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SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. — It’s a long walk from inside the ropes to the first tee at Pine Needles, but on Sunday at the U.S. Women’s Open, it feels like miles.

The tee markers are way back on Sunday afternoon, farther back than they’ve been all week, and that’s bad news for a few reasons. First, it means the monstrous par-5 first hole will play longer on Sunday. But it also means the tee shot, which already feels claustrophobic in its cubby corner between the 18th grandstand and first fairway, is about to get a whole lot more uncomfortable.

And then there’s the matter of the trophy. The groups first appear from a small gap in the ropes roughly 40 yards into the fairway before turning back toward the tee box. In an ingenious piece of skulduggery, the USGA has elected to place the Harton S. Semple trophy in the center of the tee box, directly within view of every player who walks down the path.

Most of those in the final groups try to downplay the moment as they walk to the first tee, keeping their eyes low and their expressions serious. It’s clear, however, that things are not as they appear.

First come Bronte Law and Lydia Ko, the penultimate group. They’re anxious to get going, and it’s no wonder — they start the day six and seven strokes back, respectively. But the starter is in no mood to move things along. After five minutes that feel like an eternity, it’s finally their turn to swing. Two tee shots soon follow, and both miss their target considerably, coming to rest on the right side of the fairway. Both players look frustratedly toward the treeline. Before long, they’ve disappeared into the fairway.

Suddenly, a new group appears in the fairway. Leading the pack is a tall figure dressed in a shock of neon green. She walks in smooth, confident strides, her focus trained on the tee box. Minjee Lee, the tournament leader, is about to step under the microscope.

She waits the customary five minutes before the starter announces her name. Finally, it’s time to tee off. She takes one practice swing, settles herself and takes a controlled, aggressive hack at the ball. It’s crushed — a low bullet that skitters out onto the perfect patch of the fairway.

A few minutes later, she smokes a 3-wood from that spot and hits it to 20 feet. She finishes out the hole with a tap-in birdie. Suddenly, she’s extended her lead to five.

So much for nerves.

Nothing about Sunday afternoon at Pine Needles was easy. After three days of historically low scores raised eyebrows among carnage-conscious fans, the final round at the U.S. Women’s Open sufficiently lowered them.

On Sunday, Pine Needles was each of the “three B’s” we’d been promised all along: brown, baked-out, and bouncy. The final-round scoring average was 75.188, a stroke-and-a-half harder than the weeklong average, and three strokes harder than Saturday.

“It was definitely a battle out there,” Nelly Korda said. “The greens got a little crispy. Pins were — it’s a Sunday of a major, Sunday of a U.S. Open — we were all expecting it.”

By it, Korda means “chaos.” Typical, old-school, U.S. Open chaos. And on Sunday, Pine Needles got exactly that.

The pin positions were tricky. The fairways took on a decidedly different hue. And the greens?

“They definitely tricked out the greens,” Korda said with a low laugh. “A lot of them were getting brown and very fast downhill. It came off my club, and I was like, ‘Sit! Immediately!'”

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But the conditions weren’t the only cause for discomfort. On Sunday, the USGA used every tool in its toolbox to ratchet up the pressure on players, who responded in kind by recording 357 bogeys or worse, 81 more than during Saturday’s third round, or an average increase of 1.19 per player.

Only two players played Sunday under par, and only four played it at even or better. It was that kind of day at the U.S. Women’s Open. The kind of day we’d expected all week at Pine Needles, where the conditions and course conspire against those in the field.

No one felt that pressure more than Lee, who entered the day with a significant lead and the knowledge that even one mistake could be her undoing.

“You know, even with a three-shot lead I never felt comfortable today,” she said afterward. “I felt like I still needed to play well. I still needed to hold my ground.”

Comfort would never come easily for Lee on Sunday. Not that she ever showed it.

Minjee Lee was not perfect on Sunday. Not by a long shot.

She was unsteady with her irons, unusually inconsistent off the tee and surprisingly yippy with her putter. In other words, she looked precisely how a Sunday leader at the U.S. Open should.

Lee managed to escape Pine Needles on Sunday by recording four birdies to four bogeys, but there wasn’t an unearned shot in any of her 71 strokes. Her emotions wore as the round went on — a pulled tee shot on the 5th led to a tricky bogey; a pushed approach on the 10th settled into a shrub and nearly brought disaster on the ensuing chip.

“I didn’t hit it that well,” she said. “I had really good saves, up-and-downs from a lot of the places.”

It didn’t help that for the first time all week, the course seemed to be fighting Lee, too. Greens that had once held now deposited her approaches in bunkers. Tee shots that found fairway now snuck into the sand. If Lee was to hang onto her lead on Sunday, she was going to need a true championship effort.

Her effort was enough, at least, to get her to the 18th tee box carrying a five-stroke lead — and that was significant. The short, downhill par-4 had played as one of the easiest holes on the course all week, but on Sunday, it turned into one of the toughest.

The tee shot on the 18th — much like the one on the 1st — is simple. The fairway is wide and sloping, steering well-struck drives closer to the flagstick. But, much like the tee shot on No. 1, fans pack tightly into the area surrounding the tee box. A nervy, quick swing could easily wind up in the trees, where disaster is all-but-imminent.

To make matters worse, Lee had the benefit of knowing the day’s pin placement: a delightfully evil, back-right location that rejected all but the best approaches.

It was the tournament’s biggest moment, and Lee seemed unaffected. Stone-faced, she stepped to her ball without saying a word. She settled herself, took a single practice swing and unleashed an aggressive, controlled hack at the ball. Once again, it was crushed — sailing over the bunker before halting a long way into the fairway.

As she returned her driver to her bag, Lee took a deep breath and a small smile escaped. For the first time all week, the battle was over. She’d plowed her way through the gauntlet at Pine Needles. She’d battled through hell on Sunday. She’d bested the biggest field in women’s golf. And now it was time for Minjee Lee to embrace reality: She was about to win the U.S. Women’s Open.

But first, it was time for another long walk.

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It’s not often that the prize money dolled out at an event is cause for newsworthiness alone, but at the U.S. Women’s Open, that’s precisely what’s happening.

Thanks to ProMedica — the Women’s Open’s first title sponsor — the purse at Pine Needles will be the largest in women’s golf history. At $10 million, the payout at the 2022 Women’s Open will nearly double the $5.5 million sum given out at Olympic Club last June. It’s a monumental development for the women’s game, both in terms of dollars-and-cents, and in terms of pay equity, which has lagged as men’s purses have soared in recent years.

The increase means those who made it to the weekend in North Carolina will receive paychecks similar to those handed out weekly in the men’s game, and sets the stage for broader purse increases throughout the sport.

In short, the historic money flowing into the U.S. Women’s Open is a big deal to those in and around the women’s game, particularly those who see their responsibility to the sport in ensuring a fairer, more lucrative future.

“It’s really important that organizations like the USGA buy in and increase the purses,” Michelle Wie-West told GOLF.com earlier this week. “It levels it up for everyone else to have to compete with that and level it up. It’s always really important for that first buy-in to increase the purse. The USGA has done such an amazing job over the years to always be that pioneer.”

Between the purse and a four-hour national broadcast window (3-7 p.m. ET on NBC), Sunday is primed for a historic finish at Pine Needles. Below, find everything you need to know about the monster $10 million purse, including payout information and winner’s share.

U.S. Women’s Open payout information, winner’s share

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1. $1,800,000
2. $1,080,000
3. $685,000
4. $480,225
5. $399,982
6. $354,658
7. $319,738
8. $286,363
9. $259,169
10. $238,052
11. $217,245
12. $200,866
13. $187,166
14. $172,745
15. $160,384
16. $150,083
17. $141,842
18. $133,602
19. $125,361
20. $117,120
21. $110,013
22. $102,905
23. $96,003
24. $89,617
25. $84,054
26. $79,316
27. $75,711
28. $72,518
29. $69,427
30. $66,337
31. $63,247
32. $60,156
33. $57,066
34. $54,285
35. $52,019
36. $49,753
37. $47,589
38. $45,529
39. $43,469
40. $41,409
41. $39,349
42. $37,289
43. $35,228
44. $33,168
45. $31,108
46. $29,254
47. $27,400
48. $25,649
49. $24,619
50. $23,588
51. $22,970
52. $22,455
53. $22,043
54. $21,837
55. $21,631
56. $21,425
57. $21,219
58. $21,013
59. $20,807
60. $20,601
61. $20,395
62. $20,189
63. $19,983
64. $19,777
65. $19,571
66. $19,365

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The post It’s time to call Nelly Korda what she is: Golf’s burgeoning superstar appeared first on Golf.

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SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. — Nelly Korda is locked in. 

Like REALLY locked in. 

It’s Saturday at the U.S. Women’s Open, but it could be anywhere in the world. In this moment, there is Nelly Korda and there is the task at hand. Nothing else. 

She walks in tall, calculated strides, her shoes piercing the earth with a precision that suggests there’s an advantage to be gained from the ground beneath her. 

Suddenly, she turns and takes two more careful strides forward, reaching down and pulling out a small chunk of turf.

She rubs her thumb over her forefinger, watching emotionlessly as blades of grass fall behind her. 

The wind is whipping now on the 5th hole at Pine Needles, and it’s about time for Nelly to mount a charge.

Nelly Korda’s superstar status has, to this moment, been restrained within the borders of women’s golf. Before she was Nelly, she was the latest teenage phenom; one-half of the LPGA’s brightest sister duo; winner at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship; a World No. 1.

But at the U.S. Women’s Open, it’s clear her stardom has shifted. There are a few theories as to the catalyst — the gold medal triumph in Tokyo, the four-win 2021, the Forbes ’30 under 30′ honors — but it’s not difficult to see the reaction.

The swarm around Korda at Pine Needles on Saturday afternoon carried a decidedly different tenor than the galleries that came before (or after) it. Fans pressed against the ropes to grab a photo, screamed her name as she walked by, and followed her in galleries that looked (and sounded) an awful lot like those following the biggest stars of the men’s game.

“It was really cool,” Korda said afterward. “Honestly, super special. I don’t think I’ve ever had that big of a crowd following me at a Women’s Open or in general on a Saturday, not even being in the last pairing.”

For the game’s biggest player in its biggest event, the fan reaction was striking. It was also moving, considering that just a few months ago, she wondered the next time she’d be hearing from them at all.

It was a rainy morning in mid-March, the Friday of the Players Championship, when Korda’s arm began to swell. She called her doctor, who advised her to visit the Emergency Room as a precaution.

Not long after, Korda was diagnosed with a blood clot in her subclavian vein. Doctors advised her that she would have to undergo surgery to remove the clot, which would take her away from golf for the foreseeable future.

She rehabbed the injury for the better part of three months, slowly regaining her form at her home in Florida with the help of her swing coach, Jamie Mulligan. Finally, in late-May, she shared an Instagram announcing her return.

“See you guys @uswomensopen next week.”

Korda arrived in North Carolina with uncertain expectations. Her tempo felt good, but she hadn’t played a tournament round in more than four months. She tried her best to embrace the unknown, stamping her yardage book with “Be Proud. Be You.” and “Chin Up, You Got This!”

Once play began, though, Nelly was her regular old self — smashing drives and smoothing irons with her blissful, effortless swing. Well, except for one thing. While her notorious intensity returned, it was joined by a newfound sense of purpose.

“I’m just happy to be out here,” she said. “I’m doing what I love and I’m out here in the heat competing at the U.S. Women’s Open, and a couple months back I wasn’t sure if I was going to be doing that. So I’m just grateful.”

She played her opening two rounds at three-under, and entered Saturday at Pine Needles on the outskirts of contention.

After a birdie on the 1st, Korda began the long walk out from the clubhouse. Before long, her meticulous strides brought her to the furthest point on the property: the tee box on No. 5.

The 188-yard par-3 is beefy, and on Saturday it plays into a stiff wind. Most competitors have played a hybrid or a wood off the tee, but not Nelly. She’s stuck between two irons, and when Andrea Lee’s tee shot falls well short of the putting surface, she makes up her mind.

She picks up her club and holds a low conversation with Jason McDede, her caddie. Eventually, the two come to an agreement, and Nelly carefully places her ball on the ground. Her eyes are locked on the target as her focus lengthens.

Quietly, she steps to the ball, drawing her club back to ankle height before returning it to its place at address. Then, in one smooth slash, she finally makes contact. The ball pierces through the air, tugging slightly toward the back-left flagstick.

Her only flicker of emotion is a clubtwirl, which brings the blade back to her hip. She likes it.

Eventually, the ball returns to earth some 10 feet from the flagstick. The crowd erupts. Without breaking her stare, Nelly picks her tee from the ground and hands her club to McDede.

Nelly’s Saturday won’t end in a charge. She makes a birdie on the 5th and eventually climbs all the way to 7 under — just a few strokes off the lead — but three consecutive bogeys close her round in a whimper. She enters Sunday nine strokes back of the lead, her championship hopes sufficiently doused.

When she makes it to the scoring area, she’s still frustrated by the way her round ended. But a larger part of her is thrilled. She’s here, playing the biggest tournament in women’s golf, realizing in real time that she’s the biggest attraction her sport has had in some time.

Does Nelly Korda enjoy the challenge?

“Yeah, I definitely do,” she says, flashing a smile. “I didn’t really enjoy the challenge on my last three holes, but I do, yeah.”

Perhaps the better question is: which one?

There’s not much Korda can’t do. In just a few short years, she’s become the top-ranked golfer in the world, won a major championship, drawn the attention of millions, and become something of an international celebrity … and she’s still only 23.

If there’s been one constant in her life, it’s her ability to dismantle the words we’ve used to define her. So maybe it’s time we stop restricting ourselves to words like “woman,” and start calling Nelly Korda what she is.

Golf’s next superstar.

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SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. — At long last, the heat subsided on Friday at the U.S. Women’s Open. After days of advisories and warnings, the temperatures dipped from “scalding” to merely “hot.”

Fortunately for those at Pine Needles, the play more than made up for the difference. For the second consecutive day, the field went low.

At the halfway mark at women’s golf’s biggest event, Mina Harigae and Minjee Lee are tied for the lead at 9-under — an astonishingly low 36-hole score for a bouncy, baked-out setup at Pine Needles. Harigae and Lee make up two of a whopping 21 players under-par.

In short, there have been plenty of winners through two days of play at the U.S. Women’s Open. Below, find the five biggest.

5 winners from Friday at the U.S. Women’s Open

1. Nelly Korda shines

The former World No. 1 made her return from a blood clot to much fanfare on Thursday, but Nelly’s performance during Friday’s second round was striking. Of course, her even-keeled two-under 69 (three birdies to just a single bogey) was impressive from a statistical standpoint, but Korda fans should be particularly excited about the way she did it.

Korda looked very much her old self on Friday, powering her way around Pine Needles. Her drive on the 18th towered past those of her playing partners Danielle Kang and Atthaya Thitikul — a high, arcing draw that set up a flipped wedge look at birdie.

She escaped with only a par on the hole, but it was no matter. At 3-under through two days of play, Nelly is right where she wants to be heading into the weekend.

2. Danielle Kang grinds

Danielle Kang just snuck under the cutline on Friday at the U.S. Women’s Open after a disastrous triple-bogey 8 on No. 1, but she was a winner Friday for so much more than her leaderboard position.

Kang revealed to media after her round that doctors discovered a tumor on her spine of still-unknown nature. The tumor, Kang said, has been among the factors causing her recent string of missed starts.

She hadn’t swung a club in “eight or nine weeks” prior to just days before the USWO, undergoing “multiple procedures” to help with her back. She admitted she was still in considerable pain competing on Friday at Pine Needles, but did everything she could to keep from WDing before tournament week.

Now, she’ll play into the weekend, earn a cut of the largest purse in women’s golf history, and wear a heck of a badge of honor for her mental fortitude.

3. The amateur!

It’s been a long while since we’ve seen an amateur win a U.S. Women’s Open — 55 years, to be exact. Ingrid Lindblad, the Augusta National Women’s Amateur runner-up, enters the weekend with a legitimate shot at contention.

She enters Saturday at 6-under, three strokes back of the lead, looking to recreate the magic first captured by Catherine Lacoste in 1967.

4. The lurker

No player in the field looked more dangerous heading into Pine Needles than Jin Young Ko. Ko, a greens-in-regulation wizard, looked primed to utilize those skills to take advantage of Donald Ross’ tricky green shelves and pin placements.

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Through two rounds at the USWO, Ko has yet to have a truly memorable moment. But rather, has done what she does best: quiet, consistent dominance. She opened the week with consecutive scores in the 60s, and enters moving day in what many would consider perfect position.

5. The golf course!

Pine Needles is bouncy, firm, and decidedly demanding. Its greens are punishing, its slopes penal, and its bunkers deep. These are the conditions the USGA hoped to find Pine Needles in, and these are the conditions the best players in the world have received. Rest assured, the low scores of the opening two days are not the result of a toothless test.

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SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. — For much of Friday at the U.S. Women’s Open, Danielle Kang’s face seemed at odds with her body.

Her smile preceded her at Pine Needles — a big, beaming grin that she shared with the gallery, with her caddie Olly, and for a brief while, with the whole of North Carolina.

But it didn’t take more than a few footsteps to know her body felt differently. Her gait looked gimpy and her movements measured. Her swing — typically a model of natural movement and flexibility — was segmented, missing its usual ferocity and follow-through. She was at constant odds with her back — grabbing, kneading and stretching an area at the center of her spine.

After her round, a 3-over 74, we learned some of the reason why.

“Yes, I have a tumor. I do have a tumor in my spine,” Kang told a group of reporters Friday. “But right now, it’s not as simple as blaming the tumor to be the problem, but in the process of an issue. It’s not just that I have an issue with my back, there is more to it. The scary part is that.”

Kang first learned about the tumor after she withdrew from an event in Hawaii in mid-April. Kang and her mother, Grace Lee, told reporters they still don’t know much about the nature of the tumor, including if it’s the primary reason for the back issues she’s been dealing with as of late.

“After [the U.S. Women’s Open], they’re going to do more research and specialist work on it,” Lee said. “We don’t know if it’s benign. We don’t know if it’s malignant. We don’t know.”

“I’ve gone through a lot of procedures so far,” Kang added. “It’s process of elimination. And after that, we’re narrowing it down.”

It’s been a jarring few months for the Kang family — a situation that hasn’t been helped by a slow-moving treatment process.

“It’s not just the back pain, but we don’t know what it is for sure,” Lee said, sharing a mother’s anguish. “It takes so long to get the right answers.”

Kang and Lee said they’ve been meeting with specialists for the better part of the last two months, and that Danielle has had “multiple procedures” in an effort to solve the issues in her back. Those procedures helped to the degree that she was capable of teeing it up at Pine Needles, but her future beyond this week is less clear.

“I don’t know that I have any [timeline],” Kang said. “My only goal was to play the U.S. Women’s Open and I’m here.”

With so many unknowns, it was a relief for both mother and daughter to return to something familiar: competition. The two shared a sweet moment — a quick smile and a wave — during a quiet minute in the first fairway.

But then it was back to the tournament, and both of them seemed glad about that … until a bad bounce on Kang’s ensuing approach led to a triple-bogey eight on the first.

“I was pretty calm after the triple,” she smiled, rolling her eyes. (Evidently, the time away has done little to douse her competitive fire.)

Kang finished the day at 3-over, which puts her right on the cutline as of 3:45 p.m. local time on Friday. She’ll have at least the rest of the evening to let her mind care only about a golf tournament, and who knew how meaningful that could be?

“I haven’t played golf in eight, nine weeks. I played [last week’s Bank of Hope LPGA Match Play], and I think I was averaging nine over par,” Kang said. “So me coming out here hitting really good shots, good drives. Having the opportunity to make birdies, not being a nuisance to the rest of my group. That was a good thing.”

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SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. — By now, you’ve no doubt heard the argument for why women’s golf “can’t” rival the men’s game.

There’s just not enough interest in the women, the reasoning begins. So there aren’t enough fans who tune in. So there isn’t enough revenue to support an earnest effort at closing the pay gap. So there isn’t a reason for TV networks to go all out. So women’s golf is smaller than men’s.

And by now, you’ve also heard the retorts. That men’s golf reached its place in our collective sports conscious by virtue of a massive, sustained marketing effort that brought with it awareness and interest. That women’s golf receives less than half the men’s national television hours in a given year. That the entertainment product is equally as good, the stars equally as talented, and the competitions equally — if not more — enjoyable to watch. That if only the women had the same investment from golf’s stakeholders, they’d be equally as successful.

It’s like that old parable about a city on a hill. The point of the story, we’re told, is that the city wasn’t meant to be hidden. That it was meant to shine from its place on the hilltop for all to see.

But what happens when the city on the hill is hidden? At the USGA, there’s a new solution: build a bigger one.

At this week’s U.S. Women’s Open, the biggest event in women’s golf will also offer the biggest purse in the sport’s history. Thanks to a title sponsorship from healthcare giant ProMedica, $10 million in prize money will be distributed to those at Pine Needles — a sum higher than many PGA Tour events, and just $2.5 million below the purse the USGA handed out at the men’s Open at Torrey Pines last summer.

It’s a change the USGA hopes will provide a tectonic shift in the way earnings are distributed in women’s golf, setting the stage for bigger stakes, bigger events, and hopefully, a bigger sport.

Of course, the cash infusion will not guarantee interest, ratings, or money. But some things require a leap of faith, and after years of successfully expanding coverage and scope, the Women’s Open was a proposition worth betting on.

“It’s really important that organizations like the USGA buy in and increase the purses,” Michelle Wie-West told GOLF.com. “It levels it up for everyone else to have to compete with that and level it up.”

The Women’s Open is a fitting place for Wie-West to end her playing career. In 2003, at the tender age of 13, she competed in the Open for the first time. In 2014, she won her only major championship here, at Pinehurst No. 2. Now, she’ll play her final professional event just down the road at Pine Needles, retiring from the sport after the week to pursue initiatives in support of women’s golf. And what better swan song for the sport’s most powerful marketing influence than to move into a post-playing career on the heels of the biggest tournament purse ever?

“It’s always really important for that first buy-in to increase the purse,” Wie-West said. “The USGA has done such an amazing job over the years to always be that pioneer.”

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Wie-West’s hope is for the next generation of teenage stars — a group led, of late, by Anna Davis, the 16-year-old Augusta National Women’s Amateur winner making her U.S. Women’s Open debut this week.

No player in the Women’s Open field is less affected by the purse jump than Davis. As a high school sophomore, she’ll remain comfortably under the financial stewardship of her parents for the foreseeable future, and as an amateur, she’s not eligible for a payday, anyway.

But even if she won’t be cashing in, she’s not oblivious to the role money plays in her sport.

“Especially with the U.S. Women’s Open, it’s such an important event,” Davis said. “There’s obviously a lot on the line, and it’s a lot more fun to play for something like that. The pressure and the stress that the girls have to experience — obviously not me yet — because they’re playing for such a large amount of money, I think it’s cool. I think it’s a good thing.”

Davis’ swing isn’t the only thing that’s well beyond her years. She understands that ultimately, golf is a business built upon attention. And in this instance, maybe the tail needs to wag the dog.

“I think [the purse does add to the esteem of the event],” Davis said. “Especially when they announced that they were going to make it worth so much money. I think there were a lot of heads that turned, and it’s cool, cause you don’t see as many people watching the LPGA as they watch the PGA. And I think this gives them something to look for and watch.”

Her optimism isn’t just youthful naiveté. It was shared by a growing number of pros around Pine Needles this week. Pros can feel the buzz surrounding the tournament, which will once again earn seven hours of national television coverage split between two prime, weekend slots on NBC.

“It brings more motivation to all of us,” Yuka Saso, the reigning champ, told GOLF.com. “It’s great to have more fans and more people interested in women’s golf. It’s great. It’s why we play golf, we want them to watch us. We want them to say, ‘We can do something too.'”

But money, as a handful of pros pointed out, is not a cure-all. Nor is it a factor in the things that are supposed to draw interest in the sport, like the quality of competition or the performance of the world’s best players. “I’m very grateful to ProMedica for putting up and supporting us in women’s golf,” Saso said. “That doesn’t change how I think or how I feel on the golf course. We’re here to win and to make history, we’re not only here to make money.”

Lydia Ko agrees: “Sometimes I think purse can really get in the way of what the actual meaning of the tournament is. I honestly think when there’s just so much on the line, none of us are going to think about the money.”

Ko’s comments raised eyebrows when she first said them in her pre-tournament presser Tuesday morning, but on Wednesday, she clarified that she’d been taken out of context.

Of course the money matters, Ko said, but the idea that women would somehow be thinking about a paycheck — instead of winning the tournament — is ludicrous. (Left unsaid: the double-standard of that suggestion surfacing at a women’s major championship, but not at a men’s.)

“When we’re out there playing, we’re not thinking about what this putt would mean or would relate to money-wise,” Ko told GOLF.com. “But to be on the Tour and to see the talent that’s on the LPGA, or even when we just play other events, or when I see some of the collegiate golfers, I’m like ‘Wow, it’s so empowering.’ I feel like golf has definitely grown and purses keep increasing, but it’s still got a ways to go.”

It’s an uphill battle to true equity in golf. A battle marred by arguments over coverage, pay gaps, revenues and “brands.”

At Pine Needles, the galleries are quieter than they will be at U.S. Open later this month. The footprint is considerably smaller. Even the television coverage — which is considered the gold standard for the women’s game — will be dwarfed by the wall-to-wall affair at The Country Club.

When the next argument surfaces about the state of the women’s game, these points will invariably be used to explain why women’s golf “can’t” ever raise to the level of the men’s game. These arguments are not limited to women’s golf or even to women’s sports. They’re arguments that have been faced, in so many words, by women everywhere.

Fortunately, the future of women’s golf is not defined by those who see it for what it is not. The future will be defined by the stakeholders, the governing bodies, the sponsors and, of course, the players. By the people who have made the conscious decision to fight for something bigger than a tournament, a moment, or even a $10 million purse.

“I hope that one day it gets to the level of the men’s, like it is for tennis,” Lydia Ko said. “And that might not necessarily be when I play, but to see how much it has changed from our founders and then our pioneers and then from 15 years ago to now, it’s only going up. I’m excited for where women’s golf is heading and I think we’re very grateful for the partners who have continuously supported us and believed in us. The people who see what we see.”

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SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. — There’s never a “best” time to lose a golf club, but there certainly is a worst one.

That time is approximately 9:30 on a muggy Tuesday morning in North Carolina, just as you make the turn at Mid Pines Inn and Golf Club. The sun is beating down upon you from high above, sapping the ground of the leftover moisture from last night’s thunderstorm. You (and your coworker) are covered in sweat, rethinking your every life decision. With every soggy step, your feet — which are drenched — feel more like squeegees.

You, in another spectacular display of sadism, have elected to play more than 80 holes of golf in less than 48 hours. You’re on the ninth tee box at Mid Pines — staring down a tee shot and, soon, many of the toughest short-game conditions on planet earth — and you have lost your 60-degree wedge.

For a moment, you allow yourself to feel sorry. Then you know better. Imagine Nelly Korda — who will be playing the U.S. Women’s Open across the road from where you stand — doing the same thing on Thursday of tournament week at Pine Needles. Of course you can’t! She’d never do something so doltish. No professional golfer (or even a serious amateur, for that matter) would be caught dead in such a thoughtless mistake.

Finally, you swallow your pride and call the pro shop, which quickly zips into action in search of your lost weapon. After a few minutes, a man in a golf cart appears brandishing your lost wedge — and the unmistakable look of paternal disappointment.

With tail tucked between your legs, you thank the kind man and return to your round.

Only seventy-two holes to go.

The North Carolina Sandhills are a special place. From New York, a flight into Raleigh-Durham gets you close, and that leaves about an hour in the car before the first golf courses appear.

But a few footsteps are all you need to understand why architects have been building championship-caliber courses here for the better part of the last century. The earth is soft and sandy — perfect for building golf courses — and the natural undulations are loaded with pine straw.

So when my bosses tasked my colleague Zephyr Melton and me with finding a way to highlight the region’s rich golf culture, we came to them with a simple question: Why not show all of it?

Quickly, we hatched a plan to see the best of the best — five courses, all remarkable, all worth traveling a great distance to see, and separated by only 20 miles. We intended to play Pine Needles, Pinehurst Nos. 2 and 4, The Cradle and, of course, Mike Strantz’s delightfully unhinged Tobacco Road.

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But we just missed out on Pine Needles. The beloved (and revered) design from Donald Ross (and restored by Kyle Franz) could not host us on account of the U.S. Women’s Open. Soon, the best players in the world would descend upon Pine Needles with far more virtuous goals: glory, history, and the largest purse in tournament history. So instead we added Mid Pines, another Ross/Franz gem right across the street.

Then came more bad news. With a tight deadline and time constraints, we’d have to resurrect our “Bethpage Gauntlet” days and play all five courses … in two days.

Dear reader, I don’t expect you to feel pity for me. I have a dream job, one that occasionally “requires” me to travel to places to play exotic and famous golf courses for free. This is, I realize, an honor that many hard-working people pay real money to do in their free time.

But I do expect you’ll find it in your heart to feel an ounce of pity for my feet. Because whether you’re standing on the crystal-white beaches of Tahiti or the filthiest subway stop in Manhattan, a blister is a blister. And after our barefoot second round of the day at The Cradle, they were forming over the calluses on my feet.

When we made it off Gil Hanse’s brilliant, miniature creation and onto the first tee at his 7,000-yard behemoth, Pinehurst No. 4, I knew I was in for a long afternoon. On No. 4, our third round of the first day, Zephyr and I found the “friendly” slopes Hanse added to the course to be … decidedly less friendly.

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We battled our way through No. 4, which is as fun and as challenging as it is so often said to be. Finishing on a hot afternoon with enough time to slink into Pinehurst Brewing Co. for dinner. We sat silently as we tore through tender pulled pork and brisket, massaging our suddenly cramping muscles as we ate.

By the time 10 p.m. rolled around, the two of us were already in bed. We’d walked 25,000 steps — some 12 miles — and burned more than 4,000 calories. And the next morning, we’d be doing it all over again.

We found a brief reprieve the next morning at Tobacco Road, which (to our secret delight) is a carts-only facility. But that was the end of our good fortune. In an effort to conserve energy, we decided not to warm up, which was, to put it lightly, a spectacular mistake.

Playing Tobacco Road preparation-free is a bit like somersaulting parachute-free out the side of a plane — it is insane, stupid, and an imminent cause of self-destruction. And almost all of that is due to the golf course, which is unlike anything else in golf.

Strantz’s design is a psychedelic journey in golf. Bunkers shoot dozens of feet in the air. Blind tee shots lead to fairways wider than a freeway. The greens, in some instances, appear literally smaller than postage stamps. It’s a course you have to see to believe, and even then, you’re not quite sure whether to trust your eyes.

Finally, we made our way to Pinehurst No. 2, the countless-time USGA Championship host and the area’s unofficial headline act.

As you’ve no doubt heard before, No. 2 is beastly — a truly demanding (and worthy) U.S. Open test. Its “turtleback” greens swat away approach shots gleefully. Its bunkers are jagged and deep. Its angles and swales make par an earnest effort, even on its most manageable holes. But on the back end of 63 holes of golf, I found myself most impressed with No. 2’s playability.

It’s almost impossible to lose a golf ball on No. 2 (trust me — I tried), and surprisingly easy to make bogey. Even the worst tee shots are only a punch shot back into the fairway, and many of the par-5s are reachable in two from the right tees.

As with many of the best courses in the world, No. 2’s difficulty makes it good, but its easiness makes it great.

Eventually, our golf marathon ended on the 18th green at Pinehurst No. 2. It was dark now, and our knees had swelled to the size of bowling balls.

Our stomachs growled and our bones ached. We’d played 81 holes of golf, walked more than 23 miles, burned more than 7,000 calories. It was time to go home. To not swing a golf club. To remain a safe distance away from the North Carolina Sandhills ’till our travels brought us back here again for the U.S. Women’s Open.

We were, of course, exhausted. But we were also astonished.

“I don’t know that we played a single bad golf hole over the last two days,” Zephyr said as we drove back to the airport.

When we’d first hatched plans to head to the Sandhills, we hoped to showcase the rich history of golf in the area. But we’d forgotten why the tapestry was so large. We’d spent two complete days doing nothing but playing golf, and we still hadn’t seen the full scope of the area. With apologies to Adam Smith, when it comes to the Sandhills, the law of diminishing returns need not apply.

Above all else, that is the lesson in our golf marathon experience. That the golf in this tiny piece of North Carolina is as good as it is anywhere in the world. That every course and every hole is memorable in its own very special way. That this region is the home of American golf — with championship tests befitting the very best men and women in the world.

And oh yeah, that next time, we’re going to need at least three days.

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New sponsor. New money. New golf courses.

There are big things happening with the U.S. Women’s Open.

The premier event in women’s golf is getting unquestionably premier-er after the USGA unveiled its plans on Friday at a presentation in New York City.

First, that sponsor: ProMedica, a health and well-being nonprofit, is coming on as presenting sponsor, making the USWO the first USGA championship to have one on board. ProMedica is getting involved with the stated goal of using the USWO platform to generate money for its Impact Fund, which hopes to raise $1 billion (!) over eight years to strategically invest in individual and community health.

With a presenting sponsor comes an increase in purse size, and not just a token increase: this year, the purse will jump from $5.5 million all the way to $10 million. Over the next five years the USGA says that will increase to $12 million. By point of comparison, the men’s 2021 U.S. Open had a total purse of $12.5 million.

“For more than 75 years, the U.S. Women’s Open has been the one that every little girl, in every country around the world, has dreamed of winning,” said USGA CEO (and former LPGA commissioner) Mike Whan in a press release. “This partnership with ProMedica allows us to substantially grow the championship in every way, from its purpose, to its purse, to the places that host the event.” He added that the announcement was “just the beginning” for the event.

Let’s get to those courses, then. The USGA unveiled a slate of bucket list-level venues for the USWO over the next decade (and beyond!). The 2026 event will be played at Riviera, beloved annual host of the Genesis Invitational. The 2027 championship will go to Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, site of the 2021 Solheim Cup. In 2029, they’ll head to Pinehurst No. 2 in combination with the men’s U.S. Open, which will take place on the same course that year.

Two beloved Midwest sites will host championships in 2030 (Interlachen in Edina, Minn.) and 2031 (Oakland Hills in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.)

And those are just the new courses. We’ll forgive you if you don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of the USGA sites already announced, and when it comes to the U.S. Women’s Open those include places like Pebble Beach, Oakmont and Merion as well as underrated courses like Lancaster CC and Erin Hills. Check out the upcoming slate:

U.S. Women’s Open Future Host Courses

2022 — Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club

2023 — Pebble Beach Golf Links

2024 — Lancaster Country Club

2025 — Erin Hills

2026 — The Riviera Country Club

2027 — Inverness Club

2028, 2038 — Oakmont Country Club

2029 — Pinehurst Resort & Country Club

2030 — Interlachen Country Club

2031, 2042 — Oakland Hills Country Club

2034, 2046 — Merion Golf Club

Yowza!

For good measure, let’s toss in the upcoming men’s U.S. Opens too. The USGA is going places. And they’re taking us with ’em.

Men’s U.S. Open Future Host Courses

2022 — The Country Club

2023 — Los Angeles Country Club

2024 — Pinehurst No. 2

2025 — Oakmont Country Club

2026 — Shinnecock Hills Golf Club

2027 — Pebble Beach Golf Links

2029 — Pinehurst No. 2

2030 — Merion Golf Club

2034 — Oakmont Country Club

2035 — Pinehurst No. 2

2041 — Pinehurst No. 2

2042 — Oakmont Country Club

2047 — Pinehurst No. 2

2049 — Oakmont Country Club

2050 — Merion Golf Club

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The post Tour Confidential: U.S. Women’s Open, Jon Rahm and Covid-19, Brooks-Bryson appeared first on Golf.

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Check in every week for the unfiltered opinions of our writers and editors as they break down the hottest topics in the sport, and join the conversation by tweeting us @golf_com. This week, we discuss Yuka Saso’s breakthrough victory at the U.S. Women’s Open, Lexi Thompson, Jon Rahm, Brooks and Bryson, and more.

1. Nineteen-year-old Yuka Saso of the Philippines defeated Japan’s Nasa Hataoka in a playoff to win the U.S. Women’s Open at the Olympic Club. Saso became not only the youngest Women’s Open winner (joining Inbee Park, who was the same age to the day when she won the U.S. Open in 2008) but also the first Filipino major winner. What most stood out to you about Saso’s performance?

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Michael Bamberger, senior writer: She held up to the moment. Yes, Lexi had a collapse for the ages, but Saso had to be there to take advantage of it. Usually, you lose before you win. She didn’t. 

Sean Zak, senior editor (@sean_zak): An opening was created for her, and she pounced. Seems emblematic of her game — that she can pounce. She made consecutive doubles to play her way out of it, but she didn’t collapse. She battled back for a hard-fought 73, which she probably would have signed up for at the beginning of the day, too. It’s not about how, it’s about how many.

Alan Bastable, executive editor (@alan_bastable): I was touched by Saso’s post-round interview, when she tearfully thanked her team of supporters and said that she will strive to be better. Better?! She just won her sport’s biggest title — at 19! They’ll be dancing in the streets in Manila. Her humbleness was so charming.    

Dylan Dethier, senior writer (@dylan_dethier): Her second putt on the second hole of the playoff, after she’d rammed the first one some 8-10 feet past the hole. I have never made one of those comebackers in my entire life, but she rammed it in the middle to extend the playoff in the biggest event in the game.

2. For much of the final round, it looked like Lexi Thompson’s day. Thompson had a four-stroke cushion with just eight holes to play, but she let her lead slip away, ultimately missing out on the playoff when she failed to get up and down from a greenside bunker on the 72nd hole. Simple/complex question: What happened?

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Bamberger: The easy answer would be to say Olympic happened. And Olympic is funky. Hogan and Arnold and Payne Stewart will all tell you that. But Lexi’s game, as great as it is, is out of the smash-and-pitch game. That’s not Olympic. The course and the moment caught up to her, sad to say.

Zak: I think Bamberger is right, but there’s more. The course and moment did catch up to her, but in harsher terms, she got yippy. She got quick. She got caught thinking about the score for the first time Sunday. It all leads to Johnny Miller’s favorite word: nerves. 

Bastable: Lexi said the wind got her, but the putter seemed like the biggest culprit. From the first green, Lexi’s stroke looked shaky — credit to Brandel Chamblee, who noted that Thompson’s first putt of the day was nowhere near the center of her putter face. The closer Lexi got to the hole, the more uncomfortable she looked over the ball. U.S. Open pressure is no joke, even if you’ve been there many times before.

Dethier: A little bit of everything. Drives increasingly found the rough. Approach shots started coming up short. Putts got wobbly. To close out that tournament, in front of that crowd, on that golf course, after a year without fans, was a really tough position. That’s what made it unfortunate to watch.

3. Where does Lexi’s Sunday rank on the major meltdown meter?

Bamberger: South of Greg Norman at the ’96 Masters by a length.

Zak: It’s definitely up there. It all happened on the back nine, and after a par on 10! The final eight holes. With a pair of par-5s in the final three holes. And the 18th that allowed her to play iron off the tee. One mistake begetting the next. It’s pretty high, even if that hurts.

Bastable: Thing is, similar to Norman’s collapse, there was no signature meltdown moment. Sure, there was the double at 11, but, mostly, it was a slow burn paired with some strong play (and surely Lexi heard the roars) from a couple of other players nipping at her heels. Most stunning moment had to be the putt at 18 — that’s an insanely fast putt, which I thought would help ensure that she’d get it the hole. Nope, not even close. Many props to Lexi for keeping her chin up (smiling, laughing even) through what had to be an excruciating couple of hours.

Dethier: I have no data to back this up, but it feels like we’re often accustomed to players with four- or five-shot leads bleeding a couple shots down the stretch, giving the illusion of a close tournament before they ultimately right the ship. Think Phil at the PGA. That’s what I was expecting midway through the back nine. But then the ship never righted. No. 17 was the most surprising — bogey on a birdie hole, especially for long-hitting Lexi. Anyway, I have no idea where it ranks historically. But I’m confident it’s the most painful blown lead I’ve seen since I took this job.

4. The Olympic Club, as it has in so many men’s Opens past, delivered in its debut as a Women’s Open site. How would you assess how the USGA set up the Lake Course for this championship, and are there any takeaways for future U.S. Women’s Opens? 

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Bamberger: U.S. Open courses, through the years, have been defined by their trees. The Lake Course has trees. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

Zak: A tough event where the greens were firm, the rough was long and few scores under par? Sounds exactly like a typical U.S. Open. My real takeaway is major kudos to the USGA for hosting this event here. The first Women’s Open at Olympic. The first Women’s Open at Pebble will take place in two years. About damn time! Ask the best women in the world what they want, and a lot will tell you they want a piece of all the tracks that have hosted the best men in the world. GIVE. THEM. THAT. 

Bastable: Zak nailed it, and I loved how juicy they kept the rough. When Lexi can advance a ball only 40 yards, you know that’s some gnarly spinach. Fairly certain I couldn’t hit the 18th fairway with a large bucket. Come to think of it, the 18th green, too. Fabulous USWO swan song for Mike Davis. 

Dethier: They got creative with the yardages, varied the looks and kept the course tough but reasonable, which meant we saw birdies and doubles aplenty. It went swimmingly! If you’re into par, four under seems like a proper U.S. Open final score. And to Bamberger’s point, Olympic has zero penalty areas, which can make it tricky for viewers to distinguish between holes — but the setup and the broadcast kept it fresh. And the trees.

5. Meanwhile, in Ohio, Patrick Cantlay won the Memorial in a playoff over Collin Morikawa. But the story that dominated the weekend unfolded on Saturday when Jon Rahm was forced to withdraw from the tournament after 54 holes — with a six-stroke lead — after testing positive for Covid-19. Rahm was notified of the test result moments after he walked off the 18th green Saturday. “It’s kind of the worst situation for something like that to happen,” said Patrick Cantlay, Rahm’s playing partner. What did you take away from this surreal episode?

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Bamberger: Reading the fine print, it would seem that Rahm did not get vaccinated, or was not fully vaccinated (two weeks past second shot, in most cases). Too bad for him. The Covid-19 vaccines are a miracle of modern science.

Zak: My takeaway — thanks to the mentions of a popular tweet — is that there is still a lot of people who don’t know what they don’t know about vaccines, about Covid-19, about the PGA Tour’s rules about vaccines and Covid-19. Perhaps that’s Twitter, but I think it speaks for a lot of non-Twitter users, too. Subscribe to a newspaper and read it.

James Colgan, assistant editor (@jamescolgan26): That we (and the PGA Tour, for that matter) aren’t out of the woods yet! And that’s OK. And also that the Tour’s protocols exist for a reason, and maybe they ought to look at extending them indefinitely for unvaccinated players rather than lapsing them at the end of June.  

Bastable: That this happened more than a year since the PGA Tour restarted is yet one more grim reminder of how this virus turned the world on its head.     

Dethier: There were no winners from this episode. The entire thing was just a huge bummer — for the tournament, for the fans, for the Tour, for Rahm, for our polarized online discourse. I cede the rest of my time to Senator Morikawa, out of California. Here’s what he said:

“People know the risks of not getting vaccinated versus vaccinated.” 

He added this:

“What I was seeing yesterday with how many people were judging Jon for doing this, doing that, like, it’s got to stop. Why are we judging people off that? Jon’s a great guy.”

6. Bryson vs. Brooks took another spicy turn last week. After DeChambeau was taunted by Memorial fans with cries of “Brooksy,” Koepka threw more gas on the fire by releasing a video in which he promised to send beer to any fans who had been ejected. When asked whether all the attention on Bryson and Brooks is good for golf, DeChambeau said, in part, “I’m happy that there’s more conversations about me because of the PIP fund” — aka the Tour’s Player Impact Program, which rewards players for generating engagement on social media. How much of the Bryson-Brooks rivalry do you suspect is being driven by the promise of a payday?

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Bamberger: None of it. Because we’re the ones driving it, and we’re not getting paid. We’re paying, if anything. Who do you think ultimately banks that PIP fund, those endorsement deals and all the rest? Not Brooksy! Not Bri-Bri! We do.

Zak: I think Koepka seems to be acting differently since the PIP was made public … but we all forget that the PIP has been known to players for much longer. So why now? I think the answer is that he genuinely does not like Bryson, for reasons Bryson shouldn’t necessarily have to answer for. The way he discusses his shots, the way he discusses his game, the sound his cleats make on pavement. Is BDC the most likable dude on Tour? Nope. Is Brooks? Nope. I’m ready for them to put this to bed. 

Colgan: This is a delightfully cynical question. I actually don’t think it’s being driven by a payday — at least not anymore. Bryson was clearly bothered by the taunting he received at Muirfield, and Brooks clearly loved it. Brooks genuinely didn’t love Bryson to begin with. Maybe he’s playing it up a bit for the PIP of it all, but I’m holding out hope my man Jim Herman is going to pull up the rear in those rankings, anyway.

Bastable: It all feels a bit silly and frivolous at this point. When you’re integrating sponsor activations into your smack-talk, it’s probably time to step back and cool the jets. 

Dethier: Brooks is after something far more valuable than money: Clout. Clout has no true dollar value. Except when it does.

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The stakes are high at this week’s U.S. Women’s Open. But how high, exactly?

Seven figure-high, for starters. Contestants at the Olympic Club in San Francisco this week are playing for a $1,000,000 first prize. That makes the USWO the biggest first-place check of any of the five women’s majors.

One other LPGA event, the CME Group Tour Championship, also offers a million-dollar payday.

In total, the U.S. Women’s Open is offering a $5.5 million purse. Sixty-six players made the cut, including four amateurs.

Below you can find the prize money payout for each pro who made the weekend. The money that each amateur would have won has been redistributed across the rest of the field.

Each pro who made the field but missed the cut received $4,000 in unofficial prize money.

2021 U.S. Women’s Open purse

Winner: $1,000,000

2: $594,000

3: $381,974

4: $267,765

5: $223,022

6: $197,751

7: $178,280

8: $159,671

9: $144,508

10: $132,733

11: $121,131

12: $111,999

13: $104,360

14: $96,319

15: $89,427

16: $83,683

17: $79,088

18: $74,494

19: $69,899

20: $65,304

21: $61,341

22: $57,378

23: $53,530

24: $49,969

25: $46,867

26: $44,225

27: $42,215

28: $40,434

29: $38,711

30: $36,988

31: $35,265

32: $33,542

33: $31,819

34: $30,268

35: $29,005

36: $27,741

37: $26,535

38: $25,386

39: $24,237

40: $23,089

41: $21,940

42: $20,791

43: $19,642

44: $18,494

45: $17,345

46: $16,311

47: $15,277

48: $14,301

49: $13,727

50: $13,152

51: $12,808

52: $12,520

53: $12,291

54: $12,176

55: $12,061

56: $11,946

57: $11,831

58: $11,716

59: $11,602

60: $11,487

61: $11,372

62: $11,257

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