Top storylines at the 2025 U.S. Women’s Open

The oldest main championship title and largest purse in ladies’s skilled golf shall be on the road when the eightieth U.S. Girls’s Open tees off Thursday at Erin Hills Membership in Erin, Wisconsin.

It is the primary time Erin Hills is internet hosting the Girls’s U.S. Open, and the course identified for its undulating fairways and greens that have been created by a glacier centuries in the past figures to offer one of the crucial tough assessments of the season for the world’s greatest golfers.

“It tests every part of your game,” two-time main champion Nelly Korda mentioned Tuesday. “It’s very demanding. It’s firm. It’s fast, as well. Even if you think you’ve hit it good, you can exhale when you see it stop. I would say even the weather plays a big role with the shots out here, with the putts.”

Listed here are among the huge storylines for the second main championship of the season:

Can Nelly get going?

World No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler wanted a couple of months to get going earlier than he received twice on the PGA Tour this season, together with his third main on the PGA Championship.

It has been the identical type of season for world No. 1 golfer Nelly Korda on the LPGA Tour. A 12 months in the past, Korda had already received six occasions earlier than the second main of the season.

This 12 months, she has but to carry a trophy in seven begins.

“Yeah, it’s been a very interesting year for me,” Korda mentioned Tuesday. “Definitely have had a bit of good and a bit of bad. Kind of a mix in kind of every event that I’ve played in. I would say just patience is what I’ve learned and kind of going back home and really locking in and practicing hard.”

It isn’t as if Korda hasn’t performed effectively this season. She had a top-25 end in all however one in every of her begins, together with runner-up within the Hilton Grand Holidays Event of Champions within the season opener. She tied for fifth in her final begin on the Mizuho Americas Open.

Korda ranks second on the LPGA Tour in strokes gained: complete (2.40) and off the tee (1.03) and is ninth in tee to inexperienced (1.59). She additionally ranks within the high 25 in strategy (0.65) and placing (0.86).

She’ll be searching for a greater outcome within the U.S. Open. She has three missed cuts, a tie for eighth and a tie for sixty fourth in her previous 5 begins. Final 12 months at Lancaster Nation Membership in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Korda carded a ten on the par-3 twelfth gap, her third gap within the first spherical. She carded a 10-over 80.

Korda rebounded to submit an even-par 70 within the second spherical however nonetheless missed the reduce.

“Oh, yeah, lots of ups and downs,” Korda mentioned. “I mean, it’s the biggest test in the game of golf. Definitely has tested me a lot. I love it.”

Korda will play the primary two rounds with England’s Charley Hull and Lexi Thompson. They’re going to tee off on No. 1 at 2:25 p.m. ET on Thursday and on No. 10 at 8:40 a.m. on Friday.

“At the end of the day, this is why we do what we do is to play these golf courses in these conditions, to test our games in every aspect,” Korda mentioned. “Not even just our games, our mental [strength], as well. I enjoy it, and I’m excited to see what this week is going to bring.”

Ko eyeing profession Grand Slam

Lydia Ko can change into the eighth golfer in LPGA historical past to finish the profession Grand Slam if she wins the U.S. Girls’s Open in her 14th strive. She has a pair of top-10 finishes within the event and missed her first reduce final 12 months.

Solely 27, Ko has already collected three main championship victories on the 2015 Evian Championship, 2016 Chevron Championship and 2024 Girls’s British Open.

Ko is enjoying with defending U.S. Girls’s Open champion Yuka Saso and beginner Rianne Malixi within the first two rounds. They’re going to begin on the No. 1 tee at 8:40 a.m. ET on Thursday and on No. 10 at 2:25 p.m. on Friday.

“I think as long as I’m playing, it’s always good to have a goal, so that when I’m working on things, I’m always going forward and not trying to think, ‘Oh, did I this, so who cares?'” Ko mentioned. “So it’s just more to just keep myself more motivated. Hopefully not, but even if I never win a U.S. Women’s Open, I don’t think I’m going to wake up from my sleep and go, ‘I never won.'”

Louise Suggs, Mickey Wright, Pat Bradley, Juli Inkster, Karrie Webb, Annika Sorenstam and Inbee Park received 4 totally different majors of their profession. Webb is the one one who received totally different majors in finishing the tremendous profession Grand Slam.

Sweden’s Anna Nordqvist, who received the 2009 Girls’s PGA Championship, 2017 Evian Championship and 2021 Girls’s British Open, may full the profession Grand Slam this week.

Saso’s three-time strive

Saso will try and change into solely the seventh golfer to win the nationwide championship 3 times.

Betsy Rawls (1951, 1953, 1957, 1960) and Wright (1958, 1959, 1961, 1964) completed first within the U.S. Girls’s Open 4 occasions, whereas Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1948, 1950, 1954), Susie Maxwell Berning (1968, 1972, 1973), Hollis Stacy (1977, 1978, 1984) and Sorenstam (1995, 1996, 2006) received 3 times.

“I could call myself a two-time major champion, and better than that, two-time U.S. Women’s Open champion,” Saso mentioned of successful final 12 months. “I think it’s a great tournament to have beside my name, and, I don’t know, maybe because I dreamed of winning this, and winning it twice is much better.”

Saso is already the one golfer to seize the Harton S. Semple Trophy whereas representing two totally different international locations. When Saso defeated Nasa Hataoka on the third gap of a playoff on the 2021 U.S. Girls’s Open on the Olympic Membership in San Francisco, she represented the Philippines, the place she was born.

Final 12 months, Saso was enjoying for Japan, her father’s homeland, when she beat Japan’s Hinako Shibuno by three strokes with a 72-hole complete of 4-under 276.

Saso had twin citizenship in each international locations earlier than having to resign her Filipino citizenship in 2022 underneath Japanese nationality regulation, which she was required to do earlier than turning 22.

Erin Hills is an enormous course

Erin Hills Golf Course, situated about 35 miles northwest of Milwaukee, is a par-72 course that may play 6,829 yards. It is the second-longest course on the LPGA Tour to this point this season.

Erin Hills hosted the 2017 U.S. Open, which Brooks Koepka received with a 72-hole complete of 16-under 272.

It would not determine to play that simply this week, particularly if the wind blows. There’s an opportunity of thunderstorms Friday with 10 to twenty mph winds. Forecasts name for sunny skies and 5 to 10 mph winds on the weekend.

“It’s definitely a really big course,” mentioned 2023 U.S. Girls’s Open champion Allisen Corpuz. “I hit a lot more hybrids and woods than I would have wanted to into greens [during Monday’s practice round]. I think just any major, ball-striking is always really important. I think especially with the green complexes here [and] a lot of run-offs, just a few tight fairways that will definitely be key here.”

Erin Hills would not have a single water hazard, however there are 132 sand bunkers and 3½-inch fescue tough, which can make issues tough.

“It’s very demanding off the tee with all the bunkers,” Korda mentioned. “The bunkers are not easy. Sometimes you just don’t even have a stance in them because they’re so small. Then the shots into the greens and also the greens. Just an overall good test of your entire game.”

America Golf Affiliation has alternate tees accessible if the wind would not blow or the course will get moist.

“We also keep a very close eye on firmness, and obviously speed, wet conditions, very windy conditions,” mentioned Shannon Rouillard, the USGA’s senior director of championships. “It’s really important that the test remains relative and appropriate to the conditions that we’re going to face, whether they’re wet or whether we’re going to experience some greater wind conditions.”