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    5 Players to Watch at the Evian Championship

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    Any one of these talented women could win the golf tournament in France.It’s not easy to pick the winner of a major championship in women’s golf.Over the last 21 majors there have been 20 different champions. The most recent: Allisen Corpuz, who captured the United States Women’s Open at Pebble Beach earlier this month for her first tour victory.Will the trend continue at the Amundi Evian Championship, which begins on Thursday at the Evian Resort Golf Club in France? The chances are pretty good given the many talented players who could get on a roll.Here are five golfers to keep an eye on.Rose Zhang hitting from the ninth tee during the first round of the U.S. Women’s Open golf tournament in early July.Darron Cummings/Associated PressRose ZhangNo one in women’s golf has generated more buzz recently than Zhang.While a student at Stanford, she claimed her second straight N.C.A.A. individual championship, which no woman had done. Then, after turning professional, she defeated Jennifer Kupcho on the second hole of a playoff in the Mizuho Americas Open to become the first woman since Beverly Hanson, in 1951, to win her pro debut.Zhang, 20, played well in her first two attempts at winning a major this year: a tie for eighth at the KPMG Women’s P.G.A. Championship in June, where she was in contention until finding the water with her tee shot on the 18th hole, and a tie for ninth at the U.S. Women’s Open.Zhang has a chance to be a member of the U.S. squad at this year’s Solheim Cup matches in Spain.Corpuz hitting a tee shot on the third hole during the final round of the KPMG Women’s P.G.A. Championship in June.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesAllisen CorpuzWhat can Corpuz possibly do for an encore? Win her second major.Corpuz, 25 — who almost backed up her Open triumph with another win a week later at the Dana Open, finishing second by three — was unflappable during the final round of the Open, as she became the first American woman to win it since Brittany Lang, in 2016. Corpuz played the last 11 holes in one under par and was the only one to break par in each of the four rounds.“It was something I had dreamed of,” she said, “but at the same time kind of just never really expected it to happen.”The victory wasn’t a total surprise. In late April, she was tied for the lead after three rounds of the Chevron Championship, the first major of the year, before shooting a 74 to finish in a tie for fourth. She tied for 15th at the KPMG Women’s P.G.A.Corpuz became the second player from Hawaii to win the U.S. Women’s Open. The first was Michelle Wie West in 2014.Lydia Ko of New Zealand hitting off the 18th tee during the first round of the Mizuho Americas Open golf tournament in June.John Minchillo/Associated PressLydia KoPoor Ko. It has been that kind of year.Can she recover from what took place two weeks ago in the final round of the Dana Open, when she was assessed six penalty strokes for playing preferred lies, and another for picking up her ball?Preferred lies come into play when a golfer is allowed to move the ball because of the course becoming too wet. It had rained heavily on Saturday, so the players were allowed to play preferred lies on holes No. 1 and 10, but Ko also adjusted her ball position on three other holes. As a result, her score was a 78, dropping her into a tie for 65th.It was fair to expect a stellar 2023 from Ko, 26, after what she accomplished last season when she was the Player of the Year and won the Vare Trophy for the lowest scoring average (68.9).Early in the season, however, Ko of New Zealand missed the cut at the Chevron Championship, tied for 57th at the KPMG and tied for 33rd at the Open.Nelly Korda playing a shot during a practice round before the KPMG Women’s P.G.A. Championship in June.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesNelly KordaThe year was going very well for the No. 2-ranked Korda, with six top-six finishes in her first seven starts — until an ailing back forced her to miss tournaments in May and June. Still in pursuit of her first tour victory this year, she has an opportunity to make up for lost time.And it looks like she might do just that.Two weeks ago, Korda won the individual title in the Ladies European Tour’s Aramco Team Series.She hopes to “take that momentum into the next two big events.”In the majors, she finished third at the Chevron Championship, missed the cut at the KPMG and closed with an 80 at the U.S. Women’s Open to finish in a tie for 64th.Korda, who turns 25 on Friday, won her lone major at the 2021 KPMG Women’s P.G.A.Jin Young Ko of South Korea hitting a tee shot on the eighth hole during the third round of the Cognizant Founders Cup in May.Mike Stobe/Getty ImagesJin Young KoKo of South Korea is due to break out of her small slump. She hasn’t posted a top-10 result since a victory at the Cognizant Founders Cup in May.She certainly knows how to come up big in big events. In 2019, she won the ANA Inspiration and the Evian Championship.With 13 top-10 finishes in 2018, Ko, 28, was the L.P.G.A.’s Rookie of the Year, and in 2019 she was the Player of the Year, an honor she received again in 2021. In late June, she passed the former star Lorena Ochoa of Mexico to set a record for the most weeks (159) at No. 1.“It’s an honor people saying with Lorena and me in the same sentence,” she said. “It makes me happy, but also it makes me humble.” More

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      The Players to Watch at the Evian

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      Five golfers who have a good chance to win the tournament, including the defending champion.The premier female golfers in the world will tee off this Thursday at the Evian Resort Golf Club in France for the Amundi Evian Championship, the fourth of the LPGA Tour’s five majors in 2022.The year’s major winners include: Jennifer Kupcho (Chevron Championship), Minjee Lee (U.S. Women’s Open), and In Gee Chun (KMPG Women’s P.G.A. Championship). The final major, the AIG Women’s Open, will be held in early August.In last year’s Evian Championship, Minjee Lee outdueled Jeongeun Lee6 on the first playoff hole to capture her first major. Minjee Lee fired a 64 in the final round, rallying from seven shots back to take the title.Here’s who to watch this week:The 2021 Olympic champion Nelly Korda has had a difficult season so far, placing 30th at the KPMG Women’s P.G.A. Championship golf tournament last month.Scott Taetsch/USA Today Sports, via ReutersNelly KordaKorda, the former No. 1 and 2021 Olympic champion, has had a year that she would surely like to forget.In January, she got Covid-19, which kept her on the sidelines for a while during the off-season.Then, in March, she had surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm. Korda didn’t return to the LPGA Tour until the U.S. Women’s Open in early June, where she finished in a tie for eighth. A couple of months before, she hadn’t been sure she would make it back in time for that tournament.Two weeks later, Korda, 23, lost in a playoff to Kupcho at the Meijer L.P.G.A. Classic. In each of her first three rounds, Korda shot five under or lower, but she cooled off during the final round, firing an even-par 72. She went on to tie for 30th at the KPMG Women’s P.G.A. Championship in late June. She is ranked No. 3.With two majors to go, Korda, whose older sister, Jessica, also plays on the LPGA Tour, still has a chance to make this year memorable in a different way.Minjee Lee, ranked no. 2, has been a force since making her professional debut in the Evian Championship in 2014. Terrance Williams/Associated PressMinjee LeeLee, ranked No. 2, seems to be a factor in just about every major these days.That was the case again at the KPMG last month, where she had a chance to nab her third major title in under a year.Trailing by six strokes going into the final round, she put pressure on the leaders. Lee, however, missed a pivotal 4-footer on 17, coming away with a bogey. She rebounded with a birdie at 18, but finished in a tie with Lexi Thompson, a shot behind In Gee Chun.Lee, 26, who made her professional debut at the Evian Championship in 2014 — she tied for 16th at that event — grew up in Perth, Australia. She took up the game at the age of 10, and, in 2012, she won the United States Girls’ Junior championship. Just two years later, she had risen to become the No. 1 amateur in the world.Lydia Ko struggled recently at the KPMG, but she’s still in top form. The New Zealander has finished fifth or better in four of her past five appearances.Matt Rourke/Associated PressLydia KoIt’s true: Ko had a disappointing showing recently at the KPMG, where she recorded rounds of 76 and 79 on the weekend to finish in a tie for 46th. But beyond that, Ko, a former No. 1, has been playing extremely well this season.Before the KMPG, the New Zealander had finished fifth or better in four of her past five appearances. In 12 starts, the KPMG was the only event in which she ended up placing lower than 25th.Ko, who won the Gainbridge L.P.G.A. in late January — edging Danielle Kang by a stroke — is still only 25 years old. That seems difficult to imagine, given how long she’s been around. Ko was the tour’s rookie of the year in 2014 and player of the year in 2015, the youngest ever in both cases. That 2015 season was capped by a win in the Evian Championship, her first major title.Like many top players, she’s had her struggles. After compiling 15 career victories through 2018, Ko didn’t win again until the 2021 Lotte Championship. During that dry spell, she fell to as low as 55th in the world rankings; she has now climbed to No. 4.A 19 year-old rookie, Thitikul captured her first tour victory at the JTBC Classic in March. Elsa/Getty ImagesAtthaya ThitikulFor Thitikul, a rookie this year, the future may arrive sooner than she thinks. It might even be here already.Only 19 years old, Thitikul of Thailand is now ranked No. 5 in the world. At the KPMG, she finished fourth, just two shots behind Chun. Earlier this year, Thitikul picked up her first tour victory at the JTBC Classic. It probably didn’t happen in quite the way she would have imagined — she made a bogey on the second playoff hole to defeat Nanna Koerstz Madsen — but a win is a win. With that victory, Thitikul became the youngest winner on the LPGA Tour since Brooke Henderson in 2016.“It’s just crazy in my mind right now,” Thitikul said afterward. “I cannot believe that I became an LPGA winner.”In 2017, when she captured the Ladies European Thailand Championship, Thitikul became the youngest to win on the Ladies European Tour. She was 14 years, four months and 19 days old at the time.Jennifer Kupcho went pro after a stellar run as an amateur. This year, she scored her first career victory at the Chevron Championship.Elsa/Getty ImagesJennifer KupchoIn June, Kupcho prevailed in a three-way playoff with Nelly Korda and Leona Maguire in the Meijer LPGA Classic.Kupcho, ranked No. 9, almost blew it that day, missing a short eagle putt on the first playoff hole that would have ended the competition right there. Some players might have been flustered after a failure like that. Not Kupcho. On the second playoff hole, she made another birdie, then pulled out the victory when Maguire missed a short putt that would have extended the match.Kupcho, who teamed with Lizette Salas to capture last week’s Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational, collected her first career win in April at the Chevron Championship. She had trouble on the back nine, but had started the day with a six-stroke advantage.Over the next two months, she clearly did not play her best, failing to break into the top 15 in any of her six events.Kupcho had a stellar career as an amateur, winning both the N.C.A.A. Player of the Year award in 2018 and the first Augusta National Women’s Amateur in 2019. She went pro later that year and, in 2021, joined the United States players as they faced off against the Europeans in the Solheim Cup. More

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      Around the World, Golf Prodigies Get National Support, but Not in the U.S.

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      Country after country helps young men and women pay their way, but those players go it alone in America.Mone Inami, a professional golfer from Japan, won a silver medal for her country in last year’s Summer Olympics. Inami beat Lydia Ko, who has won 17 times on tour, including the Evian Championship in 2015.Both were golf prodigies, with Ko turning pro at age 17 in 2014. They were also products of national golf academies. (New Zealand in Ko’s case.)“I became a member of the Japanese national team” at age 15, Inami said through an interpreter. “I was then able to compete in golf matches overseas, which I hadn’t done before.”“One of my goals in my amateur days was to become a member of the national team,” she said. “After I was selected as a member of Team Japan and started to compete as a member, I developed a sense of being part of a team.”Inami is part of something many countries have developed that is supercharging their women’s golf programs and getting more players onto the professional circuit, and into events like the Amundi Evian Championship, which starts on Thursday in France.South Korea took the lead on this a decade ago, and many other countries have followed suit, including England, Scotland, Canada, most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.One notable exception to this list is the United States, which lacks any national program for women’s — or men’s — golf. It’s something Mike Whan, the new chief executive of the United States Golf Association, hopes to change.“As commissioner of the L.P.G.A., I was floored that every player came out of a team program except in the U.S.,” Whan said in an interview before the Curtis Cup, which pits the best United States women amateurs against their British and Irish counterparts.“When Lydia Ko was 11 in New Zealand, she joined Team New Zealand,” he said. “They taught her stretching, nutrition, how to work with caddies. I love the global part of this game, but as the head of the U.S.G.A., if we don’t create a better pipeline for American golf, we’re not going to be able to compete.”Lydia Ko, shown in June at the Women’s PGA Championship golf tournament in Maryland, learned stretching, nutrition and how to work with caddies, among other skills, as a member of New Zealand’s national team.Terrance Williams/Associated PressHe pointed to the world rankings. South Korea has 33 players in the top 100, and 148 golfers in the top 500. The United States, with over six times the population, ranks third for top-rated female players. (Japan is in second place.)Whan said he would like to change this.“Imagine if I take the best 500 young golfers and set up a $40-million grant program to carry them through a national program,” he said. “When I think about advancing the game, this is part of it.”Whan announced ahead of the United States Open in June that the U.S.G.A. had hired Heather Daly-Donofrio, a former professional golfer who ran tour operations and communications for the L.P.G.A., to run the USA Development Program, which will aim to create a quasi-national team for boys and girls from 12 to 17. While there is no firm plan in place, the mere mention of national support is music to the ears of junior players, coaches and parents.“The No. 1 complaint I get from parents and players is why isn’t there a U.S. team?” said Spencer Graham III, founder and head coach at the Junior Golf Performance Academy in Naples, Fla. “Every other country has a federation supporting their best 12 or 20 players. But America can’t put one together? I don’t really understand it.”Graham coaches many highly ranked junior golfers from the United States, but also coaches the top female golfers from Canada and Morocco, who are supported by their national federations.“Some of these parents pay $100,000 to $150,000 a year to travel,” he said of his American students. “And then you have the Korean or Canadian teams putting up that money for their players. I coach Sofia Essakali, who’s 13. She gets financial support from Morocco so her parents don’t have to play thousands of dollars for her to travel around.”Athletes like Ko, who turned pro at 17, gain access to better training and more chances to compete as members of a national golf team. They also have their expenses paid.Darren Carroll/PGA of America, via Getty ImagesThe support can come in several forms. Rebecca Hembrough, performance manager for the female program at England Golf, said that expenses like private coaching and competition travel were covered for team members. But the benefits extend beyond money. For an individual sport like golf, having a team matters.“When I played for Japan in the Olympic Games, it was like playing for Team Japan,” Inami said. “I wasn’t fazed by any of that. I was able to enjoy the matches. I was prepared.”Ryan Potter, associate head coach of Wake Forest University’s women’s golf team, said national teams allow training and preparation to start earlier, long before golfers get to college.“In the U.S., it’s a crapshoot,” he said. “You’re being taught by who may be close to you. You’re also the product of how much money you have to spend or are willing to spend. Can you afford it?”Peer support is key. Katie Cranston, a member of Team Canada, won the World Junior Golf Championship this year.“The Canadian Team was there, all dressed the same,” Graham said. “You could hear the Canadian players cheering for their team. You have the whole national squad cheering versus one parent clapping. It’s almost a disadvantage.”There’s also the frequency and variety of competition.In professional tournaments, golfers play their own ball, and they alone are responsible for shooting the lowest score they can. In team events like the Curtis Cup or the Solheim Cup, its professional equivalent, players spend several training days playing different formats of golf, like alternately hitting each others’ shot into the hole.Those types of games are something national academies stress, said Kevin Craggs, who was the national coach of the Scottish Ladies Golfing Association and is now the director of golf at IMG Academy, a private sports school in Bradenton, Fla.“At the Scottish national level we played a lot of match play,” he said, a format that is based on holes won, not the number of strokes on a scorecard. “It trains you to be aggressive. If I took a 4 and you took a 10 on a hole, you’re only 1 down. The score doesn’t matter.”Working with young, elite golfers in the United States now, he tries to keep it fun to maintain the passion young golfers have for the game. “In the U.S., many players don’t get exposed to the fun parts of the game,” Craggs said. “We have to make sport fun and learning fun, and then specialize later.”Inami said she had great memories of being on Team Japan as a teenager.“We used to have fun but still compete with each other,” she said. “It’s helped me continue to compete at professional level, having had that fun.”There are downsides, namely the excessive pressure. Certain national federations are also trying to push hard to get the players they backed into the professional ranks, even at the expense of playing college golf, Graham of the Junior Golf Performance Academy said.Martin Blake, media manager of Golf Australia, said the federation offered team members two options.“We encourage young female players to go through the college system, which Gabi Ruffels (University of Southern California) and Katherine Kirk (Pepperdine University) did,” he said. “Our elite amateurs are a mix of college and stay-at-home. Those who stay at home are funded to travel to international events like the U.S. Amateur.”Success, though, is a great way to inspire players to reach for major championships like the Evian. Hembrough of England Golf pointed out that recent professionals from its program include the L.P.G.A. stars Charley Hull, Georgia Hall and Bronte Law.“It’s building a legacy of success,” she said. More

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      Minjee Lee Wins U.S. Women’s Open

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      Lee, an Australian, earned $1.8 million, the largest payout in the history of women’s golf.SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. — Minjee Lee of Australia won the U.S. Women’s Open by four strokes over Mina Harigae at Pine Needles on Sunday to earn $1.8 million, the largest payout in the history of women’s golf.Lee closed Sunday’s final round with an even-par 71 to finish at 13-under 271 for the tournament after having flirted with the tournament record of 16 under set by the American Juli Inkster in 1999 at Old Waverly Golf Club in Mississippi.“I mean, I’m speechless,” Lee said. “I can’t believe it right now. No, it’s just super, super special and just a great honor. It’s been my dream since I was a little girl. It’s the one that I always wanted to win on; now I’ve done it, and just feels amazing.”Lee’s winnings came from a record $10 million purse.“We’re only moving in the right direction,” Lee said. “I think it’s only going to get better and better from here. It’s such a large sum, and I’m really honored to be the first winner I guess of this sum. We’re only going to get better and better.”Harigae shot a 72 for her best finish in a major tournament and earned a check of slightly more than $1 million.Although she knew she had no chance to win down the stretch, Harigae said it was still stressful knowing that $1 million — a larger payout than what the winner makes at most L.P.G.A. Tour events — was at stake.“I’m not going to lie, my stomach hurt the last couple holes coming down the stretch,” Harigae, 32, said. “I was really stressed out, but I was really just focusing on one shot at a time, making solid contact, and just hitting good putts.”South Korea’s Hye-Jin Choi was one of only two players to break par Sunday, carding a 70 to finish third at 7 under.South Korea’s Jin Young Ko, No. 1 in the women’s golf rankings, finished fourth at 6 under, seven shots back of the lead after a 71. Lydia Ko was at 5 under after a 72.Ingrid Lindblad, the Louisiana State University player from Sweden, was the low amateur at 1 under, tying for 11th after a 76.Lee, 26, was never challenged on a course that played significantly tougher on Sunday than it did the previous three days. She opened with rounds of 67, 66 and 67.Lee became the sixth straight international player to win the U.S. Women’s Open and the first from Australia since her mentor, Karrie Webb, won in 2001. It was her second career victory at a major championship after winning the Evian Championship last July. Her previous best finish at the U.S. Open was a tie for 11th in 2017.Lee, who entered the week ranked No. 4, has won eight LPGA Tour events and became the first repeat winner this year following her victory at the Founders Cup three weeks ago in New Jersey.Lee entered the final round with a three-stroke lead over Harigae and had said after the third round that her goal was to continue to stay aggressive and make birdies.She lived up those goals early, birdieing the first two holes to move to 15 under and take a five-stroke lead over Harigae.She stumbled a bit with bogeys on the fifth and seventh holes, but she was still able to make the turn at even-par 35 and with a four-stroke cushion when Harigae also bogeyed the seventh. The lead increased to five strokes after Harigae bogeyed the par-4 11th hole, all but sealing Lee’s win.Lee then knocked in a bending 9-foot birdie putt on No. 12 to push the lead to six, prompting her to pump her arm in celebration. She appeared in distance of Inkster’s record when she got to 15 under after a birdie on the par-5 15th hole, but closed with two bogeys.Harigae didn’t make her first birdie until the 15th hole.Nelly Korda closed with a 73 on Sunday to tie for eighth in her first tournament since undergoing surgery to treat a blood clot in her left arm.“The first week back you have rust, right, so you don’t really expect much from your game,” said Korda, the world’s No. 2 player. “You don’t know where your game is at. Knowing that I can play on a really tough golf course at a major and even kind of be in contention is definitely a positive.” More

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      Players of Asian Descent on the L.P.G.A. Tour Lift Silence on Racism and Sexism

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      The Women’s P.G.A. Championship this week in Atlanta, just minutes from the fatal shootings of six Asian women this year, has surfaced fears and feelings about what it means to be Asian in the United States at a time of pervasive discrimination.ATLANTA — Players of Asian descent have won eight of the past 10 Women’s P.G.A. Championships, but there is nothing cookie cutter about the winners. They include Shanshan Feng of China, who has worn tailored cow pants to reflect her fun-loving personality, and Sung Hyun Park of South Korea, who had a Korean word on her bag that translated to “I am different.”More than five dozen Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are L.P.G.A. members, more than any league or tour in North American professional sports. Several other members have Asian roots, and their convergence on the Atlanta Athletic Club this week for the third major of the season throws into stark relief both their ascendancy and ancestry.The golf course is roughly 15 minutes from two of the three massage businesses where eight people, six of them Asian women, were fatally shot in March in a crime that encapsulates the escalating violence against Asians in America during the pandemic.The rise of anti-Asian hatred and bias has jolted the players out of their silence. For years, these women have endured microaggressions about their names, their appearance, even their success. At a time when Asians have been scapegoated in American communities for the spread of the coronavirus, players of Asian descent who show no fear on the golf course have grown uneasy, and outraged, enough that they are speaking out about what it means, and how it feels, to be Asian in the United States right now.A woman held a sign during a Community Rally Against Racial & Misogynistic Violence at Columbus Park in Manhattan in the spring.Jeenah Moon for The New York Times“I’m scared every time I see the news that it could happen to me,” said Yani Tseng, a two-time Women’s P.G.A. champion and the first player from Taiwan to become the world No. 1.Tseng, 32, was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2012, but in 2021 she feels helpless. Tseng, who said she fell in love with America during her first visit in 2007 because everyone “was so nice,” was incredulous when a friend who lives in Irvine, Calif., relayed a terrifying experience she had while seated in her car in a grocery store parking lot. A group of strangers approached her automobile and attempted to open its locked doors, pounding on the car with so much force the vehicle oscillated. After hearing that, Tseng, who has a residence in San Diego, about a 90-minute drive south of Irvine, said, “I was really worried about myself.”At home in Taiwan, her family also frets. “Every time they see the news they say, ‘Are you OK there?’” she said.The nine-time L.P.G.A. tour winner Na Yeon Choi, one of 25 L.P.G.A. members from South Korea, has traveled to events in America in the past accompanied by her mother. But she advised her not to bother coming to the United States for her tournaments this year, even if, or as, travel restrictions are loosened.“I was thinking it’s not safe for her to be alone when I’m focusing on practice,” Choi said. “She can’t speak English, so she’d be stuck in the hotel because I wouldn’t want her going out.”According to a national report released by Stop AAPI Hate, 6,603 incidents of anti-Asian violence, harassment and discrimination were reported to the organization in the previous 12 months ending March 31. Verbal harassment (65.2 percent), shunning (18.1 percent) and physical assault (12.6 percent) led the recorded incidents.Choi advised her mother to stay away from her American tournaments.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesAfter a white male gunman allegedly opened fire at the three Atlanta-area spas, the L.P.G.A. released a statement in support of the A.A.P.I. community and Choi received an internal email, which she said was sent to all the players, advising them to be careful when venturing outside the tour bubble at all tournaments.In March, Mike Whan, the departing L.P.G.A. commissioner, said there had been isolated incidents involving Asian players away from tournament venues over the years, including some in which the tour’s security detail had to get involved.The Covid-19 protocols in place during the past year have provided a protective membrane. Players have been prohibited from dining or socializing outside the tournament grounds or their accommodations. And tournaments have had few, if any, spectators. But their environments aren’t airtight, and pandemic protocols are easing, increasing interaction between the players and the public.The players find themselves distracted by worries about the safety of their loved ones — and of themselves.Mina Harigae, 31, a four-time California Women’s Amateur champion from Monterey whose parents are Japanese, said: “I’ll be honest. I got so scared I went online and bought a self-defense stick.”At the year’s first women’s major, which was held outside Palm Springs, Calif., Michelle Wie West said she ran an errand at a strip mall near the course, one of thousands of such pit stops she has made for one forgotten item or another during her nearly two decades of competing in L.P.G.A. events. This time, though, was different.“It was the first time I was truly afraid,” she said, adding, “We’re a target now, unfortunately.”Michelle Wie West felt fearful going out to run errands because of threat of violence against the asian community.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesLydia Ko, 24, a Korean-born New Zealander with 16 L.P.G.A. victories, including two majors, acknowledged at the Los Angeles tour stop in April that she worried about her mother traveling on her own in the United States.Tiffany Joh, a first-generation American, grew up in a nice neighborhood in San Diego. Her South Korean-born parents still live nearby. “It was kind of a sad day when my mom was like, ‘Should we start carrying around pepper spray?’” Joh said.Joh, 34, is easy to place on the golf course. Just follow the laughter. With one-liners as crisp as her iron shots, she spent two years grinding on what is now the Symetra circuit, where she often stayed with families to save money before she joined the L.P.G.A. Tour in 2011.At one stop, Joh recalled, her hosts remarked on her height, which is 5 feet 6 inches, and asked: “Are both your parents Oriental? Because you’re quite tall and built for an Oriental.”“I said, ‘No, I’m not a rug and I’m not a chicken salad, so no, I’m not Oriental,’” Joh said. “And then I was joking around because for me, when I have a sense of discomfort, my defense mechanism is humor. So I said, ‘You know, no one has ever told me my parents are my real parents. Maybe I need to talk to the milkman.’ And they said: ‘Oh, no, sweetie. That would be the soy milk man.’ They were trying to be cute.”Joh added, “It was kind of an example of how you can educate someone without being a jerk about it.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Jane Park has also used humor to deflect uncomfortable situations. Despite having won the U.S. Women’s Amateur while in high school and been on the L.P.G.A. Tour since 2007, Park, an American of Korean descent, could tell from her amateur playing partners’ initial lack of enthusiasm that they thought she was another indistinguishable — in their eyes — Asian player at a pro-am in Arizona several years ago.Park sometimes uses humor to deal with uncomfortable situations.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesSo she decided to play a prank on them. At the first tee, she bowed formally and greeted them in Korean, then said nothing more for the rest of the hole. On the second hole, she asked in English if they were ready for beers, and her playing partners laughed and were animated for the rest of the round.But not every indignity can be dismissed with laughs. Park, 34, lives with her husband and 11-month-old daughter roughly five miles from one of the three massage businesses targeted. She described the spa shootings as “jarring.”They dredged up a memory from a few years ago, when she was waiting to pay for a pair of shoes at a nearby store. A woman behind her in line stage-whispered an anti-Asian pejorative directed at her. “My whole body started sweating,” said Park, who whirled around and said to the woman, “I understand English.”The shootings in Atlanta rattled Inbee Park of South Korea, a three-time Women’s P.G.A. champion and former world No. 1, whose aunt operates a dry-cleaning business not far from where they occurred. “I called her straight away to make sure she was OK,” she said, adding, “It’s really unfortunate what’s happening.”The rise in anti-Asian sentiment in American society has caused players to see experiences they’ve had on the golf course in a different light. Park wondered why broadcasters persisted in mispronouncing the names of Asian players even after she had corrected them on social media. Or why she was asked if she was related to “all the other Parks” on the tour.Christina Kim, a Californian of Korean descent, is tired of hearing that Asians “talk funny” and really tired of the added pressure that Asian-born players on the tour feel to speak the Queen’s English to avoid being mocked or criticized. She is tired of people on social media directing comments to her about the “kung flu.”Christina Kim has had racist comments in her social media feeds calling the coronavirus the “kung flu.”Jim Wilson/The New York TimesPlayers of Asian descent are weary of the many microaggressions that they must deflect, ignore or swallow because competitive golf at the highest level presents enough obstacles without having to also maneuver around race and gender-related hazards.Wie West, the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open champion, said: “I look back at a lot of the questions that reporters ask me. ‘Why are the South Koreans so good?’ That question always bothered me, but I answered it. I’d say, ‘Oh, because they practice really hard’ and by saying that I was playing into the microaggression. I never really put two and two together as to why that question, and certain other comments, bothered me until this year.”The next person who asks Wie West the question will receive a different answer. She said, “I would say that’s a really inappropriate question.” More

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      Lydia Ko Is Winning on the L.P.G.A. Tour Again

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      Sean Foley, who coached Tiger Woods for four years, has helped Ko, a former world No. 1, connect her body with her mind. She’s playing her best golf in years.LOS ANGELES — Lydia Ko of New Zealand was strolling the beach at Santa Monica on Sunday when she said she was bitten by a sea gull that swooped in and stole the sandwich in her hand. All Ko could do was laugh. Her return to the top 10 in the women’s world golf rankings after more than three years of absence has much to do with her making peace with her ability to control only so much when she is in the sand.Or on the fairway.The day before, Ko, a former world No. 1, had ended a three-year title drought at the Lotte Championship in Hawaii, cruising to a seven-stroke victory fueled by her belief that the outcome was largely out of her hands.For Ko, who at 17 became the youngest player, male or female, to reach No. 1 and had 14 L.P.G.A. wins before she turned 20, the expectations had become a burden that she could no longer comfortably shoulder. So she recently decided to release them to the winds of fate, telling herself “the winner’s already chosen.”The mantra has freed her to play the best golf she’s capable of instead of expending all her physical and psychic energies on manufacturing success. The results have made her 2021 feel like 2015. Going into this week’s L.A. Open, the seventh-ranked Ko is 38 under par in her past five competitive rounds and has 16 subpar scores in 20 competitive rounds this year. She had one bogey and 39 birdies in her last 100 holes before Wednesday, when her hot hand went cold in a round where she shot a seven-over-par 78 at Wilshire Country Club. Ko was 14 shots off the pace set by Jessica Korda, who was in her group.Ko and Gaby Lopez, during the final round of the ANA Inspiration in April. Ko finished second at the major tournament.Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated Press“It takes a little pressure off to think that what’s meant to be is going to happen,” Ko said Tuesday. “At the end of the day, you don’t control your outcome even though you would like to.”Ko, who turns 24 on Saturday, never went away, and yet her presence on the first page of leaderboards this year has the feel of a much beloved show returning after an interminable hiatus. After her Pro-Am on Tuesday, Ko was stopped by every player or caddie she passed as made the serpentine walk through a narrow tunnel and up a hill from the ninth hole to the practice putting green.Everybody had congratulations and kind words for Ko, who has been one of the more popular players on the tour since she burst onto the golf scene like a blast of puppy’s breath.In 2012, as a 15-year-old amateur, Ko became the youngest winner of an L.P.G.A. event, topping a field at the Canadian Women’s Open that included 48 of the top 50 of the year’s leading money winners. She won the event again before turning pro at 16. The L.P.G.A. waived its 18-year-old minimum age restriction to grant her membership and Ko continued her rocket ascent. She won her first event as a professional, won Rookie of the Year honors, and won and won and won.She was so consistent, she made the cut in her first 53 L.P.G.A. events. She was in such command of her game, she had won two majors and an Olympic silver medal before her 20th birthday.But then the unimaginable happened: Ko stopped winning. Not only did the victories dry up, but Ko struggled to advance to the weekend. In the 12 months before the coronavirus pandemic shut down the tour, Ko missed four cuts, including one by seven strokes at the Evian Championship, one of the five women’s golf majors. Ko’s struggles called to mind something JoAnne Carner, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, said in 2012 after watching Ko equal her 1969 feat of winning an L.P.G.A. event as an amateur.Ko at the 2014 United States Women’s Open Championship when she was 17 years old.Doug Mills/The New York Times“They tack a ‘professional’ after your name and all of the sudden you feel like you’re supposed to know everything,” Carner told The Times then. “There’s a lot more pressure and you try so hard and you put so much pressure on yourself.”Ko’s swing went south, but her smile never did, though at times both seemed equally mechanical. During her slump, Ko cycled through a series of swing coaches. One, David Leadbetter, who was fired at the end of 2016, was vocal in his belief that Ko’s biggest impediment to success was her overreliance on her parents. He told anyone who asked that she needed to take control of her career if she wanted to turn around her results.Last year, at the start of the pandemic, Ko made a pivotal phone call to Sean Foley, an instructor based in Orlando, Fla., where she lives, whose clients have included Tiger Woods.“I just felt like my swing was improving but I could do a little better,” said Ko, who began working with Foley during the months when the tour was shut down but the courses in Orlando remained accessible.Foley’s interest in his clients extends beyond the swing plane, and his whole-person philosophy clicked with Ko. More than any adjustment he has made to her swing, Foley has helped Ko sync her mind and her body.He reminded her that she can control only her effort, not the outcome. In the second event after the tour resumed last summer, Ko held a five-stroke lead with six holes to play. She took a one-stroke lead over a charging Danielle Kang into the final hole, a par-5, and made bogey to finish second. Just a bad day at the office, Foley told her. No big deal.Entering the final round in Hawaii with a one-stroke lead over Nelly Korda, whom she had finished second behind at the Gainbridge LPGA in February, she retrieved one final text from Foley before she teed off. It read: Trust and conviction.Ko won in Hawaii with a tournament record 28 under par.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesShe wrote the words on her yardage book, then went out and played that way, closing with a 65 to clinch her first victory in 1,084 days.“I think that settled some of the doubts I had in myself,” Ko said Tuesday, adding, “I felt pretty calm playing. That’s where I feel like it should be. Like just because I shoot a 68 or 78, that shouldn’t dictate my mood and the way I am around the golf course.”Ko considered the win as much a validation of her parents, and their approach, as of her and her game. “For them to get criticism I thought was unfair because they’re just doing everything they can to wish me to be happier,” she said.Foley’s work with Ko is focused on finding that happiness, win or lose. For all her precocity — perhaps because of it — Ko had skipped over that lesson. She had to learn it the hard way. More

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      A Rookie Wins the ANA Inspiration Ahead of a Fast-Closing Challenger

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      Patty Tavatanakit of Thailand won the first women’s golf major of the year, holding off Lydia Ko, whose final round of 10-under 62 put her two strokes short.RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — Generation Next was in full flower over the weekend. Not at the former nursery in Georgia where youngsters and the top female amateurs convened for separate events at the invitation of the Augusta National Golf Club members who run the Masters Tournament, but across the country where a 21-year-old rookie, Patty Tavatanakit, won the ANA Inspiration on Sunday.The 50th edition of the ANA Inspiration, the first of the five women’s golf majors of the year, will be remembered for Tavatanakit’s mastery of the course at Mission Hills Country Club and of the moment.She led from start to finish to become the first rookie winner since Juli Inkster in 1984 and the first champion from Thailand in tournament history. She closed with a three-under 68 — her fourth consecutive sub-70 round — for a cumulative score of 18-under 270 to hold off a fast-closing Lydia Ko by two strokes. Ko’s 10-under 62 on Sunday was one of the most memorable final rounds in men’s or women’s major history.With no fans on the course because of coronavirus restrictions, there were no roars to make Tavatanakit aware of what was happening in front of her. And she said she never once glanced at a leaderboard. “I didn’t feel the need to,” she said, adding, “I just wanted to play like it was another round of golf.”Tavatanakit, who averaged more than 300 yards off the tee for the week, began the day with a five-stroke lead over the field and an eight-stroke advantage over Ko. For all the talk about Tavatanakit’s length, her touch on and around the greens proved clutch.She chipped in for an eagle at the par-5 second, nearly chipped in two other times on the back nine and made an eight-foot putt to save par at No. 15 to keep Ko, the 2016 ANA Inspiration champion, at a club’s length.Playing two groups ahead of Tavatanakit, Ko, 23, of New Zealand, applied more heat than a desert sun with a front-nine seven-under 29, a tournament record. She was nine under through 11, and climbed within two shots of the lead, but Tavatanakit did not wilt. Under the most intense pressure, Tavatanakit produced her second bogey-free round of the week.“I felt like I gave myself a good run at it,” said Ko, whose last L.P.G.A. victory was in 2018, “but maybe Patty was just a bit too far away.”Roughly 90 minutes before Tavatanakit teed off, Cristie Kerr put the finishing touches on a seven-under 65, her lowest round in 23 starts in the tournament. As Kerr signed her card in the scoring tent, she glanced up at a television tuned to Golf Channel, which was showing a replay of the Drive, Chip and Putt contest that had taken place earlier in the day at Augusta National.Plastered on the glassed back wall, in direct view of the players as they reviewed their scorecards, were posters with sayings from former champions, including the three-time winner Amy Alcott, who said, “This tournament really got women’s sports on the move.”The 43-year-old Kerr, who counts two major championships among her 20 tour titles, made her debut in this event as an amateur in 1996. Seventeen strokes off the pace at the day’s start, Kerr started in the fourth group in the morning and plotted her way around the course unburdened by expectations.“All day I just kind of played with no fear,” Kerr said. “I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why doesn’t that happen every day?’”The boldness of which Kerr spoke is Tavatanakit’s default mentality. Before sleeping on her first 54-hole lead in an L.P.G.A. Tour event, she said her mind-set Sunday would be, “Keep on the pedal.”Tavatanakit took the winner’s traditional dip into Poppie’s Pond, the water hazard that surrounds the 18th hole. Kelvin Kuo/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIn 2019, in her second ANA Inspiration appearance, Tavatanakit earned low amateur honors, closing with a 68 to finish tied for 26th. She was a standout sophomore at U.C.L.A. at the time, but her presence at the event, a launching pad for amateurs long before Michelle Wie tied for ninth in 2003 as a 13-year-old, was not a given.The inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur was being played at the same time. The opportunity it offered to play the final round on one of the world’s most storied courses had to be weighed against the chance to measure one’s game against the world’s most celebrated players.Tavatanakit was one of a handful of eligible players who chose to bypass the amateur event to compete at Mission Hills. The decision, she said, questioned by many at the time, set Tavatanakit on a path that ended Sunday with her taking the winner’s traditional dip in Poppie’s Pond, the water hazard surrounding the 18th island green.Her top 30 showing in 2019, she said, convinced her that she was ready to take a leap of faith. “I kind of had a thought of turning pro, I played well and that just made it more clear,” said Tavatanakit, who gave up her collegiate eligibility in May 2019.By year’s end, Tavatanakit had won three times on the L.P.G.A.’s developmental tour. Her 2020 rookie season, which has been extended through 2021, featured a top five in February at the Gainbridge L.P.G.A., where she gained valuable experience playing in the last group with the eventual winner, Nelly Korda, but also seven missed cuts.Tavatanakit suggested that her commitment to the ANA Inspiration in 2019 helped her immensely this year. The four rounds at Mission Hills in 2019 gave her enough course knowledge to commit to the aggressive lines she took.“Looking back, I think coming here and playing here enough to know how the course is, it was really good,” she said.Tavatanakit’s eyes were wet before she jumped into Poppie’s Pond. She became emotional before hitting her last putt, she said, because she was thinking, “Oh, man, I’m actually going to do this.”She had made history and she had done it by grafting off women’s golf’s roots. More

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      For Korea’s Golfers Eyeing the Olympics, More Than Four Is a Crowd

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      Each country can send only four women to Tokyo, and with six Korean golfers in the world’s top 15, just making the team can feel harder than winning gold.RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — So Yeon Ryu is a two-time major winner and a former world No. 1 who entered this week’s ANA Inspiration, the first L.P.G.A. major of the year, as a top 20 player. Ryu’s credentials for the Tokyo Olympics this summer are solid gold.Her passport is her problem.Ryu is from South Korea, where champion women golfers are an abundant natural resource. With three months until the team rosters for the delayed Summer Games in Tokyo are finalized, Ryu is No. 16 in the world but No. 7 in her homeland.The Olympic qualification standards dictate that every player in the top 15 is eligible to compete but that no country can have more than four representatives in the 60-player field. Led by Jin Young Ko, Koreans hold the top three spots.“I don’t know that there’s a harder team in sport to make right now,” said Mike Whan, the departing L.P.G.A. commissioner.In 2016, when golf returned to the Olympics as a medal sport for the first time since 1904, Ryu missed a berth on the South Korean team despite a top-12 world ranking.“It’s tougher to make the team from my country than to win the gold medal,” said Ryu, who opened with an even-par 72 Thursday at Mission Hills. Patty Tavatanakit of Thailand shot a six-under-par 66 to lead the field.South Korean champions have been plentiful over the past decade, capturing 23 of the 47 L.P.G.A. majors contested. They occupy 14 of the top 35 spots in the world rankings. For players desiring to distinguish themselves, making the Olympic team is a priority.“So many players are playing so well from Korea that I want to say people back home are less appreciative to see what we’re doing on the tour,” said Ryu, 30, whose major titles came at the 2011 United States Women’s Open and the 2017 ANA Inspiration, both in playoffs. “They’re more keen to see the Olympics because they know it’s really, really tough to make the team.”Inbee Park, Ryu’s best friend and compatriot, won the women’s competition at the Rio Olympics, by five strokes over New Zealand’s Lydia Ko, then the top-ranked player. With the country’s team members all so highly ranked, Korean officials were confident of at least one medal in the women’s competition. Park overcame a wrist injury that had slowed her progress all year and delivered on the expectations.No stranger to the spotlight, she took the golf world on a thrilling ride in 2013 when she won the first three majors in a bid to become the first professional, male or female, to win four in the same year. But never, Park said, had she felt more pressure. After arriving in Brazil, Park absorbed the sense of urgency radiated by the archers, the swimmers, the taekwondo athletes and the handball players representing Korea who have one chance every four years to craft their legacies.“You get so much attention from the people and the country and from everyone pretty much,” Park, now 32 and a seven-time major champion, said this week. “I think it’s double, triple, probably 10 times more pressure than I ever felt in a major championship.”Whan said the telecast of Park’s final round drew a 27.1 rating in South Korea. To put that in context, he said, Park’s unsuccessful bid for history at the 2013 Women’s British Open — she finished 14 strokes behind the winner, Stacy Lewis — got an 8, which was roughly the same as the rating for Tiger Woods’s victorious final round at the 2019 Masters.“So imagine Tiger at Augusta times three,” Whan said. “She went from being a really noteworthy golfer to being one of the most famous people in Korea in one weekend.”Ryu didn’t plan to watch any of the 2016 Olympics coverage. “I was so close to making the team that it definitely hurt for me,” Ryu said. “I wanted to avoid it as much as I can.”She added, “But when you know your best friend is rocking it in Rio, you have to watch.”Ryu was glad she saw Park clinch the gold. She credits Park’s performance in the Olympics with her own victory at Mission Hills and ascent to No. 1 the following year.“Before Rio I was maybe so afraid, ‘What is going to happen if I miss the Olympics?’” Ryu said. “So I almost just wanted to believe winning a major is better than the Olympics.”She added: “After Inbee won the gold medal, I was definitely jealous — not of her but because I felt she did something that was big for the whole golf industry. Maybe that motivation really helped me to play well in 2017.”Inbee Park, right, with Chun Lee-Kyung, a four-time Olympic champion in short-track speed skating, during the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympics. Park saw her stardom explode after she won gold at the Rio Games. Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesIn 2018, South Korea hosted the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. In a nod to her new stature, Park was chosen as one of the final torch bearers. As she ran with the flame into the Olympic Stadium, slowly to avoid tripping in conditions so cold she could hardly feel her feet, her friend Ryu sat awe-struck in the crowd of 35,000.After being so near the top 10 and still so far from qualifying for the 2016 Olympics, Ryu recognized it might be her only chance to experience an Olympics up close. More