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    Betsy Rawls, Winner of Eight Golf Majors, Dies at 95

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    With a strong short game, she won four Women’s opens and a total of 55 L.P.G.A. Tour events between 1951 and 1972. She also had leadership roles with the tour.Betsy Rawls, who won eight major golf championships, including four United States Women’s Opens, in the first two decades of the L.P.G.A. Tour, and as an executive and tournament director helped propel the arrival of the women’s pro circuit as a big-money attraction, died on Saturday at her home in Lewes, Del. She was 95. Her death was confirmed by the Ladies Professional Golf Association.Rawls was the first four-time Women’s Open champion, winning in 1951, 1953, 1957 and 1960, a record matched only by Mickey Wright, who captured her fourth Open in 1964. From 1951 to 1972, Rawls won a total of 55 events on the L.P.G.A. Tour, which was founded in 1950.Her other major victories came at the Women’s Western Open in 1952 and 1959 and the Women’s P.G.A. Championship in 1959 and 1969. She was a three-time runner-up during the 1950s in the other major tournament of her time, the Titleholders Championship, and was among the six original inductees into the L.P.G.A. Tour Hall of Fame in 1967. She was also inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.Rawls received the 1996 Bob Jones Award, the United States Golf Association’s highest honor, and the L.P.G.A.’s 50th Anniversary Commissioner’s Award in 2000 for her contributions to women’s golf. She was selected in 1980 as the first woman to serve on the rules committee for the men’s United States Open.Elizabeth Earle Rawls was born on May 4, 1928, in Spartanburg, in northern South Carolina, one of two children of Robert and Mary (Earle) Rawls. In the early 1940s, the family moved to Texas, where Betsy’s father worked as an engineer at an aircraft plant in Arlington, a suburb of Dallas, during World War II.Robert Rawls, who had played golf as a young man in Indiana, hired Harvey Penick, one of the game’s most renowned teachers, to give Betsy her first lesson when she was 17. Penick charged $3 for that one-hour session at the Austin Country Club and remained her coach, free of charge, for her entire career.“He always brought me back to the basic mechanics on which a good swing is built,” Rawls recalled in “Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book: Lessons and Teachings From a Lifetime in Golf.”Her strong suit was the short game. “I had a reputation of being able to get the ball up and down out of a garbage can,” she told The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., in 2010. “The sand wedge, off the fairway or out of the rough, was my best club. I could get it down in two from almost any place. I was a good putter under pressure.”Rawls graduated from the University of Texas in 1950, earning a bachelor’s degree with concentrations in physics and mathematics. She also finished an astonishing second, behind Babe Zaharias, as an amateur in the Women’s Open in 1950, the L.P.G.A. Tour’s inaugural season.She turned pro in 1951 after Wilson sporting goods recruited her to join its staff of leading players who were giving clinics on its behalf around the country. That year Rawls bested Louise Suggs by five strokes to capture the Open.At the time, Wilson paid her expenses, along with a salary that she recalled was about $3,000 a year (around $35,000 in today’s dollars), since prize money at the time was meager.She led the tour in victories in 1952, 1957 and 1959, when she set single-season records with 10 wins (including two majors), $26,744 in earnings and the lowest scoring average per round, 74.03, bringing her the women’s Vare Trophy.She got a break in winning the 1957 Open, at Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, N.Y.Rawls received the winner’s trophy at the 1957 Open. Jackie Pung, who was disqualified from the tournament for an incorrect scorecard, can be seen at left, with her head in her hand.Bettmann ArchiveJackie Pung of Hawaii finished with a four-round total of 298 to Rawls’s 299. But officials quickly noticed that Pung’s playing partner, Betty Jameson, who was keeping score for Pung, had listed a 5 on the fourth hole of the last round, though she had actually scored a 6. Pung had made the same error in keeping score for Jameson, who wasn’t in contention for the victory.Although Pung’s card showed a correct total score, she was disqualified, as was Jameson, the automatic penalty under golf’s rules for a player who hands in a card with an incorrect score on any hole.So the championship, along with $1,800 in prize money, went to Rawls.“It’s always great to win, I guess, but I sure hate to do it this way,” United Press International quoted Rawls as saying. “I feel sorry for Jackie.”But Pung wound up as the No. 1 money winner: Members of the Winged Foot Club, distressed over her losing the title on a technicality, raised about $3,000 to ease her loss.Rawls was the L.P.G.A.’s president in 1961 and 1962 and its tournament director for six years following her retirement from competition in 1975. After that, she was the executive director of the McDonald’s Championship, which was discontinued in 1994 when it became the longtime sponsor of the L.P.G.A. Championship. Continuing in her post with that major event, she helped raise millions of dollars for charity.Rawls in 2005. She helped raise millions of dollars for charity in her later years.Al Messerschmidt/Getty ImagesRawls was treated for breast cancer in 2000 but continued overseeing the L.P.G.A. event, held at the DuPont Country Club in Wilmington, Del. She retired from her executive director’s post in 2002 but stayed on as the tournament’s vice board chairman.Rawls’s brother, Robert Rawls Jr., died in 1992. She left no immediate survivors. Rawls earned $302,664 in her 25-year career on the pro tour, landing below the top 450 on the L.P.G.A.’s current earnings list.“Today I look at the money they play for with amazement, but not with envy or bitterness,” Rawls told The Philadelphia Inquirer shortly before receiving the Bob Jones Award. “In the beginning, we played for so little that money wasn’t the motivating factor. But when I won, it seemed like it was a lot of money at the time. I enjoyed winning when I did.” More

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      Michelle Wie West Wants to Win the U.S. Women’s Open One More Time

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      You could see the head tilts and darting glances when people peered around Pebble Beach’s Gallery Cafe, or as visitors sat on the patio that looks toward the cypress-guarded 18th green by Stillwater Cove. They surfaced at a luncheon with Brandi Chastain and Kristi Yamaguchi, and during a climb up a flight of stairs, and a stroll through a lobby.That’s Michelle Wie West, that 6-foot fixture of collective memory and modern golf history.She did not win as much as she wanted to, and certainly not as much as many people thought she would or should have. But after close to a quarter of a century in the spotlight, she is still one of the savviest stars women’s golf has ever had, a player plenty of people outside of golf know as a star even if they do not know golf.The competitive golf part of Wie’s life will most likely be done by dusk on Sunday, when the U.S. Women’s Open is scheduled to finish at Pebble Beach. If things don’t go well, and they might not since Wie West’s husband will be her caddie for the first time and she has barely played lately, it could be over by dusk on Friday. After the Open, she has no plans to return to elite competition, though she dodges the word “retirement” in public (and confesses to sometimes using it in private).She is 33.That went fast, didn’t it?Wie West on No. 18 at Lake Merced Golf Course during the Mediheal Championship last year.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesIn 2000, when she was 10 and Bill Clinton was president, she played the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship. She won the event when she was 13, the same age she made an L.P.G.A. tournament cut and had a turn in third place on a major tournament’s weekend leaderboard. She played a PGA Tour event at 14, turned professional at 15, rattled off three top-five finishes in her first three majors as a pro, battled wrist trouble, won the Open at 24 and then spent years with more injuries, cuts and withdrawals than strong showings.So it was not that fast, after all. Soon, though, it will apparently be finished. Barring a victory this weekend or a surprise in the years ahead, Wie West will finish with five L.P.G.A. Tour wins, including the 2014 Open at Pinehurst, tied for 69th on the career victory list. It adds up to a far better career than most players, though short of the mighty expectations that followed Wie West from the start and flowed from a blend of internet-age youth, talent, celebrity and marketability. (By way of comparison, Inbee Park, a 34-year-old player from South Korea, has won seven majors but has long drawn a fraction of the public attention that Wie West commanded.)“What’s the right word for this?” Wie West said in an interview in a sun-splashed lounge, well out of earshot of any aides.“I feel very — confident that I had the career that I wanted to,” she continued eventually. “Obviously, I wish I could have done more as well. I think anyone and everyone thinks that.”But, she said, “the what-ifs and the regrets and the ‘I wish I could have done this better’ can drive you truly insane.”Even last year’s announcement of a transition, to use her publicly preferred term, got derailed when her husband came down with Covid-19 and Wie West’s parents stayed back to help with child care. Ready to detail the wind-down she had rolled out on Instagram the previous week, Wie West wound up nearly alone at the 2022 Open in North Carolina.Wie West during the second round of last year’s U.S. Open.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersShe had been mulling for years whether it was time to stop playing, frustrated by injuries and, more recently, torn by the notion of her family of three having only so much time together. In 2021, vulgar comments about Wie West by Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former mayor of New York City, jolted her into a fresh sense of purpose.But there eventually came a point, she said, when she realized the game’s toll was ultimately too high, when she feared her body would be so broken down she would not even be able to play a round for pleasure with her daughter. Her clubs have been in her bag almost exclusively ever since.“It’s hard,” she said, “it’s hard to know when the right time is to walk away.”That is assuredly in part because, for an athlete in any sport, stepping back from competition means the statistics are done and that the résumé is, with few exceptions, frozen. For Wie West, retiring or transitioning or whatever you want to call it meant firing up the inevitable debate about whether she had been a squandered or overhyped talent.She hears it, of course. She also gets it.“People love to chirp and have their own feeling and whatnot, and they totally have the right to it: They have been invested in my career,” she said. “I know I haven’t won as many as I, quote-unquote, should have.”At the same time, she seems to wonder how fair it is. She earned a degree from Stanford and won a U.S. Open, and those two feats, she figures, are what she wanted to do anyway.And yet she can still run through all of the ways her career could have been different: if she had held onto a share of the lead at the 2005 Open at Cherry Hills, if her quest that year to earn a spot in the Masters had worked out, if she had made the cut at her first PGA Tour event instead of missing it by a stroke.She is entering this week’s 156-woman Open with measured expectations against a deep field.The reigning champion, Minjee Lee, has won two majors since 2021 and is not ranked in the top-five in the world. And there is Rose Zhang, the 20-year-old Stanford student who last month won her debut tournament as a professional. Wie West’s group, which will tee off at 8:28 a.m. Pacific time on Thursday, includes the three-time major winner In Gee Chun and Annika Sorenstam, who logged 10 major victories in her career and received a special exemption into this week’s field.Wie West celebrated after winning the U.S. Open in 2014.Streeter Lecka/Getty ImagesThis spring, Wie West was musing about how she needed to get her stamina up for the rigors of a major, how she needed to hone her iron and wedge play before returning to one of golf’s biggest stages, especially since it will be played this year on one of the sport’s most beloved courses.“Just have to believe in myself, just get to a point where I feel confident that I can execute the shots and make the putts,” she said. “And I’m hoping that it all comes very quickly.”She plans to remain closely connected to the sport — she recently hosted the L.P.G.A. tournament that Zhang won — but insisted that she does not think much about how she transformed perceptions of the game that she said still enchants her.Even now, she said, she will play with her husband and become persuaded that, like every other golfer who has won, lost or never actually contested a major, she has unlocked the sport’s mysteries.“You get that one feeling and it feels really good, and you’re like, ‘I think I’ve figured out the game. I’ve figured it out!” she said. “I still catch myself saying that almost every time I play, so I know there’s an itch to want to get better.”Soon enough, after all of this time, it will be happening away from the spotlight. More

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      Minjee Lee Looks to Defend Her U.S. Women’s Open Title at Pebble Beach

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      Minjee Lee has spent these past few years feeling golf’s glories and agonies more than most.She won her first major tournament at the 2021 Evian Championship, a come-from-behind playoff victory, and followed it less than a year later with a record-setting win at the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open. Then came a tie for 43rd when she tried to defend her Evian title, worries about exhaustion and a pair of frustrating finishes in the first two majors of this year.Now ranked sixth in the world after reaching No. 2 last summer, Lee, a 27-year-old Australian, will have to conquer Pebble Beach Golf Links — the renowned course on the California coast — if she is to defend her Open title. The tournament begins Thursday.In a springtime interview at T.P.C. Harding Park in San Francisco, Lee discussed her masterful iron play, the hazards of Pebble Beach, the evolution of the women’s game and why winning a major once, never mind twice, is so difficult.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.You haven’t missed a cut at a major since 2019.I didn’t even know.How much of that represents a progression of your athletic talent versus your mind-set?You’re always trying to get a little bit better each day. So for me, for my progression and not having missed a cut over that period of time, I feel like I’ve put in a lot of hours and effort into my game and improving each day. It just shows my consistency over X amount of time.How did winning the Evian Championship in 2021 shape the subsequent years?It was a bit of a relief because there was a lot of talk: “When is she going to win her first major?” I heard a lot of things, but they were never to my face. They were always in passing or social media or a lot of things here and there. So it was kind of a relief, a monkey off my back. I knew I had it in me, but it finally happened — like, to actually get a win in a major is really, really hard.You always work toward winning majors, and your goals are very specific, so for that to be my first one, it led into my next year, as well.And as you learned last year at Evian, defending a championship is hard to do.Oh, yeah. It’s really hard.Going into Pebble Beach, how do you approach trying to defend a major?The hardest thing is to do your normal thing. Usually when you’re defending, you’re pulled in a lot of different directions: media, your practice rounds, you put in a lot of work because it’s a new venue and you have to do all of your prep starting from scratch.It’s not like Evian, where I already knew the golf course and had played it for years. [This year], it will be a little bit different. The U.S. Open has always meant a lot to me and to be able to win it was a dream come true for me. I don’t know how it will feel driving in there as a defending champion.The wind will be a factor at Pebble Beach. You grew up in Australia and dealt with the wind. You live in Texas and deal with the wind. Does it feel like an advantage this year?I like playing in the wind — I like a tough test of golf. I just feel like you can really use your creativity when it’s windy. Low shots are key, but it’s not always just the low shots. Are you going to use the wind? Are you going to fight the wind? It’s just a lot of different ways that you can play in the wind. I find it more fun when it’s harder, and because it really separates who is a good ball-striker and who isn’t as good, it really separates the field. I’ve always played in wind, so it doesn’t really feel that different for me.“I just feel like you can really use your creativity when it’s windy,” said Lee, using grass to gauge the gusts at the Mizuho Americas Open last month.Elsa/Getty ImagesThere are not many better iron players on the planet. Do you find yourself still emphasizing irons when you practice and prepare, or can you afford to spend more time on other things?I never really felt like I was better in that aspect until I saw the stat. Yeah, sure, my stats were better than the men, but I never really specifically worked on my irons — like, I always worked on my technique or how I move a certain way for a certain shot. But last year, it just happened to be better than any other year, and I’m not sure what really changed. It just kind of happened. You just work on something for so long, and then at one point, it just clicks. I probably don’t work on my swing as much right now; I’m working on other parts of my game, but only because those other areas are where I’d benefit the most.You’ve said you don’t pay attention to stats, but you set the Open scoring record last year, earning the highest payout in history ($1.8 million) for women’s golf. Do you think about those kinds of superlatives?I feel like I don’t — not as much as I should. I probably should look at it and think, “Oh, you did really well,” and then compliment myself. I just do my work, and when I’m away from the golf course, I don’t think about golf.There’s a moment in the Netflix documentary series “Full Swing” when Brooks Koepka talks about how golf is a game where, when things are going well, you think you’re never going to lose it, and when it’s not going well, you think you’ll never find your way back. This year hasn’t been a glide path for you. Where are you on that continuum?I had an off-season, like I always would in that period of time, and then played Asia and didn’t have that good of results. I was like, I’m just going to take a few weeks more at home, and I missed three events and that happened to be six weeks.Time went so quickly, and I was like, I’ve spent eight years going full-throttle, I’m allowed to take that time for myself. So I did, and I feel good. I feel quite refreshed. First week was Chevron — a major coming back for the first week — and I’m slowly working back into playing rhythms.You changed caddies recently. How has it affected you on the course?I’ve actually learned a lot about myself. When you’re younger, you rely a lot on your caddie, and I think I did that for quite a long time, just because I was young and didn’t know what I wanted as much. Now I know myself a bit better and I’ve matured a lot more.It just feels like I know what I want in a caddie and all that I need from my caddie. I don’t need the reassurance; I know what I’m doing. I just need somebody who knows me well, who is going to be a good companion out on the golf course. We spend so much time with them on the golf course, it’s like if you don’t like that person, it’s just not going to work.This is the first U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach, somewhere that looms large in golf’s imagination. What’s the bigger milestone for women’s golf: that the Open is being played at Pebble Beach, or that last year’s British Open was at Muirfield, where women couldn’t even be members until 2017?I’m a little bit mixed in that aspect. I’m really happy and grateful that we were able to play at Muirfield and have access to the golf course, and being at Pebble for the first time. I know that a lot of work goes into having those championships there. It’s not easy — nothing is easy, right? — but I am a little bit bittersweet that it took this much time to get the women on these golf courses. I’m very appreciative of the tours and the U.S. Golf Association and all of our sponsors for really pushing the women’s game and the L.P.G.A. to go to all of these great venues now, and I know it’s only going to get better.But I feel like it was a long time coming.“I just need somebody who knows me well, who is going to be a good companion out on the golf course,” Lee said of her caddie Rance De Grussa, a fellow Australian who began working with her earlier this year.John Minchillo/Associated PressIn February, you said one of your goals was not to be totally exhausted by the end of 2023. We’ve seen more and more elite athletes talk about burnout, mental illness, depression and exhaustion. How much of that weighs on your mind as you’re trying to sort out when to play?I’ve always had quite a full year. I’ve played a lot of events, and that’s what I really wanted to do. I wanted to play. But now I want to play less — like, I don’t want to be as tired coming down to some really important events at the end of the year.Now my priorities are different. I don’t need to spend all of my time playing every single event, trying to keep my card as a rookie. I’m getting older, so I want to look after my body, look after my mind. That’s what’s going to help me perform my best, so I think that’s why a lot of athletes are now talking about taking care of your well-being, taking care of your mind, where you are in your life. Just to be healthy inside and out I think is really important, and if nobody talks about it, nobody will really know about it either, so you can’t get the proper help if you need it.Does having won two majors help you feel liberated that you can take the breaks and take the pauses — that there’s maybe a little less to prove?Not really. I’ve never really thought about it in that way. Obviously, I am hungry for more: I want to win the other majors, and I don’t think that will ever change. And I’ve been close to world No. 1 a couple of times but not quite got over the line. So I still have a lot to show. I have a lot of fight left in me. I still have a lot of drive.You played for the first time when you were about 10. Looking back, do you wish you had started earlier? Started later?It was a good age for me. I swam and I played golf. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I just tried a bunch of things: different sports, dance, music, everything. I was fortunate that my parents let me try everything. I just found it in golf, and I really enjoyed practicing and going and seeing my friends at the golf course. I used to hit these squishy golf balls around on the chipping green, and it was just fun. The way I got into it, I think it was the right way.Was golf your best sport?Well, I have pretty good hand-eye coordination, but I think because we were really a golfy family — my parents and my brother and my grandparents, they all loved playing golf, so we were just always around it.As a two-time Olympian, do you want to play in Paris next year?That’s pretty high on my list. I think Paris will be a pretty amazing turnout. The Olympics are probably the greatest honor you can have of representing your country, so I think that is going to be one of my bigger goals for next year.But Pebble Beach comes first. When do you start playing it in your head?I’m not really a look-up-the-golf-course-beforehand kind of girl. I’ve seen some holes on TV but nothing too much in detail.I like seeing the course and really visualizing it when I get there. I wouldn’t be able to tell if I did it on the map. I just like to internalize it when I get there.“You just work on something for so long, and then at one point, it just clicks, and that’s kind of what it did for me,” Lee said of how she hits her irons.Matt Rourke/Associated Press 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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      At the U.S. Women’s Open, Michelle Wie West Reflects on an ‘Amazing Journey’

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      The golfer announced last week that she would play her last tournament for the foreseeable future at Pine Needles. “This week, I’m just soaking it all in,” she said.Michelle Wie West, one of golf’s most celebrated players since she was 10, had breakfast Tuesday morning in the player dining area at the U.S. Women’s Open at the Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club in North Carolina.“I had someone come up to me,” Wie West, 32, said, “saying that they were named after me.”She gently rolled her eyes and deadpanned: “So that made me feel really young. I’m at that phase in my life.”Last week, Wie West announced she was stepping away from competitive golf after this week’s championship. She has no plans to play another L.P.G.A. tournament in 2022. The only other event she expects to enter is the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links.She used the word “retire” only once when speaking with reporters on Tuesday and conceded that she could change her mind. But for Wie West, who contended for major championships shortly after her 16th birthday, won five L.P.G.A. events, including the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open, collected endorsements and prize-money earnings in the tens of millions of dollars and, notably, played eight times against men on the PGA Tour, there was the lilt of finality in her voice.“It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while,” Wie West said. “It’s been an amazing journey, and I’m very excited for what happens next.”The future, however, could wait for at least another 10 minutes as Wie West tried to summarize her career, which, because of her precocious introduction to elite golf, was lived under the obsessively bright lights of international stardom. Her career was also significantly disrupted by wrist injuries, which caused her to play intermittently or not at all for long stretches. In June 2020, along with her husband Jonnie West, she became a parent for the first time with the birth of the couple’s daughter, Makenna.“First off, I want to say I have zero regrets in my career,” she said. “There’s always that inkling of wishing I had done more. But no one is ever going to be 100 percent satisfied.“I have definitely had an up-and-down career, but I’m extremely proud for the resiliency that I’ve shown,” she said. “I’m extremely proud to have achieved the two biggest dreams that I’ve had — one being graduating from Stanford, and the other winning the U.S. Open.”Wie West was smiling, laughing and at ease. Among all the very public moments of her very public career, this seemed to be an easy one, and she was happy to be back in the setting of her signature on-the-course achievement.“I’m definitely giving myself some grace and enjoying this last week,” she said.For Wie West, whose presence, manifold skills and towering drives drew comparisons to Tiger Woods, what was left unsaid was her impact on women’s golf. She never addressed the topic directly nor did she acknowledge her own substantial influence on the sport’s popularity, but when asked what has changed in the women’s game in the last 20 years, Wie West was animated.“Oh, I mean, so much has changed,” she answered. “Huge kudos to the U.S.G.A. for really buying into the women’s sport and the L.P.G.A. for just growing and keep pushing the boundaries.“When doors get closed on us, we just keep pushing, and I’m just so proud of everyone on tour and the U.S.G.A. for really buying in and setting the level right,” she said.In January, the United States Golf Association nearly doubled the U.S. Women’s Open prize money to $10 million with the winner of this year’s championship earning $1.8 million, the richest single payout in women’s golf.A year ago, only three women on the L.P.G.A. tour earned more than $1.8 million. While the prize money for the men’s U.S. Open is $12.5 million, the U.S.G.A. chief executive Mike Whan has plans to bump the women’s purse to $12 million in a few years.The payouts of golf-industry sponsorship contracts awarded to top men’s golfers continue to overshadow most of those bestowed on women.But on that front, Wie West, who last year joined the L.P.G.A. board of directors and continues to serve in that capacity, had advice, from personal experience, for the golfers who will succeed her.Wie West playing from the 18th tee during the first round of the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, where she tied for 46th.Adam Hagy/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“As female athletes, a lot of times we get told, ‘Oh, your sponsorship is only worth this much; you should only ask for this much,’ ” Wie West said. “We’re kind of in that mind-set, and I would encourage female younger athletes coming up to say, ‘No, I know my worth. I know what I deserve.’ And ask for more.”Asked if that was what she had done — successfully — she answered: “Yes, for sure.”Wie West is also an investor in a company, LA Golf, that she said was pledging to start new initiatives for women golfers with hopes of financially altering the sponsorship landscape.In the short term, Wie West still has a tournament to compete in this week, one that, given her other priorities, she has not prepared for as she might have 10 or 20 years ago.“Definitely haven’t had the practice schedule that I usually do leading up to U.S. Open,” she said with a grin. “This week, I’m just soaking it all in. Just seeing all the fans, seeing all the players, walking the walk. It’s pretty cool.”Being a past champion of the event helps Wie West enjoy the experience, perhaps more meaningfully than anyone would have expected. In what was something of a surprise, she said that without claiming the U.S. Women’s Open trophy eight years ago, there would not now be an end in sight to her competitive career.“It’s the one tournament I wanted to win ever since I started playing golf,” Wie West said. She then insisted: “If I hadn’t won the 2014 U.S. Open, I would still — I definitely wouldn’t retire. And I would still be out here playing and chasing that win. That win means everything to me.” More

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      Prize Money and Sponsorships Are Growing in Women’s Golf, but Is It Enough?

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      Golfers will compete for a $5 million purse when the L.P.G.A.’s first major of the season begins on Thursday. But women continue to lag far behind men.Brittany Lincicome started playing on the L.P.G.A. Tour in 2005, when it was a struggling endeavor with few events. Now, in her 18th season, the tour is thriving and she has no plans to retire any time soon.“My parents had said, ‘Play 10 years and you can retire,’” Lincicome said. “Now there’s no end in sight. The prize money is out there. The purses are going up every year. It would be hard to leave. Plus, I would love to get a win and have my daughter there with me.”Lincicome, who is pregnant with her second child, said the difference between her rookie season and today is the sponsors, who have elevated the quality of the courses the golfers play. “It’s cool to see where we came from and what direction we’re going,” she said.Her first major victory came in 2009 at the Chevron Championship, formerly known as the ANA Inspiration and an L.P.G.A. major since 1983. This year’s tournament, which begins on Thursday and has long been associated with Dinah Shore, an actress, talk show host and early supporter of the women’s tour, will be the last to be held at the Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif.A central part of the event has been Poppie’s Pond, where the champion, her caddie and any number of friends and family take a victory plunge adjacent to the 18th green.Whether the pond will move to Houston, where Chevron is headquartered next year, as part of the company assuming the title sponsorship, is unclear. But, pond or not, one of the five women’s majors has a corporate sponsor to keep it going, with a purse that has increased nearly $2 million this year, to $5 million from $3.1 million.“It’s bittersweet,” said Stacy Lewis, whose first professional victory came at the event in 2011, when Kraft Nabisco was the sponsor. “It will always have a special place for me. But as a tournament it was time. When we lost Kraft, the tour needed a lot of time bringing ANA on board. And the fan base has shrunk over the past 10 years.”While the L.P.G.A. Tour lags behind the PGA Tour in prize money, sponsors for the best female golfers in the world have been stepping up — new deals for tournaments, money for the developmental tour and increased support for athletes who want to have families.Purses have also risen to $90 million this year, up from $67 million in 2019.“The purses are super important so we can have the best tournament schedule that we can put together and allow the best women in the world to reach their goals,” said Mollie Marcoux Samaan, who became the L.P.G.A. commissioner last year.Such increases have come slowly. A decade ago, Marcoux’s predecessor, Mike Whan, now the chief executive of the U.S.G.A., encouraged players to talk about their golf, but to make sure they thanked sponsors for getting behind the tour.In his new role, Whan has brought in ProMedica, a health care company, as the first presenting sponsor of the U.S. Women’s Open. The purse has nearly doubled, to $10 million from $5.5 million. But it wasn’t easy.“I saw how much money the U.S.G.A. lost on the U.S. Women’s Open,” Whan said. “I could see they were doing the right thing. But they weren’t reaching out to companies that also wanted to do the right thing.”The companies that are coming in as sponsors of the L.P.G.A. Tour are aligning their financial backing with broader diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. KPMG was among the first to do so with its sponsorship of the Women’s P.G.A. Championship in 2014.“We’ve more than doubled the purse since then,” said Shawn Quill, managing director and national sports industry leader at KPMG. “We’ve been able to put the L.P.G.A. players on the best courses in the world, the same ones that the men play.”This year’s event is at Congressional Country Club, where Rory McIlroy won the men’s U.S. Open in 2011.As a title sponsor, KPMG has not only increased the prize money, but has also added a women’s leadership summit, which focuses on C-suite executives and future leaders. “As sponsors, we saw this could be more than a hospitality event,” Quill said.Hannah Green won $1 million from sponsor Aon in 2021 for recording the best score on the toughest hole. Aon paid the same amount to the PGA Tour winner.Donald Miralle/Getty ImagesAon, the professional services company, sponsors a season-long competition that collects the best scores on the toughest hole each week on both the PGA and L.P.G.A. tours. It made a commitment in 2019 to pay the same $1 million prize to the male and female golfers who won the challenge.“It ties into our inclusion and diversity strategy,” said Jennifer Bell, chief executive of North America for Aon. “We also want to influence other sponsors since we’ve taken on this challenge.”At the end of last season, Bell awarded checks to Matthew Wolff, who turned pro in 2019, is ranked 45th in the world, and has won over $7 million; and Hannah Green, who turned pro in 2018, is ranked 31st in the world, but has won just over $2 million.“When I handed the $1 million check to Hannah Green last year, she had a smile on her face from ear to ear,” said Bell. “I said, ‘What are you going to do with it?’ She said, ‘I think I’m going to buy a home’. She still lived with her mom.”The disparity in earnings between players on the men’s and women’s tours is enormous. Total prize money on the PGA Tour jumped to $427 million in 2022 from $367 million, a figure nearly five times that of the L.P.G.A. Tour. That has meant many top female golfers are living more modestly.Epson America, the United States subsidiary of the Japanese printer and imaging company, has created three additional benefits for players on the Epson Tour, guaranteeing minimum tournament purses of $200,000 and awarding a $10,000 stipend to the 10 players who graduate to the L.P.G.A. each year. It has also lowered entry fees.“They’re one of the biggest barriers,” said Meghan MacLaren, a winner on the Ladies European Tour who is now playing on the Epson Tour. “Before I add all the other stuff on, like flights, hotels, and travel, you’re looking at $10,000 for 20 events.”Increased prize money at the top of the L.P.G.A. or Epson Tour invariably trickles down to players who finish out of contention.“What we really liked about the sponsorship is we’re investing in the future of women’s golf,” said Keith Kratzberg, chief executive of Epson America.Patty Tavatanakit took home $465,000 when she won at Mission Hills as a rookie in 2021.Yong Teck Lim/Getty ImagesCorporate sponsors have also begun promoting the values they espouse in their companies with their athletes.When Lewis was pregnant in 2018, she worried about telling her sponsors. In the past, some sponsors hadn’t paid golfers who didn’t play a certain number of events, usually between 18 and 20 tournaments. Two of the most dominant players of their eras, Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa, both of whom were ranked No. 1 in the world, retired from golf in their primes to have children.For Lewis, it was different. “KPMG said, ‘We’re going to pay you whether you play your 20 events or not,’” she said. “We’re going to treat you like any employee at KPMG.”When she went public with the company’s promise, all but one of her sponsors also agreed to pay her in full.“That set the bar for other companies,” said Gerina Piller, a 15-year tour player who often travels with her son. “It paved another way to make it possible to chase our dream and be a mom and not get stuck with the decision of, do we play or do we stay home?” More

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      Annika Sorenstam Reflects on Her Career

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      She was one of the best golfers of her generation, winning 10 majors. At 50, she has started playing again.Annika Sorenstam was one of the best golfers of her generation when she retired from competitive golf in 2008 at age 38. She had won 94 times around the world, including 10 major championships, and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2003. More

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      Sebastian, Nelly and Jessica Korda Succeed in the Family Business

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      Petr Korda has long envisioned greatness for his children, the pro golfers Nelly and Jessica and the tennis pro Sebastian, who won his first-round match at Wimbledon.WIMBLEDON, England — Sebastian Korda watched from his father’s hotel room in London on Sunday night as his sister Nelly achieved a major dream, winning the Women’s P.G.A. Championship in Atlanta. Two days later, on a different sort of green, Sebastian kept the family business booming. More

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      U.S. Women’s Open: Yuka Saso Wins, Extending a Majors Drought by Americans

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      Yuka Saso of the Philippines won her first major, beating Nasa Hataoka of Japan in the first sudden-death playoff hole after they remained tied after two-hole aggregate playoff.SAN FRANCISCO — Yuka Saso of the Philippines bent her leg like a flamingo, using her body language to will in the birdie putt. It was the first playoff hole after Saso and Nasa Hataoka of Japan finished 72 holes of the 76th United States Women’s Open on Sunday tied at four-under 280, one stroke better than the third-round leader, the American Lexi Thompson.But Saso had been responding to Hataoka’s putt, and when it fell short, she looked more disappointed than her opponent. After prevailing on the first hole of sudden death — the third playoff hole — when her own birdie putt dropped, Saso, 19, explained her reaction.“I just don’t want to be selfish,” Saso said. “Everyone here is a great player. If it’s their time, it’s their time, if it’s my time, it’s my time. I just want to cheer everybody.”As she stood staring at the trophy, Saso, a first-time major winner, looked as if she couldn’t quite believe that her time had arrived. Both players had parred on the two aggregate playoffs holes before Saso’s birdie putt tied her with Inbee Park as the youngest champion in the tournament’s history.“I was just looking at all the great players in here,” Saso said. “I can’t believe my name is going to be here.”It definitely didn’t appear to be Saso’s day when she posted consecutive double bogeys on Nos. 2 and 3 to drop five strokes behind Thompson at the Olympic Club’s Lake Course.“I was actually a little upset,” Saso said. “But my caddie talked to me and said, ‘Just keep on going; there’s many more holes to go.’ That’s what I did.”Thompson was trying to win her second major title, and her first since 2014, and snap a 10-major winless streak by American women.Thompson had a one-stroke lead to start the round and held a five-stroke lead over Saso with nine to play, but faltered as Saso surged. She had a bogey-bogey finish to close with a 75. That was nine strokes higher than her third-round score.Speaking while the playoff was getting underway, Thompson said, “I just wanted to come out today and play my game like I have the last few days.”Thompson added, “Just got a few bad breaks, but that’s golf.”Thompson, 26, knew the final round was going to be a nervy game of musical holes. For her to be the last one standing when the holes ran out, she was going to have to break with venerable Olympic Club tradition. Webb Simpson rallied from four strokes off the lead to win the men’s Open at the Olympic Club in 2012. Lee Janzen came from five back to win here in 1998. Arnold Palmer frittered away a seven-stroke advantage on the final nine in 1966, then lost a playoff to Billy Casper, who birdied four of his final holes. Scott Simpson, no relation to Webb, closed with a 68 to pass Tom Watson in 1987.Nasa Hataoka of Japan reacts after missing a putt on No. 18.Jeff Chiu/Associated PressHataoka, playing in the group directly ahead of Thompson, went on a Casper-esque charge with birdies at Nos. 13, 14 and 15. Saso gained three strokes on Thompson on the 16th and 17th, both par 5s, drawing even with her at four under after she birdied both.Playing in the final group alongside Thompson and Saso was Megha Ganne, 17, a high school junior from Holmdel, N.J.The last time a U.S. Open was held at Olympic Club, a 17-year-old amateur also began the final round lurking four strokes off the lead, as did Ganne. The previous teenage interloper was Beau Hossler, who struggled to a 76 and finished tied for 29th.Ganne hit her drive on the par-5 first hole into deep rough, leading to her first double bogey of the tournament. It was a harbinger of the grind that was ahead for Ganne, who closed with a 77 to finish tied for 14th, one stroke ahead of the next-best amateur, Maja Stark of Sweden (74).“I’ll remember this for the rest of my life,” Ganne said.Lexi Thompson of the United States reacts to her first putt on No. 17. Sean M. Haffey/Getty ImagesThompson was battling history’s headwinds, too. A U.S.-born woman hadn’t won a major since Angela Stanford at the 2018 Evian Championship, and in the five men’s Opens held at the Olympic Club, none of the 54-hole leaders held on to win.And then there was Thompson’s personal travails in the majors. Since winning the 2014 ANA Inspiration, she had endured several near misses, posting eight top-five finishes, including a playoff defeat at the 2017 ANA Inspiration after a television viewer’s observation led to a four-stroke penalty being tacked to her score on the final day.Through it all, she preserved traces of the playful, unaffected 12-year-old that qualified for the 2007 U.S. Women’s Open. They were there in her good-luck ladybug earrings, which she wore on Sunday, and her willingness to engage with younger players like Ganne.Pro is a little word that can pack a bite far deeper than its breadth, and Thompson, who shed her amateur status in 2010, at age 15, was not immune to the loneliness, the self-doubts, the tedium of spending months away from home and the rootlessness of living out of a suitcase that come with playing for pay. Bright-eyed amateurs see only the blessings: the supportive fans, the immaculate courses, the fine clubhouse dining.And so if she was to get back to her playful, unaffected teenage self, Thompson needed to redirect her focus so that she viewed golf as play and not as work. She enlisted the help of a psychologist based in Florida, John Denney, with whom she had worked early in her career, and their conversations, which they have several times a week, have helped her flip the switch. From feeling anxiety or anguish to gratitude. From feeling burdened by pressure to blessed by opportunities.Thompson walked the walk. She forced a smile as she exited the 18th green after her approach, from 109 yards, found a bunker, and after she blasted out to 12 feet and left the par putt short.Thompson’s eyes welled with tears and her voice quavered. She smiled wanly and said, “Yeah, I played not so good today with a few of the bogeys coming in on the back nine.She added, “I’ll take today and I’ll learn from it and have a lot more weeks ahead, a lot more years.” More