The post ‘I’ll let him play off the red tees’: LPGA star hits back at golfer’s sexist DM, challenges him to match appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘I’ll let him play off the red tees’: LPGA star hits back at golfer’s sexist DM, challenges him to match appeared first on Golf.

But one particular fantasy comes up again and again from a certain type of keyboard warrior: the idea that an average male recreational golfer could beat an LPGA pro on the course.

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In pretty much all cases, the idea is little more than a hallucination. Yet the fallacy persists, as evidenced by a recent X (formerly Twitter) post by golf coach and stats guru Lou Stagner.

On Monday Stagner shared a DM he had received from this exact type of golfer, who wrote him in part, “I am a 3 handicapper that plays from 6900 yards and I hit my driver 290. I would make every cut on the LPGA and be a top20 plyr.”

Unable to let the offense slide, Stagner quote-tweeted the DM with his own takedown message, writing, “I love some of the direct messages I get. This guy would finish DFL in every single event.”

Stagner’s post blew up immediately, with commenters filling his replies with near-unanimous (and hilarious) rejection of the DM’s premise.

Even LPGA star Charley Hull, who no doubt has heard stuff like this throughout her career, couldn’t resist piling on.

Hull — who has two LPGA wins, three Ladies European Tour wins and top-6 finishes at all five majors — responded with her own jab, jokingly challenging the “3 handicapper” in Stagner’s DMs to a match.

“Shall we sort this game out I’ll let him play off the red tees whilst I’ll play off the whites,” the English pro wrote.

Hull’s post received a wave of support, with many commenters expressing their glee at the idea of watching the hypothetical match on pay-per-view, with some even offering to arrange the showdown.

Hull, of course, has more important things to deal with, like competing against other professionals. This past Sunday, she nearly added a third LPGA win to her resume, narrowly losing the Kroger Queen City Championship to Minjee Lee in a playoff.

Next week, she’ll head to Spain to star on the European Solheim Cup team in the highly-anticipated biennial team event.

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The post ‘There are definitely concerns’: Lexi Thompson Solheim Cup-bound amid career-worst slump appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘There are definitely concerns’: Lexi Thompson Solheim Cup-bound amid career-worst slump appeared first on Golf.

This year, that third qualifying route delivered to the U.S. team two players on wildly different trajectories: Rose Zhang and Lexi Thompson. In June, Zhang — a much-hyped LPGA rookie — became the first player to win her first-career LPGA start, at the Mizuho Americas Open, since Beverley Hanson in 1951. Since then, Zhang has three top-10s in six starts — all coming at majors — and ranks 12th in Strokes Gained on tour.

If Zhang, who has quickly climbed to 30th in the world, had not qualified by way of her world ranking, surely Lewis would have expended one of her captain’s picks on the ascendant 20-year-old.

Thompson year’s has been decidedly less rosy. In nine stroke-play starts in 2023, she has missed seven cuts and failed to notch a top-30 finish. She has broken 70 just twice and ranks 196th in Strokes Gained. Her SG: Tee to Green and SG: Around the Green ratings are even worse, at 202nd and 215th, respectively. She is 140th on the money list (with less than $56,000 in earnings) and 157th in the Race to the CME Globe, the LPGA’s season-long points competition, which means she is in jeopardy of losing her full playing privileges for 2024. Last week, at the CPKC Women’s Open, in Canada, Thompson shot 76-80 to miss the cut by eight.

If Thompson, who has slid to 26th in the world, had not qualified by way of her world ranking, Lewis would have had to think long and hard about whether the 28-year-old, who is 7-8-3 in five prior Solheim Cup appearances, would be worthy of a wildcard pick.

“There’s definitely some concerns about her game, 100 percent,” Lewis said on a conference call with reporters earlier this week after her team had been finalized. “Talking to her, though, she’s been handling all this remarkably well. I’ve said it before, but you see her off the golf course, and you would never know she’s struggling like she is right now.”

It’s been a remarkably swift descent. In 2022, Thompson missed only four cuts in 18 starts and had eight top-10 finishes. She didn’t win but frequently threatened to, four times finishing second.

“It’s been a good year,” Thompson said in her last start of the ’22 season where she played in the final pairing on Sunday with Nelly Korda. “I’ve just been trying to improve on my game on and off the golf course; the mental side as well. I feel like I’ve played consistent golf, and I’m slowly picking at it and improving on the things that I’ve needed to improve on, and slowly getting more and more consistent. So that’s really all I want. I know the wins will come.”

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But they haven’t. At least not this year.

Conversely, Thompson followed a promising 2022 with what has been by far the worst season of her career. At the 2023 Chevron Championship, in Houston, the first women’s major of the year, she played with a taped-up right wrist — the result, she said, of over-practicing. That injury was part of the reason she has made so few starts this year, but so too, she has said, was simply wanting to take more time for herself. (Given her youth, it’s easy to forget that Thompson has been playing professionally for 13 years. Or that she played in her first U.S. Open 16 years ago — when she was 12.)

Four months later, at another major — the KPMG Women’s PGA, at Baltusrol, in New Jersey — Thompson said she’d been “grinding” this season, adding, “It’s been tough. Just trying to get something that can click with my swing and just everything out there.”

When pushed for more detail, Thompson said she had been trying to simplify her swing and not get bogged down with technical thoughts. She said her driver swing is at its best when it’s producing a baby draw. “That’s where I get most of my distance, most of my center contact,” she said. “I’m working on that.”

Call it a work in progress. While Thompson is still among the longer hitters — her 265-yard average ranks 29th on tour — she also has been wild, hitting just 59.64% of her fairways, which ranks 156th. That deficiency has led to too-many missed greens; her greens in regulation percentage of 63.61 ranks 109th.

Reasonable minds might wonder whether Thompson could hurt the U.S. team more than she’ll help it. Lewis has the option to play Thompson sparingly during the team matches, but come the high-pressure Sunday singles, every player takes center stage. Thompson’s career singles record is 1-1-3.

Gear

U.S. Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson has been facing a sort-of similar dilemma with one of his stalwarts, Justin Thomas. We say sort of because while Thomas’ game, like Thompson’s, has been out of form, his struggles have been nothing close to Thompson’s. Thomas also has a much stronger Ryder Cup record (6-2-1) than Thompson’s Solheim Cup results, and he has evolved into the rabble-rousing heart and soul of the U.S. team in a way that Thompson has not done on the women’s side. There’s also one other key difference between the two players: Johnson actively put Thomas on his team, while Thompson was among the nine players assigned to Lewis.

For her part, though, Lewis is optimistic that Thompson will find ways to contribute in Spain. “She is not going to quit, and she is not going to give up on the golf course,” Lewis said, “and sometimes I think that’s the most important thing in Solheim Cups and team events.”

Lewis added: “We are going to rely on her behind the scenes, too, to help in the team room and be in a different position than she’s been in the past, because she probably is the most experienced of anybody on the team. We are just going to rely on her differently and hopefully over the next month with her work that she’s putting in that she gets some things figured out.”

Thompson is not in the field this week at the Portland Classic, but is scheduled to play next week at the Kroger Queen City Championship, in Ohio, the last LPGA event before the Solheim Cup.

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The post ‘Tee time for 3’: LPGA star Jessica Korda announces she’s expecting first child appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘Tee time for 3’: LPGA star Jessica Korda announces she’s expecting first child appeared first on Golf.

On Thursday, LPGA veteran and six-time champion Jessica Korda announced that she and husband Johnny DelPrete, who married in 2021, are expecting their first child next year.

Korda dropped the news via an Instagram post featuring a photo of her dog with a sign reading: “DELPRETE TEE TIME FOR 3 COMING FEBRUARY 2024.” Resting against the sign were a pair of blue baby shoes.

The 30-year-old LPGA star has been sidelined since May with a lingering back injury she had been suffering from for over a year.

Korda’s most recent win came at the 2021 Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions. She’s never won a major but has top-10 finishes in all five of them, including a runner-up at the 2022 Chevron Championship. She has represented the U.S. in three Solheim Cups, including the two most recent iterations in 2019 and 2021.

Korda’s younger sister, Nelly Korda, who has fought back injuries of her own, is currently ranked No. 2 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Ranking.

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The post Here’s why the LPGA partnered with a prominent pro sports ownership group appeared first on Golf.

The post Here’s why the LPGA partnered with a prominent pro sports ownership group appeared first on Golf.

Golf is, after all, one of the last truly democratized professional sports. Players are their own owners, and their jobs are not dependent on the kind of outside investment required in other major professional sports.

But on Tuesday morning, the LPGA announced just that — a first-of-its-kind agreement with not only a sports ownership group but perhaps the best-known sports ownership group in the pro landscape. Per a press release, the LPGA partnered with Fenway Sports Group — owners of the Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Penguins and Liverpool F.C., among others — to assist with “developing next-level tour partnerships.”

The agreement will form a “unique sales alliance” between both the Tour and FSG, granting Fenway Sports Group the freedom to act on behalf of the LPGA in attracting new business partners to the tour and its players. As part of the agreement, FSG will activate a “turnkey” sales team aimed at helping the LPGA — and its 10 or so current sales and partnerships employees — attract new corporate partners. The partnership will serve to “strengthen” the LPGA’s existing sales and partnerships team, “paving the way for increased revenue generation and enhanced exposure on a global scale.”

According to the LPGA, the deal is structured as a profit-share, meaning Fenway Sports Group will have the opportunity to earn a chunk of the profits generated by the new business it signs for the LPGA.

For the LPGA, the proposed benefits of the agreement aren’t difficult to understand. Fenway brings a deep roster of corporate clients and one of the most high-powered names in the sports business. If the sales team employed by FSG signs even one additional sponsor for the LPGA, the agreement will be delivering revenue the league otherwise wouldn’t have generated. In the very likely event the team signs more than one client, the agreement will be worth its weight in gold.

For FSG, the benefits are slightly more obscure. The ownership group, founded originally by Red Sox owner John Henry, has earned a reputation for the variety of its sports business portfolio. In addition to controlling stakes in sports franchises, FSG also owns and operates professional sports venues (including the company’s namesake Fenway Park), TV networks (NESN), and marketing and sponsorship teams for public figures.

For one thing, the LPGA agreement opens another revenue stream for the company business, allowing Fenway Group to expand its efforts across the sports world at reasonably little risk. For another, the agreement furthers FSG’s expansion into the golf universe, the LPGA serving as the latest movement after Fenway was announced as a franchise owner for the forthcoming TGL — a tech-focused golf league owned by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s holding company, TMRW Sports.

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The post ‘Make my hands bleed’: Charley Hull just finished second again, but she’s eager to get back to work appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘Make my hands bleed’: Charley Hull just finished second again, but she’s eager to get back to work appeared first on Golf.

She showed she had the game to win a major championship a month ago when she gave her now-famous “shy girls don’t get sweets” line at the U.S. Women’s Open. The valiant effort to reach Pebble Beach’s 18th green in two from underneath the cypress tree in the middle of the fairway capped a spectacular final-round 66 to finish T2.

But this week at the AIG Women’s Open, instead of having to manufacture a comeback down seven like she did last month, she entered the final round tied for the lead.

What’s more, she was playing on home turf. The Englishwoman grew up in Kettering, about two hours north of this week’s host, Walton Heath Golf Club.

“You ask anyone that, it would be unbelievable. It would be absolutely unbelievable,” Hull said Saturday evening when asked what it would be like to win on English soil. She recalled when fellow-countrywoman Georgia Hall triumphed won the Women’s Open at Royal Lytham in 2018. “To do that again would be unreal. But one step at a time and just go out there and have fun.”

However, some fairy tale endings just never materialize.

Bogeys at 3 and 5 coupled with a violent lip-out for birdie at 5 suddenly saw her three back of playing partner and overnight co-leader Lilia Vu. By the time the pair reached the 11th hole, Vu had opened up a five-shot lead with eight holes to play.

But just like at Pebble Beach, the 27-year-old rose to the occasion once again to make it a ball game. At the 502-yard par-5, her tee shot found the left fescue, but she went for the green anyway. She ended up in the left greenside bunker in two and from there, authored the shot of the tournament.

From right in front of the steep riveted face, Hull blasted her ball onto the green 25 feet short of the pin and watched it release and just trickle into the cup.

“That was the moment Charley needed to get herself back into this championship,” noted NBC’s Tom Abbot on the broadcast.

“And that was a moment the crowd has been waiting for,” added analyst Morgan Pressel.

When Vu failed to get her chip from beyond the green up and down for a birdie, it felt the start of another Pebble-like run for Hull.

It wasn’t. Vu knocked it stiff on 12 for another birdie that may as well have been the dagger. Even when Hull’s second at the par-5 16th ended up just a couple of feet from the hole, she couldn’t convert.

But it may have been the 18th hole when Hull proved what she’s all about. She fanned her tee shot out to the right and went for the green out of the heather that lines Walton Heath’s fairways. Her second caught the cross-bunker 50 yards short of the green from which she could only blast out to the front of the green.

She drained the final putt to secure solo second.

Just listening to the crowd, you might have thought she’d won.

“It’s unbelievable,” Hull said of the crowd support this week. “I was shocked how many young kids came up to me to be fair. It’s quite cute and really inspiring because when I was younger I used to look up to Laura but it’s kind of cool how they are looking up to me now. The signs, it’s lovely.”

However, a win this was not, just another close call as Vu made her own birdie putt to cap a six-shot victory.

“It’s just annoying because this is my fourth second-place finish of the year, so yeah, and second second-place finish in a major,” she said.

But if you think she’s in any way demoralized by coming so close, think again.

“Truthfully, I want to be with my coach tomorrow at 10 o’clock in the morning,” Hull told Sky Sports. “I really feel like next year is my time to win [a major] and I just want to get started as soon as possible and just get working and make my hands bleed. I want to hit that many golf balls.”

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The post TaylorMade drops Barbie-esque pink staff bag for Evian Championship appeared first on Golf.

The post TaylorMade drops Barbie-esque pink staff bag for Evian Championship appeared first on Golf.

In previous years, it was only the men who received the extra treatment of special edition staff bags to mark major championship weeks. However, for 2023, TaylorMade pulled out all the stops and made bags for all four of the women’s majors, with an expected fifth coming next month at the Women’s British Open.

In the details

The bag and accompanying accessories for the Amundi Evian Championship have all kinds of references to the event and the surrounding area, including the French Alps on the pocket liners and covers.

There is even a small reference on the front accessory pocket to the famous mineral water that comes from the Évian-les-Bains region of the country.

Unlike the men’s major golf bags, which can be purchased online, the only way to get your hands on an Evian Championship bag is to be a participant. Taylormade does have a selection of men’s major bags on its site if you are looking for a conversation starter.

Want to overhaul your bag for 2023? Find a fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

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The post After a rules misunderstanding, World No. 3 golfer is hit with 7 penalty strokes appeared first on Golf.

The post After a rules misunderstanding, World No. 3 golfer is hit with 7 penalty strokes appeared first on Golf.

On the 11th hole during the final round of the Dana Open Sunday, Ko marked her ball as if she was going to clean and replace it, thinking preferred lies were in play for the final round.

Just one problem. Preferred lies were in play during the fourth round, but just not on the 11th hole. Or most of the holes at Highland Meadows Golf Club, in fact. Even worse for Ko, this wasn’t the first time she had made the mistake either.

Let’s go back a bit.

With the forecast calling for heavy rain Saturday — that would eventually suspend play for nearly four hours — LPGA officials made the decision to play preferred lies for the entirety of the third round.

Then for the final round, preferred lies were only in effect on Nos. 1 and 10, according to an LPGA spokesperson.

Ko was unaware of this and played preferred lies on the 3rd, 7th and 9th fairways, going par-par-bogey on the three holes as part of a birdie-less opening nine of two-over 36.

It wasn’t till the 11th when a rules official was notified Ko had been playing preferred lies when she called for the ruling only after marking her ball. She ended up getting two-stroke penalties for each of the first three times she played preferred lies on the front nine and then got a seventh penalty stroke on 11.

According to the spokesperson, since Ko did not replace her ball to its original position on the front nine, she was penalized for playing a ball from the wrong spot each time under rule 14.7a. However, on the 11th, she was alerted to the infraction before placing her ball again. She replaced it to its original position, meaning she only got only a one-stroke penalty for deliberately touching and moving her ball under rule 9.4b.

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Her pars on 3 and 7 became doubles while a bogey on nine turned into a nasty triple. Ko all of a sudden went from four under for the tournament to two over. She managed to make par on the 11th and birdied the 17th to shoot a 78, finishing T65. She dropped 41 spots from where she had started the day.

It’s the second such example of rules confusion leading to a penalty on the LPGA Tour in as many weeks, albeit not as severe. Natthakritta Vongtaveelap was disqualified during the first round of the U.S. Women’s Open after her caddie mistakenly used a range finder. Range finders are typically allowed on the LPGA, but not at the U.S. Women’s Open or AIG Women’s Open.

The bizarre penalty continues a down year for Ko who returned to form in 2022, winning three times and reclaiming World No. 1. Despite a win on the Ladies European Tour in January, she has only finished better than T31 one time, coming in her first start in February when she finished T6.

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The post Linn Grant cruises at Dana Open for first LPGA Tour title appeared first on Golf.

The post Linn Grant cruises at Dana Open for first LPGA Tour title appeared first on Golf.

But it turns out, the issue was more “if” she could play than anything else.

While being unable to compete in U.S. LPGA Tour events due to U.S. COVID vaccination requirements for non-citizens until this May, Grant made the most of it. She played in just six international events, earning enough points to keep her card by finishing in the top 8 of four of them.

Grant also took up Ladies European Tour membership and won a stunning four times, even dominating men in the DP World Tour co-sanctioned Scandinavian Mixed.

But Sunday, she got her first win on women’s golf’s biggest stage.

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Entering the day lead with a six-shot lead over last week’s U.S. Women’s Open champion Allisen Corpuz, Grant posted a final-round 68 to finish at 21 under and win the Dana Open by three.

“I’ve imagined this day so many times in so many ways in my own mind,” Grant told CBS after the win. “Being here now, I’m so speechless, at the same time, I feel familiar with the setting for some reason.”

Remarkably, the win is already the 24-year-old Swede’s ninth as a professional, combining her wins on the LET, Sunshine Ladies Tour and LET Access events all won since graduating from Arizona State in 2021. She already had added to her LET win total earlier this year by winning the Jabra Ladies Open in May.

When the U.S.’s public health emergency expired that same month, she hit the ground running in her first U.S. LPGA events as a member. She finished third at the Bank of Hope LPGA Match-Play and T20 at the KPGA Women’s PGA Championship.

Her breakthrough came in just her fourth stateside start in 2023.

She built her lead on Saturday by flirting with 59 in the third round, playing her final five holes in even par to shoot 62.

Corpuz, fresh off a breakthrough title of her own at Pebble Beach a week ago, closed the gap on Grant with four birdies in her final five holes to shoot 65 to post 18 under.

“[Starting with the big lead], I could have been a bit more relaxed, but I also knew this course is very scoreable,” Grant said. “So in my mind, I was just thinking that someone was going to shoot the same score I did yesterday.”

Grant played steady all day, making four birdies against one bogey to close out the three-stroke victory. Her only blunder may have been flying her second to the green on the par-5 18th accidentally while the penultimate group was still putting.

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The post Allisen Corpuz pulls away to win U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach appeared first on Golf.

The post Allisen Corpuz pulls away to win U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach appeared first on Golf.

After the first hole, she wasn’t trailing anymore. By the end of the round, she wasn’t winless anymore.

Corpuz shot a final-round 69, including back-to-back birdies on 14 and 15, to pull away from a surging Charley Hull and Jiyai Shin and win the 78th U.S. Women’s Open by three strokes. Corpuz becomes the first female major champion in the long history of the iconic Pebble Beach Golf Links.

“This week has just felt like a dream come true. It’s been really awesome to be out at Pebble this week,” she said. “Every few holes I just kind of looked out and said, I’m out here at Pebble Beach. There’s not many places that are better than this. Really just tried to stay grounded and keep playing my game.”

The first women’s major at the seaside links also served as the potential final professional start for the most famous golfer from Hawaii, Michelle Wie West. So it makes sense an alumna of the same high school like Corpuz would also author her breakthrough win the same week. She’s also the first American to win the U.S. Women’s Open since 2016.

Corpuz was the only player to shoot under par for each round of the tournament.

Corpuz, a second-year pro out of USC, didn’t come into the tournament with the hype of some of the other stars like Nelly Korda, Rose Zhang, Jin Young Ko or others, but she’d been knocking on the door for a while.

In April, she entered the final round of the Chevron Championship in a share of the lead, but four bogeys on her front nine knocked her out of contention.

This time at Pebble, she entered the final round a shot back of Nasa Hataoka. As slow as she started the final round in Texas three months ago, she started Sunday just as fast. She birdied 1 and No. 3 to flip the script on Hataoka and never looked back. She took the solo lead for good with a birdie on 10

Even as Hull, who put together one of the low rounds of the tournament with a 66, closed to within two shots as Hataoka fell back, Corpuz slammed the door shut.

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She hit approaches to seven feet and then four feet on 14 and 15 and converted both looks to reach 10 under and open up a four-shot lead. She let off just a small fist pump on 15.

“My mind kind of drifted to it on and off throughout the day,” she said. “I made the birdie at 1, 3, and just kind of told myself, stay in the moment. It’s obviously not done yet. Still a lot of golf to play.

“I think that was the moment when I kind of knew like I just need to get home.”

Despite a bogey on 17, Corpuz stood on the 18th tee, one of the most famous in golf, and threaded a tee shot on the iconic par-5 between the pacific open on the left and the tree in the middle of the fairway.

The normally stoic and level-headed Corpuz cracked a smile as started the walk down the fairway and then again when she reached the green two shots later.

It was only after the final putt fell, she truly let it hit her. She not only had her first LPGA title, but her first major as well.

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The post U.S. Women’s Open Cinderella starts run. Then tumbles after quintuple bogey appeared first on Golf.

The post U.S. Women’s Open Cinderella starts run. Then tumbles after quintuple bogey appeared first on Golf.

Until she got to one of Pebble Beach’s most famous holes.

Donegan, a junior at LSU, opened the year’s third LPGA major as a surprise contender after a 69 Thursday that had her a shot off the lead in a tie for third. She backed up just a bit toward the end of her second round Friday and posted a 76, but was still the lowest of the four amateurs to make the cut at one over.

Perhaps more impressively, she did it with several replacement clubs after her sticks arrived late — with some destroyed by the airlines.

Saturday, she started with a flurry, escaping trouble expertly on the first when she manufactured a low cut from the right trees to just six feet.

She added more birdies at 4 and 6 and was suddenly back in a tie for fifth at two under. Donegan appeared to be in trouble again after her tee shot bounced over the firm 7th green and settled on the back lip of a bunker.

The 21-year-old, who grew up playing Lahinch, one of the best courses in Ireland, handled the awkward pitch with class across the green and then poured in the 10-footer for par.

However, it only took Donegan one hole Saturday to learn how Pebble’s iconic stretch of 8, 9 and 10 earned the nickname “The Cliffs of Doom.”

After putting her tee shot into the fairway on the dramatic par-4 8th, Donegan sized up the intimidating second shot that plays over a 100-plus-yard chasm of the Pacific Ocean. Even playing downwind, but quartering from the left, toward the ocean, the 8th was the toughest hole on the course during the third round and to that point hadn’t given up a birdie.

From 190 yards, Donegan took her swing and watched helplessly as her ball caught the wind and kept sailing farther and farther right. It landed right of the greenside bunker and disappeared into Carmel Bay.

From the drop zone, which offered a similar shot, no less intimidating but from 175, her fourth shot was no better. This time her ball bounced around the hazard line but caromed down into the rocks once again.

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“Just a shock to the system,” NBC Sports’ Dan Hicks said on the broadcast.

“It’s just truly deflating,” added analyst Morgan Pressel.

Finally, Donegan’s third attempt, her sixth shot, made it over the gorge but stopped just short of the green. After a chip and two putts, it was a momentum-crushing 9 for the young amateur.

“She really needs to settle herself down here,” Pressel said as Donegan attempted to limit the damage to just an 8. “This is a time when everything just starts to go quicker. You start to walk faster. Hit the ball faster. Your brain starts moving a million miles an hour.”

Donegan did settle down and rebound with pars at the difficult 9th and 10th holes and eventually made her fourth birdie of the day on 15 to bring her to three over for the championship and back into the top 20.

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