United States Women’s Open (Golf)

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      At U.S. Women's Open, a 17-Year-Old Amateur Enters the Spotlight

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      Megha Ganne seemed at ease during her second round at the Olympic Club, and she finished the day with a share of third place.SAN FRANCISCO — The first time Megha Ganne competed on one of the world’s most renowned golf courses, her audience included the two-time major winner Martin Kaymer, a former men’s world No. 1. It was at the 2015 finals of the Drive, Chip and Putt contest at Augusta National, and Kaymer was on the range when an 11-year-old Ganne hit her first drive.Six years later, with much higher stakes, Ganne is a 17-year-old amateur and is playing with aplomb on a similar stage. In her second United States Women’s Open — which is being held for the first time at the Olympic Club, the site of five major men’s championships — she was at the top of the leaderboard after the early rounds on Friday. By nightfall, she had been passed by two players — Yuka Saso of the Philippines, who shot a four-under-par 67 for a 36-hole score of six under, and Lee Jeong-eun, who also shot a 67 and was five under for the tournament.Ganne, a high school junior from Holmdel, N.J., followed her opening-round four-under-par 67 on the Olympic Club’s Lake Course with an even-par 71 to temporarily share first place with Megan Khang (70) while the afternoon wave of players was still on the course.Ganne celebrating her birdie putt on the seventh hole.Jeff Chiu/Associated PressGanne birdied her penultimate hole, No. 7, and drained a long par putt at No. 8 to maintain her momentum on a course made more difficult by a heavy marine layer that turned the tee boxes — some of which were moved back for Friday’s round — into iceboxes.“It played a little bit longer, but other than that pretty similar,” an unfazed Ganne said.Ganne, a quick strider who swings her arms side to side as if in a hurry to get where she’s going, had a fast turnaround between rounds.She returned to the course Friday less than 12 hours after she signed her opening-round scorecard and spoke about her performance as if her audience was a passel of Holmdel High friends and not a media cluster. She credited her comfort level here to her exposure to the spotlight as a four-time finalist in the Drive, Chip and Putt contest and as a participant in this year’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur.She is an Augusta National success story, the first graduate of the Drive, Chip and Putt finals to hold at least a share of the lead in a women’s major.“It’s really similar, you know, really prestigious and a lot of cameras and a lot of attention on you,” said Ganne, who added, “It was great preparation for the pressure.”The U.S. Women’s Open has throughout its 76-year history been a kind of coming-out party for young players, like the 10-year-old Beverly Klass in 1967, the 11-year-old Lucy Li in 2014 and the 12-year-old Lexi Thompson in 2007. After gaining acclaim for their youth, none survived the cut.The tournament is, in theory, the most accessible of majors. Nearly half the players in this year’s field — 76 of the 156 entrants, including Ganne — earned their berths through 36-hole qualifiers held throughout the country. Ganne secured her spot on the second playoff hole of her qualifier. It speaks to the vagaries of golf that a teenager who was on the verge of elimination in qualifying can rise to the top of the leaderboard through two rounds.“It just all seems really fun and a better story to tell than I got in without a playoff,” Ganne said. The last amateur to lead after a round in the U.S. Women’s Open was Jane Park, a 19-year-old who held a share of first place after the opening round in 2006 at Newport Country Club.Ganne’s galleries have included members of the women’s golf coaching staff at Stanford, which she has verbally committed to attend starting in the fall of 2022, and her family. Ganne’s father, Hari, is an information-technology professional. Her mother, Sudha, is an endocrinologist, and her younger sister, Sirina, 13, is an eighth grader who also plays golf.Her mother said her phone had vibrated in her jacket pocket for the entire second nine of her daughter’s first round and well into Thursday night as texts arrived from friends and neighbors back in New Jersey. She awoke Friday to more messages from family members in India. On Thursday, Sudha Ganne expressed a desire for Megha to remain “a regular kid and enjoy other things” besides golf.A day later, Ganne’s mother waded through a gallery that had grown tenfold overnight, stared at the leaderboard with her daughter’s name atop it and worried that someone had sped up the belt conveying Megha through adolescence. She can hear the armchair career counselors now: If Megha can contend for a $1 million winner’s check while still in high school, why go to college?“She’s absolutely going to college. There’s no doubt about that,” Ganne’s mother said.But like the calculus homework awaiting Ganne’s attention, success is introducing complicated variables. “I am a little overwhelmed with the attention, but I’m hoping she will cope with it and maybe we will try to help her with it,” Ganne’s mother said.Ganne seems fine with the attention, but then, she always has gravitated to the spotlight. She has appeared in school plays, once as the Queen of Hearts after auditioning for the lead role of Alice in Wonderland. She threw herself into her portrayal as Alice’s main protagonist.“She was the Queen of Hearts and she lived it,” Ganne’s mother said with a laugh.But Ganne draws a line at social media. That kind of attention, she has decided, is unnecessary. Negativity that has been heaped on some of her friends on Twitter has soured Ganne on the platform.After her Thursday round, Ganne was interviewed by 15-year-old twins, Amelia and Adinah Dellegencia, who are student journalists. They lauded Ganne’s “girl power” and described her as “pretty cool.” They asked for her Twitter handle, and their jaws dropped in unison when she said, “I’m social media-free, actually.”Amelia recovered from the shock and said, “She’s so cool. She should be on social media.” More

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      At the U.S. Women’s Open, Jessica and Nelly Korda’s First Rounds Diverge

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      SAN FRANCISCO — Jessica and Nelly Korda often play practice rounds together but Thursday at the United States Women’s Open was the first time they had been in the same grouping for the first two rounds of a major tournament. The sisters and their parents were thrilled at the prospect of spending five-and-a-half hours together hiking the sloping labyrinth of a course that is the Olympic Club, the site of five U.S. men’s Opens, in the cool morning murk.It was one of those family gatherings that was a much better idea in theory than in practice.Starting on the ninth hole, Jessica, 28, birdied three of her first seven holes to share the early lead with Britain’s Mel Reid before the San Francisco Bay’s bedeviling winds upended her round.She carded a one-over-par 72, five strokes behind the pace-setting scores by Reid and Megha Ganne, a 17-year-old amateur from New Jersey, who were tied atop the field as other players were finishing their rounds. She spoke afterward as if she had survived a ride on a bucking bronco.Nelly Korda teeing off on the third hole.Michael Owens for The New York Times“I’m sore,” she said.Nelly, 22, the higher-ranked Korda and the top-ranked American at No. 4, seven spots better than her sister, opened with four pars. But three consecutive bogeys, starting at No. 13, were the start of her unraveling. She carded a seven-over-par 78 that was encapsulated by her troubles on her penultimate hole, the seventh.She had to hit her approach shot out of rough thicker than a camel’s eyelash while branches from a sapling fir tickled her face and neck. Her caddie, Jason McDede, asked the onlookers lining the right side of the hole several yards ahead of her to move back because, as he said, “We’re not sure where this is going.”Nelly, left, and Jessica talked while waiting to putt on the 11th.Michael Owens for The New York TimesThe crowd watching the shot after Jessica teed off on the 18th.Michael Owens for The New York TimesWith a compromised swing, Nelly was only able to advance the ball a few yards. Her next shot found a greenside bunker and she walked off the hole with her head down after a seven-shot triple bogey.After making a long putt to save par on her last hole, Nelly signed her scorecard and then left in a rush, stopping only to take selfies with a couple youngsters.“She’ll be fine,” said Jessica, whose heart ached as she watched her sister struggle. She did what she could to help. On the 12th and 14th holes, Jessica held up a hand to stop a man holding a fuzzy microphone who was walking into Nelly’s line of sight while she was standing over par putts.Jessica said: “Obviously I pay attention. It doesn’t matter who I play with, I don’t want anyone to play poorly. It’s tough to watch. You just know how it is. You’ve been in that position yourself. You don’t want anyone struggling with you or around you. So it’s never easy. At the same time, I have to play golf. You have to learn how to be slightly selfish.”Jessica, left, Nelly, and both their caddies sharing a laugh as they walked to their tee shots on the 11th hole.Michael Owens for The New York TimesThe sisters’ parents, Petr and Regina, carved out separate vantage points in the gallery, converging every so often to compare mental notes and commiserate. Pandemic-related restrictions limited the number of fans allowed on the course to less than 5,000. A few hundred of those followed the Kordas and the third player in their group, South Korea’s So Yeon Ryu, the 2011 champion, who posted a 74.Petr yelled encouragement, but as the round continued, his voice became harder to hear over the wind.“I think it’s kind of funny because I heard my dad, you can always hear my dad,” Jessica said. “He was telling Nelly, ‘Come on,’ and then like ‘Good birdie’ to me.”Jessica kept a few tees in her hair while playing.Michael Owens for The New York TimesThe sisters’ parents, Petr and Regina, looked on as Jessica putted.Michael Owens for The New York TimesShe added, “I think they’re just enjoying watching us out here and trying to strike the balance of being supportive and also uplifting.”The sisters’ parents made a beeline for the clubhouse as soon as the round was finished. Jessica and Nelly both have L.P.G.A. victories this year and they came into the week expecting to contend.“You try not to play yourself out of it,” Jessica said. “Obviously it was so frustrating, making some silly mistakes and then the wind switched and it got warmer so we were trying to figure out how everything was going.”She added: “I was throwing up grass and it was going one way and then another way so it was a little annoying. But you expect all of this at a U.S. Open.”Nelly reacted after hitting out of the sand bunker on the seventh hole, where she shot a triple bogey.Michael Owens for The New York Times More

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      Michelle Wie West Was Ready to Retire. Then She Got Mad.

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      A golf phenom since she was 10, Michelle Wie West was ready to focus on motherhood. Rudy Giuliani’s vulgar remarks convinced her that she should keep fighting and playing.SAN FRANCISCO — From a distance approximating one of her prodigious drives, Michelle Wie West caught a glimpse of her infant daughter in the arms of her mother, who was standing on a hotel balcony. It was Wie West’s first competitive tournament as a working mom, and at the sight of her child, whom she felt guilty about leaving, she burst into tears.“And then I hit in the water,” Wie West said with a laugh, recalling her “meltdown,” as she described it, during her opening nine-over-par 81 at the Kia Classic near San Diego in March.Wie West, 31, who is competing in the United States Women’s Open, which begins Thursday at the Olympic Club, has missed the cut in all three of her starts this season. The impenetrable focus that carried her to five L.P.G.A. titles, including the 2014 U.S. Open, has been diffused by marriage, motherhood and a motivation to deepen the conversation about, and commitment to, women in sports.Reams of copy have been written about Wie West since she became, at 10, the youngest player to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Public Links and announced her intentions to grow up to play on the L.P.G.A. and PGA Tours. She turned pro before her 16th birthday and contended deep into the final rounds of her first three L.P.G.A. major tournaments that first year, establishing a bar that proved hard to clear. She won her first tournament in 2009 at the age of 20, then three more before she won the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. But she has only won once since, the HSBC Women’s World Championship in 2018.And so, in 2019, Wie West could not have imagined herself here. Chronic wrist injuries precipitated a two-year layoff that she presumed would become permanent when she became pregnant a few months after her 2019 wedding to Jonnie West, the director of basketball operations for the N.B.A.’s Golden State Warriors. She told her husband that she was done playing.“I thought there was no chance of coming back,” said Wie West. She had opportunities to move into the broadcasting booth, and motherhood seemed like a natural pivot point.“But my husband was like, ‘No, no, just think it through,’” she said.When Wie West learned that she was having a daughter, her feelings about a comeback shifted for reasons she struggled to articulate. And then in February, a month before her official return, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, appeared on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast and asked if he could share a “funny story” about Rush Limbaugh, who had recently died.Giuliani recalled how Limbaugh had been perturbed by the photographers trailing them in a 2014 pro-am in which they were grouped with Wie West. Giuliani said that the “gorgeous” Wie West’s putting stance was attracting the photographers, who, he said, “were trying to take pictures of her panties.”Giuliani’s comments crystallized Wie West’s reasons for a comeback, irking her into action. After 25 years of speaking into a microphone as a matter of duty, Wie West realized that she actually had a lot to say, and a return to competition would give her the platform to address inequities and ignorance that she hadn’t been aware of as a teenage phenom.More affirmation came this week as she watched Naomi Osaka, another young nonwhite woman who is a star in a white-majority sport, quit the French Open rather than participate in news conferences she said were damaging to her mental health.“I thought what Naomi did this past week was incredibly brave,” said Wie West, who described her own experience with anxiety:“It’s tough, especially when you’re not doing well or there’s a lot more to life than your game. There could be other stuff happening. It is sometimes crippling at times, but I’m really proud of athletes taking charge of their mental health and making it a priority. More conversations need to be had about that.”Wie West is willing to wade into difficult conversations because she wants her daughter, Makenna Kamalei Yoona West, who will celebrate her first birthday on June 19, to grow up in a world where women athletes are seen and heard, and enjoy equal billing with men.In the past year she has revealed a different side of herself — as a leader in the drive for equity and change. With his words, Giuliani triggered Wie West’s election to the L.P.G.A. board of directors and her commitment to speak up more.“She texts me and calls me all the time,” said Heather Daly-Donofrio, a two-time tour winner who is now the L.P.G.A. chief communications and tour operations officer. “It’s great. I’ve had more conversations with her in the last two years than in her whole time on tour.”Wie West hits out of the bunker on No. 11 during the first round of the ANA Inspiration in February.Kelvin Kuo/USA Today Sports, via ReutersWie West has sought out other athletes who fought for change, including Renee Powell, one of the first African-American members of the L.P.G.A., and tennis icon Billie Jean King, who described how her threat to boycott the U.S. Open in 1973 as the defending women’s champion spurred the tournament to become the first of the Grand Slam events to pay men and women equally for their victories. Wie West has compared notes with W.N.B.A. standout and players’ association president, Nneka Ogwumike, whose undergraduate years at Stanford overlapped with hers.The conversations inspired Wie West to float the idea of forming an inter-sport council that could address the pay disparity and unequal resources between men’s and women’s sports.In 2019, the last full season before the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the playing calendar, 73 women’s players exceeded $50,000 in on-course earnings. That same season on the PGA Tour, the 73rd-highest earner made $1,553,149.The golfer who wins this Sunday will take home $1 million, from $5.5 million, the largest purse on the tour. The winner of the men’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines this month will earn $2.25 million from a $12.5 million purse.Recently Wie West was reminded by her father-in-law, Jerry West, who works for the Los Angeles Clippers as a consultant, that the big money in men’s sports didn’t materialize overnight.West, the second overall pick in the 1960 draft, told her that he didn’t have an agent when he turned pro and for the duration of his first contract he held an off-season job in community relations for Great Western Savings to supplement his N.B.A. income. “He told me the N.B.A. was not something that they considered a full-time profession,” said Wie West. Like king tides, the wave that will lift all paychecks requires a perfect storm of leadership, talent, exposure, performances, marketing — to be aligned.With her 300-yard drives and fearless forays into men’s tournaments, a teenage Wie West was positioned as the game changer, the charismatic player who could take the L.P.G.A. Tour that Nancy Lopez popularized and deliver it, Tiger Woods-like, to a mainstream sports audience.Wie West was driving coverage of the women’s game before she was old enough to get behind the wheel of a car. So she was surprised when she stumbled onto the statistic recently that women are afforded roughly four percent of sports media coverage.Looking back, Wie West said, “I definitely can remember thinking, ‘Ugh, another interview. Stop talking about me.’”As a teenager, she was criticized by other golfers for hogging the spotlight, when in reality, she was attracting eyeballs that otherwise would have ignored women’s golf. Her visibility gained women’s golf new fans — and Wie West more critics. Dottie Pepper, a two-time major winner, described her in a 2007 essay published in Sports Illustrated as “overexposed, miserable and manipulated.”“I’m pretty honored that people chose to care about me,” Wie West said, “but it definitely was tough at times because I went through a lot of lows, really never a moment where I could just go under the radar.”Giuliani’s comments yanked Wie West out of her maternity leave and back into the spotlight. When she learned of his vulgar remarks, what she had lived and what she had learned recently about women’s place in the sports firmament coalesced into unadulterated outrage.Wie West said she started to tap out a social media response, “but I was so riled up, everything I was saying wasn’t really coming out right.”Her husband gently suggested that she carefully consider her message. “You have a chance to say something really important here,” Jonnie said he told her.In the response she drafted with input from her husband and posted to Twitter, Wie West said, in part, “What this person should have remembered from that day was the fact that I shot 64 and beat every male golfer in the field leading our team to victory.”When the writer Eric Adelson saw Giuliani’s comments, he recalled the men’s U.S. Open sectional in 2006, and following a 16-year-old Wie, who was the youngest competitor and only woman trying to earn a spot in the men’s field at Winged Foot.As he wrote three years later in the book, “The Sure Thing: The Making and Unmaking of Golf Phenom Michelle Wie,” he overheard an exchange between two college-aged men. One said, “Pretty swing,” to which the other responded with a crude comment about her physique.Speaking recently by telephone, Adelson said, “I remember cringing when I first heard that. I thought it was gross, and then when I heard what Giuliani said, I thought it was extremely gross.”He applauded Wie West’s response. “It just shows that she grew up,” Adelson said, “but a lot of other people didn’t.”A grown-up Wie West knows how to turn her anger into agency. She pitched a cotton candy blue-and-pink tie-dye hoodie with the L.P.G.A. logo to tour executive Roberta Bowman, who loved the idea. The limited-edition sweatshirts sold out after they were worn by Warriors players, and to Wie West’s surprised delight, the large and extra large sizes were snatched up first.Men clothed as billboards for the women’s game instead of ogling the women athletes. For Wie West, the victories don’t come much bigger than that. 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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      US Women's Open: A Lim Kim Wins American Debut

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Lim Kim Waited Out the Field to Win the U.S. Women’s OpenThe South Korean golfer scanned anxious texts from home while waiting for challengers to finish the rain-delayed final round of the major championship.A Lim Kim, of South Korea, won the U.S. Women’s Open, her debut tournament stateside. She said afterward that she will contemplate joining the L.P.G.A. Tour.Credit…Eric Gay/Associated PressDec. 14, 2020Updated 7:16 p.m. ETHOUSTON — A Lim Kim ran into trouble after she birdied the final three holes for a three-under 67 that catapulted her to victory on Monday in the 75th United States Women’s Open.As Kim sat in front of a large-screen TV in the Champions Club players’ dining area watching the competitors with a chance to catch her finish, she fumbled her phone, which was vibrating with messages from family members and friends back home in South Korea who had stayed up all night to watch her round.The phone fell to the bottom of her golf bag and Kim removed all her clubs to retrieve it while, one after the other, her challengers fell by the wayside.Hinako Shibuno of Japan, the 54-hole leader, couldn’t catch Kim. Shibuno had held a one-stroke lead after Sunday’s final round was postponed by inclement weather, but bogeyed the penultimate hole Monday and finished fourth at one-under with a closing 74.Kim’s compatriots, Inbee Park and Jin Young Ko, the women’s world No. 1, both carded the second-lowest score of the day, a 68. Ko’s round included birdies on two of the last three holes, to come up one stroke short of Kim at two-under 282.The American Amy Olson, who took the solo lead on the back nine in her bid to gain both her first L.P.G.A. victory and major win, tied for second with Ko. Her title hopes were dashed with a bogey on the par-3 16th, the same hole she had aced in the first round.Olson, 28, playing after the sudden death Saturday night of her father-in-law from a heart attack, closed with a birdie for a one-over 72. Olson sang bars from Josh Groban’s song “You Raise Me Up” to mask her grief. Kim, 25, meantime, provided a perhaps fitting portrait of a champion of a tournament that was delayed six months because of the coronavirus pandemic. She won wearing a face covering on and off the golf course while establishing herself as the class of a field in which only four players bettered par.“I’m OK to get positive tests for Covid-19,” Kim said through an interpreter, “but I don’t want to affect other people — players, a caddie that’s playing within the group — so that’s the reason I wear the mask throughout the round.”Kim celebrated a birdie on the 18th green Monday. She wore a face covering on and off the golf course throughout the U.S. Women’s Open.Credit…Jamie Squire/Getty ImagesBecause it took place so late in the year, the U.S. Women’s Open had the rare chance to showcase its players in America without sharing the stage with a 72-hole PGA Tour event or other U.S.-based events in a schedule that is usually packed during its normal late spring date.The United States Golf Association embraced the hashtag #WomenWorthWatching and a few players from the PGA Tour followed suit, much to the bemusement of the current generation of Asian L.P.G.A. stars who have never lacked for attention at home. That Monday’s final round was televised live in South Korea in the middle of the night says a lot about the popularity of women’s golf in a country where the best female golfers are more popular than the men who play on the PGA Tour.“Yeah, in Korea we get definitely a lot of attention and maybe we don’t need that phrase,” said Park, 32, a former world No. 1 whose final-round 68 vaulted her into a three-way tie for sixth at two-over 286.Park, who has 20 L.P.G.A. titles, including seven majors, said she gets recognized walking the streets in South Korea or paying the operator at a tollbooth while driving.In Thailand, Moriya Jutanugarn, 26, and her younger sister, Ariya, also command attention, since Ariya was the subject last year of a biopic that also included Moriya. On Monday, Moriya closed with a 74 to finish tied for sixth, one stroke ahead of Ariya, a former world No. 1.In Japan, Shibuno saw her life change rapidly after she won last year’s Women’s British Open in her first professional tournament outside her homeland. “I turned from a normal person to a celebrity overnight,” Shibuno said through an interpreter.She added, “Once I became a celebrity, and celebrity status, it makes it difficult to be myself.”This was Kim’s U.S. debut and with the win she becomes the latest in a long line of Korean players to take women’s golf by storm. Since turning professional as a teenager in 2013, Kim has won twice on her home tour and become known for her length. Kim, who is not a member of the L.P.G.A., earned $1 million for the victory. She also is eligible for a two-year tour membership, but said she is not sure if she will join in 2021. The decision would likely require several major disruptions to her life.“I just need some more time to think about it,” Kim said.Golf looked like the easy part for Kim, who took several deep breaths during her news conference to calm herself. “Once I go back home,” she said, “I’ll think about it and see.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Play Suspension Delays Finish at U.S. Women’s Open

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPlay Suspension Delays Finish at U.S. Women’s OpenGolf’s final major of the year experienced a rain delay before play was called Sunday.Hinako Shibuno of Japan held a one-stroke lead over the American Amy Olson on Sunday at the U.S. Women’s Open in Houston.Credit…Eric Gay/Associated PressDec. 13, 2020, 3:47 p.m. ETHOUSTON — The best female golfers had to wait 189 days to start the United States Women’s Open after it was pushed back from June to December because of the coronavirus pandemic. So what’s one more day to crown a winner?A storm blew through Houston on Sunday morning before nearly one-third of the players, including the only four women under par for the tournament, had begun their final rounds. After a two-and-a-half hour suspension, during which Champions Club, in the city’s northwest quadrant, was soaked by almost an inch of rain, United States Golf Association officials postponed play until Monday morning.At the time that play was called, the top of the leader board was unchanged. Hinako Shibuno of Japan held a one-stroke lead over the American player Amy Olson, with Thailand’s Moriya Jutanugarn and Ji Yeong Kim2 lurking three strokes behind.Forty-two of the 65 players who made the cut had completed at least one hole before play was suspended. That group included Jutanugarn’s younger sister, Ariya, who birdied No. 1 to move into a five-way tie for fifth at even-par.The tournament’s last Monday finish was in 2011, which was also the only other time that Olson held at least a share of the first-round lead in her country’s national championship. Olson, née Anderson, finished 63rd that year as an amateur. On Monday, in her 147th L.P.G.A. start, she will be looking to secure her first major title and her first victory.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      At the U.S. Open, a Love Story

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAt the U.S. Open, a Love StoryThey met playing against each other in rec league hockey. Now Alena Sharp and her caddie, Sarah Bowman, are honeymooning on the golf course.Sarah Bowman, left, and Alena Sharp on their wedding day.Credit…Nancy AlbrightDec. 11, 2020, 9:30 a.m. ETHOUSTON — The honeymoon began, as so many do for golf-obsessed newlyweds, with 18 holes.The skies were blue, the sun was warm and the Spanish moss hung from the oak trees like nature’s tinsel, draping the scene in tranquillity. What better way to officially launch a shared lifetime of come-what-mays than as competitors at the 75th United States Women’s Open?For Alena Sharp, 39, a soft-spoken Canadian, and her U.S.-born caddie and wife, Sarah Bowman, life in the cumulus cloud that is 2020 has come with a powerful ray of light. Sharp’s first-round four-over 75 at Champions Club’s Cypress Creek course was the couple’s first competitive appearance since they were married in the backyard of their Arizona home on Nov. 23.The ceremony was officiated by their therapist. As part of their vows, exchanged in front of nine witnesses and more than 100 virtual guests from around the world, Sharp commended Bowman’s positivity and her personality, which she said “shines bright all the time.” And Bowman complimented Sharp’s grit, determination and resiliency.For a union sealed in the middle of a pandemic, there are worse qualities to bring to the table than positivity and resiliency.Bowman said: “People always talk about meeting someone that makes you want to be better in every way, and I always thought that was so stupid, but then I met Alena. And I can’t believe I’m saying it, but it’s real. She honestly makes me feel that way.”From Sharp came a barely audible, “Thank you.”Sharp and Bowman met in the face-off circle at a Chandler, Ariz., ice rink in 2013. They were opposing centers in a women’s recreational hockey league game.“She’d always win them,” said Sharp, who exacted her revenge with some well-executed forechecks.“She laid me out a few times,” Bowman said.Sharp played hockey as a child and turned to it to as an adult to escape her overactive golf mind and its constant churn of negative thoughts. Bowman, 44, a one-time competitive skier from Pittsburgh, was looking for an escape from her work at a neuro-oncology lab where she was laying the foundation — or so she thought — for a doctorate in psychology.Aware that Sharp was a professional athlete, Bowman initially misread her shyness as arrogance. “I thought she was full of herself,” said Bowman, who realized how badly she had misread Sharp when they met for a mountain bike ride.“We spent the entire time laughing,” Bowman said.Their friendship deepened in 2014 after Sharp found herself in between caddies. On a whim, she asked Bowman if she’d fill in at a local event on the Symetra tour, the L.P.G.A.’s minor-league circuit. Bowman recovered from an inauspicious start, leaving a crumb-like trail of clubs that spilled out of the bag as she proceeded down the first fairway, to help Sharp to a two-stroke victory.They already were dating, but within months they became partners professionally, too, but only after they made a pact. “We said that if the working arrangement ever affects our relationship, I’ll find another caddie,” Sharp said.They have had no regrets. They have traveled the world together and been Olympians together. They represented Canada at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro and are looking forward to competing in the delayed Tokyo Games next summer.Sharp and Bowman at the 2016 Olympics.Credit…Ross Kinnaird/Getty ImagesBowman’s greenness as a caddie when she started out forced Sharp to take ownership of her game and trust her instincts. Bowman was a quick study, progressing lickety-split from not being able to watch when Sharp putted because she was so invested in the outcome to reading the greens for her.The 99th-ranked Sharp, who joined the L.P.G.A. in 2005, has 14 career top-10 finishes. She is still searching for her breakthrough victory, though not for any lack of physical skills. Her talent has never been called into question, except by Sharp, who is quick to doubt herself.That’s where Bowman is at her best. No one is better at reading Sharp’s mind and recasting the negative thoughts.“We can say things to each other that I would never say to another caddie,” Sharp said. “I can tell her, ‘I just don’t trust myself right now.’ Or ‘I’m not confident.’ I feel like I can be totally vulnerable out there.”Sometimes when things are going sideways on the course, Sharp will become so emotional her eyes will fill with tears. When that happens, Bowman will remind her that golf is what Sharp does, not who she is, and that no matter her score, she is abundantly loved.“It’s good to be able to get those emotions out when I’m feeling not great and I’m not being nice to myself,” Sharp said.After seven years of dating, the couple decided to get married and planned their wedding in three short weeks, their sense of urgency spurred by the seating on the Supreme Court in late October of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative who alarmed L.G.B.T.Q. advocates at her confirmation hearing when she declined to say whether the court’s landmark ruling in 2015 allowing same-sex marriage was correctly decided.“Her nomination was really the driving force,” Sharp said.Barrett’s use of the term “sexual preference” during her confirmation hearings particularly pricked the ears of Bowman, who has never considered her sexual orientation a matter of choice. As a young adult she said she contemplated killing herself, so great was her struggle to accept her identity.In one of the wedding photographs the couple posted on social media, they are walking up the aisle, toward the camera. Each is wearing a gown pulled from the racks of a bridal-store chain. They are holding hands, crossing under an honor guard arch composed of golf club irons, though the salute is easy to miss at first, so blinding are their smiles.Sharp and Bowman almost cry when they look at the joy radiating from their faces in that photograph.“I didn’t want to be gay,” Bowman said. “I came from a very conservative place. I thought I’ll never be able to be happy. I’ll never be able to just live and be authentic.”Her voice cracking, she continued. “You just hope that enough kids who are going through what I did see this and see that you can move on. You hope they hang in there long enough to get past that.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More