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The post How this LPGA powerhouse chooses what goes in the bag appeared first on Golf.

PXG staffer Auston Kim, who averages 290 yards per drive, is one of the LPGA’s longest hitters. And her power dictates a special fit. Recently, I had a chance to get some range time with Kim and PXG LPGA tour manager Scotty Kim and got a look into their process when it comes to getting clubs in her bag.

Here’s what I learned.

The bottom of the bag

Auston Kim started the bag with a 58-degree lob wedge, choosing to play PXG’s 3x Forged Sugar Daddy III wedges and opting for a lower bounce C-Grind offering in the lobber. She said she’s never used a 60-degree wedge because she prefers to chip with the 58 degree. At one point, she played just 52- and 56-degree wedges until a round with Hollis Stacey at a junior tournament.

“She looked at my wedges,” Kim said, “and said, ‘What are you doing?’ So she told me to go 50, 54, 58 and I’ve just stuck with it.” Wise advice.

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She continued the wedge set with a 54- and 50-degree S-Grind, also in the Sugar Daddy III wedges. I thought it was interesting that she chose the lower-bounce C-grind in the lobber, but Scotty Kim gave some insight.

“You know I think for her, with the shots that Auston hits around the green, the C-Grind provides some versatility for her,” he said. “Being able to open it up and still have the right bounce to get through the turf and not get stuck.”

Irons

Auston Kim had the PXG 0317ST irons, which are easily some of the nicest irons that PXG has ever made. It’s an iron that has stood the test of time over the years, and hasn’t been replaced yet by PXG, but we hear there may be something new coming soon. The 0317ST heads are what I would consider a “player’s blade.” It’s a narrow-sole option that’s meant to launch a little bit lower and spin a bit more while providing optimal control for the player.

Since Kim is a player who hits a cut shot and works the ball with plenty of spin, something like the ST provides her the feel, feedback and launch that she wants to feel in control of the ball. “I’m a stock cutter — I have to see the ball work left to right.” she said. She also talked about a recent iron switch that happened purely because Accra no longer makes her old Accra Tour 90 shafts. She’s now in the Accra TZi 95 iron shafts — it’s a fantastic graphite offering for stronger players looking for more of a ProjectX type of feel.

Long game

Kim really shines once you put some metal woods in her hands, and it starts with the hybrid, the hero of our story here. PXG has always made a really good hybrid. Even through a couple years of some iffy metal woods, the hybrids were always a good standout in the lineup. Kim, however, isn’t exactly the normal hybrid candidate. Hybrids are extremely popular on the LPGA, but a lot of that comes out of a need for speed and launch, not something that Kim concerns herself with. For her, it’s more about confidence.

“Personally, I think that I struggle with hitting the ball high sometimes,” she said. “I know I can get it up there, but the 4-iron just doesn’t look good to me. I’ve tried it a bunch before and I just — I believe that a hybrid has more versatility. I just like the look of this better.”

We had Kim hit a couple fun shots with her PXG Lightning 4-hybrid, and she hit the nail on the head when she talked about how versatile the club is. Hitting it through all windows is stress-free for Kim, and it gives her the confidence behind the ball that she needs to perform on course. With ball speeds reaching 143 mph, she gets plenty of distance out of the club as well. With her stock shot getting to about 80 feet in the air, I challenged her to hit the ball up to 100 feet and then hit it as low as possible. She hit one to 100.9 feet in the air and hit a low stinger to 21.4 feet. Versatility? Check.

She then followed up the Lightning 4-hybrid with a Lightning Tour 5W and Lighting Tour 3W before jumping to her Lighting Tour driver.

PXG Lightning Custom Hybrid

$329.00 from Fairway Jockey

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The big stick

Auston Kim and Scotty Kim worked together last fall when the new Lightning product came out and ended up fitting her into a Lightning Tour 9-degree Driver in the PXG FLAT setting with a Fujikura Ventus Velocore+ Black 5-S. Auston Kim works with plenty of spin, so using their Lightning Tour model helps to control her misses a bit better and makes sure that she’s not over-spinning her stock shot. The Ventus Velocore+ Black shaft helps keep up with her aggressive transition and helps stabilize the head through impact. It’s a setup she has a lot of trust in and has plenty of speed. Ranked fourth in driving distance on the LPGA doesn’t come easy, but clearly Scotty Kim has helped her build up a workhorse here.

“I already liked Black Ops a lot, and when I first tried the Lightning Tour that was — I mean I saw an immediate jump in ball speed and carry so it was a no-brainer,” Auston Kim said.

Looking to get fit for your own PXG clubs? Find a PXG fitting location near you.

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The post Michelle Wie West’s brief LPGA return adds 1 stop and comes with singular goal appeared first on Golf.

The post Michelle Wie West’s brief LPGA return adds 1 stop and comes with singular goal appeared first on Golf.

Michelle Wie West isn’t making a comeback, but her brief return to the LPGA just added a stop.

On Tuesday, Wie West announced that she will compete in next month’s Mizuho Americas Open in New Jersey — an event that she hosts — on a sponsor invitation. (Mountain Ridge is hosting the tournament for the next two years before it returns to Liberty National in 2028.) The 36-year-old Wie West said goodbye to competitive golf at the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach, but announced last month that she will be teeing it up at this year’s U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera Country Club. Wie West received a 10-year exemption into the event for winning the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open at Pinehurst No. 2. That exemption was extended two years for maternity leave.

So, Wie West is back, but for a limited time.

The five-time LPGA champion has been grinding at home in Las Vegas as she looks toward Riviera in June. She said the nerves of preparing to compete again are there, but she has just one goal in what will be a brief return to competition.

“For me personally, knowing that this is not, like, a comeback by any means, it’s not, like, a beginning of something else,” Wie West said on Tuesday at the media day for the 2026 Mizuho Americas Open. “Because I know it’s so finite, that I just really want to go out there and just two more times, play like how I know I can play, and how I feel like I can play.”

That last part is key.

Wie West battled injuries for much of her professional career, including injuries to both wrists that required surgery in 2007 and hand surgery in 2018. Those physical battles also took a mental toll, which Wie West discussed on Nike’s No Offseason podcast in 2022.

“I felt like when I started, mental health wasn’t really talked about,” Wie West said. “What was talked about was having a champion mindset, being strong, being a warrior. That included never breaking. That included never resting. That included laser-focus. So in my mind, seeing that, I felt like to be a champion golfer, I had to have that mindset. I had to have that mindset that never broke, never complained.”

As her career wound down, Wie began to acknowledge her injury struggles, a decision she found freeing.

“I remember not telling the media really honest answers about my injuries, kind of hiding it, just because I didn’t want to feel weak,” she said. “And later on in my career, when I was going through more injuries, just being honest about it. You know, being like, this hurts. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to play. It was kind of freeing because I felt like I didn’t have to put up a front during my hardest times.”

Since having her son, Jagger, Wie West has spent time rebuilding her body without needing to think about birdies and bogeys. That has been a gift as she prepares for this limited comeback.

“I can’t remember if there’s ever [been] a time in my life that I got to really focus on rebuilding my body without the aspect of golf,” Wie West said. “And I am kind of fortunate that it happened that way.”

At Pebble Beach, Wie West drained a 30-foot birdie putt on the final hole. It was an emotional goodbye, but one that Wie West was prepared for.

Now, as she readies to step back into the U.S. Women’s Open arena, the expected feelings have also returned — but Wie West welcomes them, especially now that she can share the entire experience with her daughter Makenna, who was just a baby when Wie West waved goodbye along the shores of Stillwater Cove.

“The anxiety definitely is there,” Wie West said. “But it’s like a good form of anxiety, right? Like I’m super excited to put myself in that position. Just being able to talk about it, honestly, very candidly with my daughter as well too has been really great.”

Michelle Wie West is ready to return to the arena. Her success will be gauged on a feeling, not a result. And then, Michelle Wie West plans to say goodbye one final time.

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The post Michelle Wie West announces U.S Women’s Open encore at Riviera appeared first on Golf.

The post Michelle Wie West announces U.S Women’s Open encore at Riviera appeared first on Golf.

Three years ago, at the U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach, Michelle Wie West rolled in a 30-foot birdie putt to cap off her competitive career. 

After her round that Friday along Stillwater Cove, she was asked if she might tee it up again someday down the line if her daughter Makenna asked to see her play. 

“You know, you never say never, but a very slim chance probably,” Wie West said that day at Pebble Beach. 

But three years later, it appears Michelle Wie West has one more tournament in her after all. 

On Tuesday, Wie West announced that she plans to play in the 2026 U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera Country Club on June 4-7. 

“With one final year of eligibility from my victory in 2014 and the Championship headed to an iconic venue that means so much to me, I am excited to announce that I’ll be teeing it up at the U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera in June!” Wie West wrote on Instagram.

Despite not playing a competitive tournament for three years, Wie West is eligible to tee it up at Riviera based on the 10-year exemption from her 2014 U.S. Women’s Open win at Pinehurst No. 2. Wie West’s timeline was extended for two years due to a maternity exemption. Wie West and her husband, Jonnie West, welcomed their son Jagger in October of 2024. 

At Pebble Beach in 2023, Wie West played her final two rounds with Annika Sorenstam, who was also saying goodbye to the tournament that week. 

Wie West had Jonnie on that bag that week, with Makenna in a stroller outside the ropes. She shot consecutive 79s but soaked in every moment of a special week that was supposed to close the book on her competitive career. 

“I’ve definitely held back tears the entire round,” Wie West said after her Friday at Pebble. It was fun. It was great to have my last round here at Pebble Beach.

“Nothing has changed and everything was changed all at once. It’s definitely a strange and surreal feeling right now.” 

That feeling sent her off into competitive retirement. She said she still loved golf and planned to play recreationally with her husband and family. But she believed her competitive career was over. She cracked the door open with an announcement that she plans to compete in the WTGL when it launches this fall. Now she’ll be returning to green-grass golf, too.

“Last year I had this in the back of my mind, and I don’t have another one of these in the back of my mind,” Wie West said. “It’s definitely a strange feeling.”

As it turns out, Michelle Wie West does have one more U.S. Women’s Open in her. She’ll have her U.S. Women’s Open encore at Riviera, and then she’ll say goodbye. 

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The post Nelly Korda’s winless 2025 was ‘weird.’ Things are different so far in 2026 appeared first on Golf.

The post Nelly Korda’s winless 2025 was ‘weird.’ Things are different so far in 2026 appeared first on Golf.

Four months ago, Nelly Korda stood in front of the assembled media in Naples, Fla., and tried to reflect on a frustrating season. A year after winning seven times, including a major, the LPGA’s biggest star didn’t lift a trophy.

On paper, things were similar. Korda finished the 2025 season with a better scoring average, better Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, better birdie or better percentage and better bogey avoidance numbers than in 2024. Her Strokes Gained: Approach numbers were almost even, and her putting ticked up. A few things were slightly down, but, for the most part, Nelly Korda looked like Nelly Korda.

“It’s honestly a fine line,” Korda said back in November at the CME Group Tour Championship. “It comes down to sometimes one shot. It’s like one putt lips out and you don’t get your momentum. It’s just such a fine line when it comes to golf.

“I don’t necessarily think that I’m a worse golfer or a better golfer. I would say that maybe last year few more things were going my way. That’s just kind of how golf is. I’ve never going to have a pity party and never going to be like, oh, why is it in this divot or why did I get that bad bounce. It’s just sports. That’s just how they are. Sometimes you get a wave of good bounces and good breaks and sometimes you don’t.”

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Golf is a fickle sport. A bad bounce there, a burned edge here or a poor strike there, and a winning moment can easily melt into a missed opportunity. Korda said the 2025 season was instructive, albeit disappointing. She leaned on her team and used it as a reminder that sometimes those around you have a better perspective on what’s going on than you do when you’re staring at something right in front of your face. In the sometimes isolating world of pro golf, having that support system can buoy you when the inevitable dips arrive.

Nelly Korda had few chances to win in 2025. Her late run at the Tournament of Champions came up short, and a regrettable swing ended her run at the U.S. Women’s Open. But, apart from those two instances, Nelly Korda’s exacting, overpowering style of golf that won her seven titles in 2024, made only short cameos in 2025. There would be a flash, but it rarely stayed for long at one time.

Things are different so far in 2026.

Korda opened the season with a win at the weather-shortened Tournament of Champions. As noteworthy as it should have been, it was hard to judge that 54-hole victory. Korda played outstanding golf in worsening conditions in the third round, but finished before the worst of the weather arrived and won the title on the driving range on Sunday. Then, she took six weeks off as the LPGA went on its Asia Swing.

But she returned two weeks ago at the Founders Cup and finished runner-up, with a three-putt bogey on Sunday costing her a chance to run down Hyo Joo Kim. Korda didn’t despair. She teed it up again this past week at the Ford Championship and held the 36-hole lead before Kim blazed past her on Saturday and coasted to a second straight win. A win and two runner-up finishes for Korda has the World No. 2 looking and sounding different than she did a few months ago.

“I’m just very grateful. If you’d have told me this time last year the finishes that I would have right now, I would be super happy with the game that is trending,” Korda said on Sunday after her second-place finish. “Last year, I just felt so weird with my game. Nothing was kind of going my way.”

It’s a minuscule sample size, but through 11 competitive rounds in 2026, Korda ranks first in total Strokes Gained: Total (4.00), first in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green (5.55), third in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee (2.10) and third in Strokes Gained: Approach (2.66). She also ranks first in scoring average, just slightly ahead of Kim, although Kim has played five more rounds so far in the early going.

Those numbers will obviously dip as more golf is played. But the more important point is that, after a year of being on the wrong side of golf’s fine line, Nelly Korda appears to be on the cusp of returning to her world-beating ways. That’s welcome news for a tour that has made broadcast improvements and schedule tweaks to draw more eyeballs. Having its biggest needle mover in form as major season arrives is vital to the LPGA’s push for growth. The talent is deep on the LPGA. Starpower raises the ceiling.

Nelly Korda looks like Nelly Korda again. But that doesn’t mean she rediscovered that 2024 feeling. This is something else.

“Every year is so different,” Korda said on Friday at the Ford. “I can’t even tell you similarities right now that I’m feeling what I felt two years ago. I just have a different feeling. Every year, you’re overcoming something, working on something different.”

For Korda, the work has seen her open the year 1-2-2. Those near-misses would’ve burned a searching Korda last year. But these have left her looking to the horizon, eager for what’s to come.

“[Caddie Jason McDede] was walking up 18, and he was like, ‘We’re playing some amazing golf. It’s not time to deflate, it’s time to inflate,'” Korda said on Sunday. “So continue moving on with the positives, and trying to keep putting myself into that position and knocking on the door.”

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The post Nelly and Jessica Korda’s advice to LPGA rookies? It’s simpler than you’d think appeared first on Golf.

The post Nelly and Jessica Korda’s advice to LPGA rookies? It’s simpler than you’d think appeared first on Golf.

In the high-stakes world of professional golf, the line between breaking through and just breaking even is razor-thin. So what truly sets the players who rise to the top apart from the rest? One of the game’s most accomplished sibling duos weighed in.

Ahead of the LPGA Ford Championship Presented by Wild Horse, Nelly and Jessica Korda offered a window into what separates the elite from those still fighting to make cuts — and shared hard-earned advice that every rookie should hear.

The Korda sisters’ advice for rookies

Nelly Korda, ever insightful, reminded newcomers not to second-guess themselves or question whether they belong on the course. A lesson athletes across all sports can relate to.

“Knowing who you are. Everyone is good enough,” Nelly said. “The talent out here is just getting deeper and deeper and at the end of the day it’s just comfort, not comparing yourself to others and sticking to your routine that you have found that works.”

Jessica Korda also shared some practical insights and helpful observations from her years competing on the LPGA. The message was simple: don’t change your game.

“I always tell rookies, don’t change anything, especially the first year,” she said.

Jessica explained that while it’s natural to feel pressure to make changes, usually it hurts more than it helps. The six-time LPGA champion has seen it countless times: fresh faces arrive, experiment with new equipment, tweak their swings and overwork themselves on the range in hopes of gaining an edge. The result is often burnout before they even hit their stride.

“I’ve been on Tour for a very long time. That’s the one thing you always see,” she said, “You’re like, ‘Oh, she’s going to get burnt out.’ You just see the pattern. It’s very similar year to year.”

Instead, Korda urges rookies to trust the process that brought them to this level. The key lies in refinement, not reinvention. Hone the game that got you here, embrace your routine and find confidence in your own swing.

“Just keep making those things better,” she said, “Like Nelly says, the comfort of it.

“There is a reason you got out here. You are good enough to be out here.”

While uncertainty and learning to trust themselves are part of the rookie journey, Korda notes that some personalities navigate the pressure better than others.

“The girls that have a little more swagger, a little cockiness — they’re the ones who tend to get through it,” Jessica Korda said.

Age and experience also play a role in this uphill battle.

“They’re young. There are a lot of insecurities, [they’re] still growing into who they are. Once they figure that out, you see them kind of ride with it,” Korda noted. 

For rookies facing the relentless grind of the Tour, the key is to remember to trust your game, stay grounded and learn to embrace the pressure. That comfort under fire is ultimately what gives players the edge to rise from good to great.

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The post Lydia Ko made an ‘unusual’ switch. Then she nearly made history appeared first on Golf.

The post Lydia Ko made an ‘unusual’ switch. Then she nearly made history appeared first on Golf.

After Lydia Ko’s opening birdie in the first round of the Ford Championship in Chandler, Ariz., her playing partner, Lottie Woad, spotted a new addition to Ko’s bag: a Scotty Cameron T12 prototype putter. Ko’s not one to swap out putters without extensive testing and deep deliberation so the newcomer was a conversation piece.   

When Woad called it out, Ko said something along the lines of, “I holed the first one, so it was a good start.”

Then Ko holed the second one, on her second hole of the day, the par-4 11th … and a third one on the par-5 12th … and a fourth one on the par-4 13th, a 40-footer that Ko called “the longest putt I’ve holed in a while.” Four birdies in her first four holes was something Ko — a 28-year-old with 23 LPGA wins and three major titles — said she’d never done before.

Then came two more birdies, on 16 and 17, and an opening 30 on the Cattail course at Whirlwind Golf Club. And two more birdies, at 1 and 2, to open her second nine. And yet two more birdies, at 5 and 6, to move to 10 under for her round.

And that’s when it hit Ko: 59 was within reach, a score that has been recorded just once in LPGA history, by Annika Sorenstam a quarter century ago.

Ko knew what closing with three more birdies would secure her, but she didn’t let the gravity of the moment weigh on her. Instead, she said, “It was just more like, oh, it’s really cool to be in this position.” Ko added, “I think like as every golfer, when things go well you also think about the things that could go terribly wrong.”

Not much went wrong on this day, unless you count the par Ko made on the par-5 7th, which more or less derailed her hopes of signing for golf’s most elusive number. From about 7 feet, Ko aimed her birdie try inside right. “Honestly, I think I hit it a touch too soft and it broke a little bit more than I thought,” she said. “That would’ve been nice to hole that one, but who knows, maybe if I holed that one I might not have holed the other two.”

Those other two came on the par-4 8th and par-4 9th. A birdie-birdie finish for the lowest score of her lifetime.

“I felt very calm,” Ko said after her round, in which she hit nine fairways and 17 greens in regulation. “I think when you’re in the zone you’re just focused and there is not as many external thoughts going in and out of your head. You’re just focused on what shot you have in front of you and then — and not get too carried away about the outcome of it.”

A hot putter helps, too.

Ko said it had been a while since she experimented with a new flatstick, but when she got her hands on the new Scotty, it was love at first roll.

“It’s very unusual for me to change out of my putter,” she said. But change she did, out of her Scotty Cameron P5 GSS Tour CS prototype, a move that, she said, surprised her Scotty reps. According to GOLF’s Jack Hirsh, the T12 prototype first surfaced on the PGA Tour about a month ago and has been “drawing a lot of interest.”

After her banner round, Ko said of her putter, “Maybe it’s a honeymoon phase, who knows. But you take an easy day like this on any occasion.”

The second act of the honeymoon starts Friday, when Ko tees off at 12:39 p.m. local time.

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The post 7 noticeable changes arrive to LPGA broadcasts in 2026 appeared first on Golf.

The post 7 noticeable changes arrive to LPGA broadcasts in 2026 appeared first on Golf.

If you’re in the business of sports, you’re really in the business of media — and golf needs to look no further than its newest leadership class to know that is true.

On the PGA Tour, the leader of the flock is Brian Rolapp, Roger Goodell’s former right-hand man at the NFL and the previous head of the league’s prolific media rights business, which made up nearly 60 percent of its $23 billion in 2025 revenue. On the LPGA, the leader is an executive of less rarefied TV bonafides, but with no less commitment to the power of media.

The leader’s name is Craig Kessler, who joined the LPGA a little less than a year ago and has spent the better part of the last 12 months totally reinventing the way the LPGA approaches its audience. At last weekend’s Founders Cup, Kessler’s LPGA unveiled a new series of TV enhancements meant to take those dreams to the next level. The seven biggest of those shifts are listed below.

7 LPGA broadcast enhancements for 2026

1. More hours!!

The biggest shift on TV for the LPGA in 2026 was unveiled long before the Founders Cup, but it bears repeating: Thanks to a partnership with FM, every single round of every single LPGA event in 2026 will feature live TV coverage for the first time ever.

The big expansion in TV hours means the LPGA will have more opportunities for coverage, more eyeballs when its events are in session, and an easier path to impact with the golf audience, which won’t need to jump through hoops to tune into the action.

For years, Rolapp’s NFL playbook involved a strategy of “reach” — or doing everything possible to maximize the number of eyeballs watching each week, even if it came at the expense of a few TV dollars along the way. Kessler is doubling down on that strategy.

2. More cameras

Of course, any expansion to LPGA broadcast hours comes with a handful of expansions to LPGA broadcast equipment. In this case, the cameras are receiving the biggest upgrade, with a 50-percent increase in camera equipment for 2026.

3. More TV goodies

All the tiny details that help add texture and detail to a typical golf broadcast will also be receiving a boost in 2026, including the LPGA’s microphones and slow-motion camera capabilities, each of which received an upgrade in the new year.

4. More drones!

Perhaps the most noticeable visual shift from last year to this one occurred not on the course but in the skies, where an expanded fleet of drones captured a series of dynamic new images during the course of competition.

Drone photography has become a staple of men’s golf broadcasts over the last several years, and improvements in technology have brought down costs and expanded possibilities for broadcast teams. LPGA and Golf Channel investment to these ends shouldn’t be a surprise, but it’s certainly a no-brainer.

5. Shot tracer enhancements

The largest increase between ’25 and ’26 for the LPGA arrived in the graphics department, where the Tour 4x’d its output in shot tracing capabilities thanks to an expanded partnership with TrackMan.

6. Feature storytelling

One way to ensure that your best players’ stories are told? Tell ’em yourself!

The LPGA invested considerably in a series of features-driven programming for 2026 that will run during tournament broadcasts. The first iteration of those features — a look into Rose Zhang’s continuing education at Stanford — was told during Founders weekend.

7. Expanded player access

Another way to ensure that your best players’ stories are told? Have them tell the stories!

The LPGA is expanding its walk-and-talk efforts during the 2026 season as part of Kessler’s efforts to make the LPGA’s most noticeable faces and names more accessible and more prominent. Some of that expansion has happened already on social media, but more will come during tournament broadcasts, mirroring the advancements in the walk-and-talk format in the men’s game.

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The post ‘One stupid mistake’: Nelly Korda’s short 3-putt dooms comeback LPGA victory appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘One stupid mistake’: Nelly Korda’s short 3-putt dooms comeback LPGA victory appeared first on Golf.

Nelly Korda’s adventurous start to the 2026 LPGA Tour season continued this weekend. On Sunday, the World No. 2 threw away a comeback rally with a late 3-putt from short range in the final round to lose the 2026 Fortinet Founders Cup by one shot.

Technically, Korda ended a lengthy win drought at the first LPGA tournament of the season. But that victory came in controversial fashion (more on that below). A win Sunday in a full 72-hole event would have silenced any critics doubting her ability to rise back to World No. 1.

But as has happened often to Korda in recent years, some squirrelly play down the stretch doomed her chances.

Korda misses 3-foot putt to lose Fortinet Founders Cup

At the start of Sunday’s final round at the Founders Cup, Korda may not have had a victory in mind. Though she sat in second place, she was a distant five shots behind 54-hole leader Hyo Joo Kim.

That dynamic changed in a hurry.

After an early bogey at the 2nd hole, Korda blitzed the rest of Sharon Heights Golf and Country Club’s front nine with five birdies. After a sixth birdie at the par-5 10th hole, Korda had completely erased the five-shot deficit.

With eight holes to play, Korda and Kim were knotted at 17 under. Despite making a bogey at 16, Kim had re-taken the lead by one shot by the time the final pairing reached the par-3 17th hole.

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Heading into 17, Korda had made four-straight pars as she watched Kim begin to struggle. When Korda found the 17th green with her tee shot and Kim missed long, it looked as if Korda would at least tie the lead, if not take the lead, heading into the final hole.

That’s when things went haywire.

Korda’s birdie putt missed and left her with about a three-foot putt for par. Meanwhile, Kim hit a heroic chip from deep rough to set up a par putt of her own from a similar length.

Kim hit first and drained it for a tournament-saving par. Then Korda stepped up and made her stroke, only to watch her ball glide by the low side without touching the cup. The miss drew an audible gasp from an analyst on the Golf Channel broadcast.

The disastrous short miss handed Korda a 3-putt bogey, dropping her two shots back heading to 18.

Kim ended up making bogey on the closing par-5, but Korda could only manage a par, which gave Kim a one-shot victory and Korda another near-miss.

After the round, Korda rued her “one stupid mistake” on 17 and said the 3-putt “stings,” but she also tried to take some positives from the experience.

“Obviously, something like 17 stings, so it is what it is. I felt great all day. I just kind of made one stupid mistake, and that was 17 (and then) 18,” Korda said Sunday night. “I wish I could have hit that drive into the fairway and given myself a better opportunity to press a little bit more.”

She continued: “That’s just golf. Those are sports. Sometimes it’s on your side, and sometimes it’s not.”

Nelly Korda’s controversial win in rain-shortened LPGA event

Korda’s unfortunate loss comes on the heels of a victory in her first start of the season. But the situation surrounding that victory, the 16th LPGA win of her career, was anything but normal.

At the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions in late January, the LPGA’s first tournament of the season, freezing temperatures hampered play.

When Sunday rolled around, some players hadn’t yet finished their third rounds. After initially planning to play the final round with a delayed start to let the course thaw out, LPGA officials controversially decided to cancel the final round and shorten the event to 54 holes.

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A Saturday 64 had left Korda with a three-shot lead heading into Sunday, so when the tournament was called, Korda was officially given the victory. It was her first LPGA win since 2024.

But the decision came amid controversy. Korda was prepping on the range when the final round was canceled and called the course “playable” at the time.

LPGA legend Annika Sorenstam said, “I don’t know why they’re not playing,” while Korda’s competitor Lydia Ko, who was in fourth place, said, “I’m gutted that we don’t get to play tomorrow.”

In a memo to LPGA members the next day obtained by GOLF, LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler apologized for the controversial finish to the Tournament of Champions, writing in part, “While the decision was a tough one and ran counter to prior statements we shared, I made a judgement call. With the benefit of hindsight, there were clearly other ways we should have managed the situation.”

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The post Rose Zhang’s ‘difficult’ journey is ending. Now a new test looms appeared first on Golf.

The post Rose Zhang’s ‘difficult’ journey is ending. Now a new test looms appeared first on Golf.

Rose Zhang always wanted to walk this road, no matter how hard it got.

Golf has always been Zhang’s defining feature, or more specifically excelling at golf. She won 12 times at Stanford, including back-to-back NCAA Individual championships. She won the U.S. Women’s Amateur and the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. She turned pro and became the first player in 72 years to win in her pro debut at the 2023 Mizuho Americas Open.

But while golf is an essential part of Rose Zhang’s DNA, it is not all she is. She wanted more. Even when she turned pro after her sophomore year at Stanford, Zhang always planned to finish her degree. Juggling life as a full-time professional golfer with a Stanford course load was difficult. So Zhang stepped back from full-time golf on the LPGA last winter to focus on school and achieve a lifelong dream that had nothing to do with birdies and bogeys.

What followed was a trying time that asked a lot of the 22-year-old.

Taking 22 credits in the winter while trying to stay on top of her game took a toll on her body. She suffered neck spasms on both sides, which left her unable to practice or play for two months. She missed the cut in her return and then played in four majors, with her best finish being a T35 at the Evian. Glimpses of the Rose Zhang of old showed as she contended at the FM Championship in Boston, showing her that everything she wants — the golf and the degree — are attainable if you don’t flinch when it gets tough.

“I would say this year is the first time I really hit a hard struggle bus in my entire golf career,” Zhang said in Boston. “But I will say I think the success helps in that you know that it’s in you, but it also might hinder your look to the present and the future just because you expect way too much out of yourself in your circumstance. So I think I’m navigating that, and it’s helped me grow as a person and even as a player.

“It’s as simple as sticking to the process and making sure you’re getting little bits of positivity in there. It’s something that’s kind of new to me, but I feel like I’ve been at a really good trajectory and I’ll be able to keep building from there.”

Zhang will tee it up at this week’s Fortinet Founders Cup at Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club, almost on the other end of a long, arduous journey that has tested her in every sense. With her final term of classes complete, Zhang just has one 10-page paper between her and a different kind of success. She’ll walk in June, but for all intents and purposes, Zhang is set to enter a new chapter — one that will be foreign to her because of its singular focus.

“These last two, three weeks was when I had to come [to terms] with the fact and sit with the fact that I will be Rose the golfer,” Zhang said Tuesday at the Fortinet Founders Cup. “I think for a long time I was always one foot into academia and one foot into the professional world and actually playing, but I’ve never really thought of myself as two feet into the pro career.”

Zhang turned a star amateur career into quick success on the LPGA. She won the Mizuho Americas Open and Founders Cup. Her star was rising at a time when the LPGA needed talents with an infectious personality.

But sometimes destiny beckons you in a different direction, one that speaks to a separate part of your soul. Zhang never thought twice about putting golf on the back burner to finish what she started at Stanford. That decision tested her mentally and physically. But she never wavered, and the lessons that followed should help her as she fully steps back into the pro golf spotlight.

“I would say I did have to put in a lot of time and energy into thinking about why I wanted to do these things, about why I wanted to play tour golf, go to college, everything in between,” Zhang said Tuesday. “It was a big personal journey for me. I think when things get really tough, and you’re situated with 60 hours a week of class and work on top of sponsor days and traveling, and still trying to practice for tournaments, I think the balance is very difficult. I had to learn what was the limit for me and what works best with having a really difficult schedule like that.

“But most importantly, it was important to keep the faith [that] this is a journey, and this is how I’m supposed to grow and learn. That’s kind of how I was able to come to this end.”

Those lessons — dedication, patience, perseverance — can be applied universally, whether you’re researching early civilizations or grinding over a five-footer to save par. Over the past 16 months, Zhang has soaked in every part of the road she chose to travel. She played in majors but was rusty. The competitor in her struggled with the temporary reality of not being as sharp as she had been for most of her conscious life. It would have been easy to reverse course and choose to live in the comfort of the familiar. But Zhang never regretted her choice. Hard? Yes. Worth it? Undoubtedly, with the full payoff still unknown, she continues to digest everything her journey has taught her.

“I think this was probably one of the most important achievements for my personal development as a person,” Zhang said of finishing her degree. “I feel like there is obviously a lot of noise about whether it was a good decision or not. Personally, I think when I turned pro end of sophomore year I’ve always envisioned wanting to finish, regardless of how difficult it would be, regardless of how much my body would break down or feasibility-wise how that would work.

“Never really gave it a second thought. To see the end of the finish line coming very close … means the world.”

As for what the new reality awaiting Zhang looks like, she isn’t sure. But there’s a freedom in the unknown, and Rose Zhang is ready for whatever her next chapter brings — ready to see what life only as Rose Zhang, the golfer, looks like.

“I’m not sure how it will turn out,” Zhang said. “I’m excited to see where it goes. If it’s something that I’m still extremely passionate about. I’m 100% going to dive all in. This whole year really in my opinion will be my first official rookie year of like, okay, this is where I’m going to take this game on and see how best I can do in the sport.

“We’re going to figure things out along the way.”

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The post Michelle Wie West will come out of retirement to play WTGL appeared first on Golf.

The post Michelle Wie West will come out of retirement to play WTGL appeared first on Golf.

Three-and-a-half years after retiring from competitive golf, 2014 U.S. Women’s Open champion Michelle Wie West said Monday that she will tee it up in the WTGL, a team golf platform in partnership with the LPGA that is set to begin this coming winter.

Wie West’s last competitive event on the LPGA Tour was the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links, where she missed the cut after posting rounds of 79-79.

With five LPGA victories and a major win on her resume, Wie West has long been one of the most famous players in the women’s game. The now 36-year-old married Jonnie West, director of basketball operations for the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, in 2019 and the couple has two children: a daughter, Makenna, born in 2020, and a son, Jagger, born in 2024.

In the years leading up to her retirement, nagging injuries and maternity leave gave Wie West, a Stanford graduate, the space to lean in to her entrepreneurial spirit. In 2021, her endorsement helped the LPGA’s #HoodiesforGolf campaign raise more than $350,000 for nonprofits that provide education, access, instruction and equipment to diverse communities. In 2023, Wie West partnered with Wove to design a bracelet, the profits from which were used to aid Maui’s wildfire recovery.

Wie West has also made it a personal mission to invest in minority women-owned businesses, businesses with sustainable eco-missions and companies that promote diversity. Highlights of Wie West’s portfolio currently include LA Golf, Sportsbox AI, Tonal and Togethxr, a company that aims to increase investment in and media coverage of women’s sports. Wie West is also a Mizuho brand ambassador and tournament host for the LPGA’s Mizuho Americas Open, and was part of the inaugural ownership group for the first TGL franchise, Los Angeles Golf Club, which is comprised of Collin Morikawa, Sahith Theegala, Justin Rose and Tommy Fleetwood.

“As an investor in Los Angeles Golf Club and a fan of TGL, I’m excited for the chance to compete again through WTGL, which will be a powerful platform for women’s golf,” Wie West said in a press release. “I’m passionate about growing the game, and TGL has proved how new formats through the lens of innovation and creativity can bring golf to a broader audience. The team aspect, matched with the unique environment at SoFi Center, is something I want to be part of and it’s going to be incredibly fun to challenge myself, this time alongside teammates, to compete against the best in the world.”

Like TGL, WTGL will feature a season of fast-paced, team match play from the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. In addition to Wie West, seven other LPGA participants have already been confirmed: World No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul, World No. 3 Charley Hull, three-time major champion Lydia Ko, Lottie Woad, two-time major champion Brooke Henderson, Rose Zhang and Lexi Thompson.

WTGL’s official start will be announced at a later date.

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