss in the 2020 ANA, for which Sebastian stayed up all night cheering while competing in a tournament in Prague.

“It’s definitely a number one goal of ours to contend in majors and to eventually lift a trophy, but it’s all about preparation,” Nelly Korda said.

“It’s all about the mindset going into the week and not putting so much pressure on yourself, because I feel like when you put so much pressure on that one event, you kind of lose like the joy of actually being able to play an amazing golf course and just having fun.”

Has she changed her mindset with experience?

“I think every single time you tee it up in a major or you contend, you learn more about yourself and how to handle a situation differently,” Nelly said.

The post Beyond this week, there’s another Olympic dream for the Korda family appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Rachel Heck, who has just completed her first year at Stanford, has won five straight tournaments, including the NCAA individual championship a week ago. She set an NCAA single-season scoring record of 69.72 and won the Annika Award presented to the nation’s best female college golfer.

Heck’s next start will be this week’s U.S. Women’s Open at The Olympic Club outside San Francisco, where earlier this month she shot a 66 to win the U.S. Open Collegiate Invitational.

Dare we ask the question, then? Can an amateur—this amateur—win the U.S. Women’s Open? The answer, pun intended: Heck, if an old man can win the PGA Championship …

Heck, at 19, already is too mature and savvy to ramp up the pressure by making bold predictions or declarations, as a prominent former Cardinal golfer routinely did. “If I didn’t feel that I could win,” Woods, then 20 and still an amateur, said prior to the 1996 U.S. Open, “I wouldn’t come to a tournament. It is that simple.”

“Of course, I’m going to go into it trying to play the best that I can,” Heck said. “Obviously, I’m a huge fan of Tiger, but I’d say we’re pretty different in that respect.”

France’s Catherine LaCoste is the only amateur to win the U.S. Women’s Open in the championship’s 75-year history, taking the title in 1967.

And yet Heck’s knowledge of women’s golf and the amateurs that have come before her is certainly impressive as she approaches the question at hand.

“Can an amateur win the Open? Obviously, but the odds are super low. Hye-Jin Choi almost did it when I was 15 and played in the Open [in 2017]. But it’s not likely for any amateur to do it. All I know is that I’m going to go into it with the same perspective—to learn as much as I can, to embrace it and to enjoy the walk from the first tee to the last green.”

Only one amateur has ever won the U.S. Women’s Open, France’s Catherine Lacoste in 1967 at The Homestead. Another amateur, Jenny Chuasiriporn, took Se Ri Pak to a 18-hole playoff before losing in 1998, while Morgan Pressel and Brittany Lang tied for second behind winner Birdie Kim in 2005, and Choi finished second to Sung-Hyun Park four years ago.

MORE: The ‘ice cream girl’ Lucy Li is all grown up for this U.S. Women’s Open

Heck’s talent predominates, but infused with experience makes it a formidable combination that diminishes the wide eyes and intimidation factor an amateur might otherwise experience playing for a national championship. A native of Memphis, Tenn., Heck made the cut and tied for 33rd in the 2017 Women’s Open at Trump National in Bedminster, N.J. The following year, she made the cut in another LPGA major, the Evian Championship, and tied for 44th. In 2019, at 17, she played in the ANA Inspiration, though she missed the cut. This year, whe played in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and finished third, one shot out of a playoff.

“It’s helped so much, starting from the U.S. Open at 15, playing alongside my role models,” Heck said. “Rather than just seeing them on television is huge. I admired how they go about their business, how they practice, how they don’t get mad. It’s helped my mental game. To be the best player in the world you can’t have a bad attitude.”

Heck won six times in nine starts as a freshman at Stanford, including her final five tournaments, breaking the NCAA single-season scoring-average record in the process and earning the Annika Award as the top college player in 2020-21. Justin Tafoya

Heck has no time for a bad attitude, not in her multi-dimensional life that not only includes golf and Stanford classwork and their inherent time commitments, but also the fact that she joined the Air Force ROTC at school, taking a cue from boyfriend Sam Killebrew, a sophomore at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

“I became really interested in the military when I met my now boyfriend,” Heck said. “I wanted to incorporate it into my life any way I could. I’m super grateful [Stanford] coach [Anne] Walker let me try out. It’s something that has made me a better leader, a more competent person in general, and it has taught me discipline. These are definitely life skills that I want to learn. I have so much respect for everyone serving.”

Too few hours in a day and too few days in a week suggest that her golf should suffer, yet the numbers don’t lie. Heck is playing the best golf of her life, arguably the best in NCAA history. She won six of nine total starts during her freshman year, with only 16 players out of 609 she competed against beating her.

“I attribute it to not putting that pressure on myself, with ROTC, being in college, studying, starting my academic journey at Stanford. There’s so much more to me than golf,” she said. “When I’m on the course, I’m purely having fun. Of course, I want to play well, but it’s not the be-all end-all. In golf that’s huge to have that perspective. The mental part of golf is so important.

“When I used to be so focused on golf, I didn’t care about anything else. Twenty-four hours a day at the course and if I didn’t perform, well, I felt like a failure. So to have my eyes opened to so much more in life has helped me on the golf course so much. When golf is not the be-all end-all, it takes so much pressure off me. I have a thousand other things I want to do.”

Presumably, she is the only player in the U.S. Women’s Open field who has “joining the Air Force” on a to-do list that in all likelihood also includes “winning a U.S. Open” at some point.

So, posing the question again: Can an amateur—this amateur—win the U.S. Women’s Open, this Women’s Open? Probably not. But would it be prudent to bet against this extraordinary golfer about whom it might be said the sky’s the limit? Or, in Heck’s case, the wild blue yonder, her ceiling unknown?

The post Think an amateur can’t win the U.S. Women’s Open? Rachel Heck might change your mind appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Kent Paisley
Just days after adding her name to the field at this month’s Pure Silk Championship to resume her LPGA career after an 18-month hiatus, Paula Creamer has another tournament already lined up, this one a major.

On Monday, the USGA announced that it was giving Creamer, 34, a special exemption into the U.S. Women’s Open, to be played at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, June 3-6.

Creamer, who won the championship in 2010 at Oakmont, the biggest of her 10 LPGA titles, saw the 10-year exemption into the Women’s Open that came with that victory expire last year. With this year’s championship being held essentially in her old backyard—Creamer grew up 45 miles from San Francisco in Pleasanton, Calif.—and being unable to play in last year’s Open due to a nagging wrist injury, the special exemption was particularly meaningful to Creamer.

“Growing up in Northern California, one of my fondest golf memories is attending the 1998 U.S. Open at The Olympic Club with my father, which truly sparked my love for USGA championships and the complete test they present to the players,” Creamer said during a virtual press conference. In addition to her 2010 victory, Creamer has five top-10 and 11 top-20 finishes in 17 career U.S. Women’s Open appearances.

Creamer, who now lives in Florida, hasn’t play on the LPGA since the BMW Ladies Championship in October 2019 for two reasons, according to her agent. Given the COVID-19 pandemic, Creamer only left her Windemere home to take a few trips to see her family. Additionally, her doctors advised giving her surgically repaired left wrist additional time to heal.

In September 2017, Creamer underwent season-ending surgery on her left hand. She returned to action the following March, but continued to have trouble the next two years. After taking the lead during the first round at the 2019 Evian Championship, her play noticeably dwindled. She finished T-55 and missed every cut in her remaining starts that had a cut. It culminated with a WD at the Volunteers of America Classic after missing five cuts in a row. After two weeks off following her WD, she played two events, the Buick LPGA Shanghai and BMW Ladies Championship.

In 2020, Creamer was hoping to start playing again, with plans to return in April. Once the pandemic shut the LPGA Tour down, her medical team told her she had no reason to pick up a club. When the LPGA announced that status from 2019 would carry over into 2021, her team did not apply for a medical extension. She has category 11 status from finishing 91st on the official money list in 2019, guaranteeing her status for the entire 2021 season.

Creamer focused instead on rest, not touching a club until November 2020 where she tested it on a range.

“It was quite the sight. I can tell you I hit some golf shots that I just never thought I could do,” Creamer said. “I was very upset with myself for taking that much time off, as we always say. Two weeks is something, but when you take off seven, eight months that’s a whole ‘nother ballgame right there, but it was nice to be able to get the club in my hands.”

The break has granted a reprieve for Creamer. It’s the first time she has been pain-free in a long time. Her wrist feels healthier than it has since 2010, letting her feel comfortable practising all day if she felt like it.

Creamer reconnected with her old coach David Whelan in late 2020 to get ready for tournament play again. Creamer last worked with him in 2018. He coached Creamer when she was at the IMG Academy as a teenager in the 2000s.

Creamer recently tested out her game competitively after a couple of months of practice. She played two events on the National Women’s Golf Association in late March and late April. Her last start was April 20-21 at Hawks Landing Golf Club in Orlando, Florida, where she shot one over for the two day event.

She debated starting earlier in the 2021 season, but settled on Kingsmill, where she finished second in 2012, losing a playoff to Jiyai Shin on the ninth extra hole. Creamer anticipates playing full time from now on.

The post Paula Creamer gets special exemption into U.S. Women’s Open as she prepares to resume her playing career appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The 60-year-old has signed up to compete in a 36-hole qualifier at Half Moon Bay Golf Links, April 26, in hopes of advancing to the U.S. Women’s Open at The Olympic Club in June. The USGA confirmed Inkster’s entry, which was first reported by Golfweek. All entries for the championship close on April 14.

“I’m probably an idiot for trying, but I think I would be disappointed in myself if I didn’t because it’s so close to home,” Inkster told Golfweek.

Inkster grew up in Santa Cruz, Calif., and currently resides in Los Altos, about 35 miles away from The Olympic Club in San Francisco, which will host the championship June 3-6. Inkster has played the course numerous times, including in college at San Jose State University.

Juli Inkster celebrates en route to her 2002 U.S. Women’s Open victory, the second time she claimed the title. PAUL BUCK

The seven-time major champion played in the LPGA Tour’s Kia Classic last month, where she missed the cut. She is also in the field at next week’s Hugel-Air Premia L.A. Open, which concludes two days before the qualifier.

Danielle Kang played for Inkster on the 2017 and 2019 U.S. Solheim Cup teams and didn’t sound surprised that she would give qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Open a try.

“She’s feisty and a go-getter. Never quits. It’s not that she never quits, it’s just she’s got that fire and it’s never died down. I look at her and I think, ‘Did I ever do what she can do?’ “ Kang said on Tuesday during a press conference ahead of the LPGA’s Lotte Championship. “I love it when she competes. She’s done everything that everyone wants to do.”

A 31-time LPGA Tour winner, Inkster made her last start in a major championship at the 2019 ANA Inspiration, where she shared in the booth that it would be her final appearance at the Dinah Shore course.

Inkster finished 15th in her last U.S. Women’s Open start at Pinehurst No. 2 in 2014. If she gets through qualifying, it would be the sixth different decade in which she will have played the Women’s Open, her debut coming as an amateur in 1978 at the Country Club of Indianapolis.

The post Former U.S. Women’s Open winner Juli Inkster, 60, enters 36-hole qualifer for shot at playing Olympic Club appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Keely Levins
Suzy Whaley is used to “firsts.” In 2003, she was the first woman in 58 years to qualify and play in a PGA Tour event. Later this year, she will become the first female president of the PGA of America. And last week, she qualified to compete in the first U.S. Senior Women’s Open Championship after shooting a 73 in qualifying at The Olympic Club in San Francisco.

Whaley was one of three women to qualify out of the San Francisco location. The new USGA championship will be held July 12-15 at Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, Ill.

“It’s happening at this spectacular venue,” Whaley told Golf Digest. “It’s such an honour to be part of an inaugural anything. To be able to participate in this event means so much to us in the field.”

Whaley said she’s excited to compete against women she had faced earlier in her career and others whom she has idolized. With the creation of the championship, Whaley believes it serves as a moment to appreciate how far women’s golf has come and to show that women don’t have to stop competing just because they’ve become older. It taps into a larger mindset she has pursued as part of the PGA of America’s hierarchy.

“We want more women playing the game for a lifetime,” Whaley says. “I want all women who want to play golf to feel invited and to feel welcome.”

Whaley hopes the event can lead to more progress for the women’s game and that her participation can help fuel that.

“I’d like to see more women’s golf on network TV and the golf purses increase,” says Whaley, appreciative of KPMG helping accomplish this with the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. “I want to see these women showcased for their talent and skills and the role models that they are around the world. … Young girls can see themselves as elite athletes or as women in positions of authority. Golf has the opportunity to provide that empowerment and that opportunity.”

It’s Whaley’s day job to think about golf on this macro-level, who still instructs at her golf school in Cromwell, Conn. But in Chicago in July, she’ll have to hone in her focus and think about her own game. She says she plays whenever she gets the time, and competes for a bit in her local section. But playing in a major championship is a bigger task than what she has recently been competing in.

“The privilege of playing and the honour of being part of this field, I’ll cherish that regardless of performance. But I want to be playing on Sunday. Sure, I’ll be nervous,” Whaley says. “But I always tell my students if you’re not a little nervous, you don’t have a chance to play your best.

The post Suzy Whaley qualifies for first inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Ryan Herrington
The payoff is more than a decade away, but that didn’t dampen the excitement of PGA of America executives as they made official on Wednesday what had leaked out last week. The Olympic Club in San Francisco, a five-time venue for the U.S. Open, will host its first PGA Championship in 2028 and then be the site for the 2032 Ryder Cup.

“This is a special moment for our association,” said PGA of America president Paul Levy. “We’re excited to showcase The Olympic Club and its Lake Course, and combine them with many tastes, sights and sounds that make San Francisco and the Bay Area so distinct.”

Having its annual championship in California, affording a ratings-loving primetime finish on the East Coast, likely provides a financial boon for the PGA of America, which will have a similar set up when the 2020 PGA is played a mile away from Olympic Club at TPC Harding Park. However, the Ryder Cup hasn’t been played on the West Coast since Thunderbird Country Club held it in Rancho Mirage, Calif., in 1953. The anticipation of a primetime finish in golf’s most historic team event is something that will make the 15-year wait a little easier to handle.

The post PGA of America makes it official, awards 2028 PGA, 2032 Ryder Cup to The Olympic Club appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.