US Women’s Open – A Look at the Big Four

The US Women’s Open captures my imagination like no other event in women’s golf. First contended in 1946, it’s the longest-running tournament on the LPGA schedule. But in many respects the US Women’s Open transcends the LPGA.

The inaugural US Women’s Open, played at the Spokane Country Club, was the love child of a collaboration between the fragile and short-lived Women’s Professional Golfing Association and the Spokane Athletic Round Table. The WPGA provided the idea and the players and the Round Table provided the financial backing, $19,700 from the Round Table’s slot machine proceedings.

From that partnership of opportunity and those modest beginnings the US Women’s Open has grown incrementally to it’s current form, a full-field event conducted solely by the USGA with a purse of $4.5 million – the largest in women’s pro golf. The field is drawn from 93 fully exempt players and those who gain eligibility at one of 26 sectional qualifiers, 21 in the United States and 4 in international locations (Buckinghamshire Golf Club, England; Otone Country Club, Japan; Lan Hai International Golf Club, China; and Woo Jeong Hills Country Club, Korea).

The playing ground for the 71st US Women’s Open – CordeValle in San Martin, California – will become the field of dreams for the women who tee it up on July 7. These are the best women’s golf has to offer, this international field of competitors. Among them will be three outstanding amateurs – Sierra Brooke, Leona Maguire, and Hannah O’Sullivan. They’re dreaming of joining Catherine Lacoste – the only amateur ever to win the US Women’s Open – in golf’s history annals. Lacoste, who hoisted the trophy in 1967 and is now a woman of 70, remains the only amateur to do so.

Alongside In Gee Chun, the 2015 champion, will be nine other past champions who have secured their tee times by virtue of their victories – Se Re Pak, Meg Mallon, Juli Inkster, Karrie Webb, Cristie Kerr, Paula Creamer, So Yeon Ryu, Na Yeon Choi, Michelle Wie. (Inbee Park, continuing to deal with her thumb injury, will not compete.)

Within this field of athletic stars there are four especially talented young golfers – and they are all quite young – I will be watching closely. It’s from this group that I’m thinking the battle to gain control of the top of the leaderboard will crystallize on Saturday and Sunday at CordeValle.

Let’s have a look at them, beginning with the player everybody is chasing, Lydia Ko.

Lydia Ko

Lydia Ko is the hottest property on the women’s golf stage coming into the US Women’s Open. She has dominated the Rolex Rankings for 36 consecutive weeks.  Playing her third year on the Tour, the 19-year old New Zealander has captured just about every honor the LPGA offers – the Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year (2014), Rolex Player of the Year (2015), Race to the CME Globe (2014, 2015). She still needs to collect the Vare Trophy!

Ko has made 63 starts in LPGA events since she turned pro. She’s played the weekend at 62 of those events and 48 times she’s finished inside the top 10 – that’s 77% of the time that Lydia Ko has finished on the front page of the leaderboard! Her 13 career LPGA victories include two major championships, The Evian (2015) and the ANA Inspiration (2016).

Ko isn’t especially long off the tee – her drives are averaging under 250 yards – but she keeps herself out of trouble and in the short grass, and her short game is deadly. She leads the Tour in putts per GIR (1.72) and putting average (28.67). And she delivers this golf game without any apparent stress or distress.

Lydia Ko consistently plays well on the West Coast and she’s going to be in the mix at CordeValle. But the field isn’t going to give her the US Women’s Open trophy without a fight, and I’m looking for Brooke Henderson to turn up the heat at CordeValle.

Brooke Henderson

Brooke Henderson is Canada’s answer to New Zealand’s Lydia Ko and while the two teenagers have rather different games in their bags, their pro careers parallel each other. Henderson’s rather tortured road to the LPGA ended with her win at the Cambia Portland Classic last August and since then she’s been a woman with fire in her belly.

Henderson, who at 18 is a year younger than Lydia Ko, made 14 LPGA starts in 2015, 10 of them as a non-member, trying to play her way onto the Tour with her winnings – her Portland Classic victory got her immediate LPGA membership. Henderson played the weekend 13 times under very trying circumstances and ended her abbreviated rookie year with top-10 finishes at the US Women’s Open and the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship as well as her Portland win.

The Canadian standout is having a splendid 2016 season. She’s made 17 Tour starts, played the weekend 16 times, finished inside the top 10, on the front page of the board, 10 times – about 60% of the time – and she hoisted her first major championship trophy at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship last month at Sahalee, a track she said felt like playing at her home Canadian course and a track that has much in common with CordeValle.

Henderson is very powerful off the tee. She is going to outdrive Lydia Ko by about 20 yards, on average, which will give her a distinct advantage on many of the par 4s and all the par 5s at CordeValle.  She’ll need it because her short game is not quite as sharp as Ko’s. She averages 1.78 putts per GIR to Ko’s 1.72 and her overall putting average is 29.62, just about 1 putt more per round than Ko’s.

Brooke Henderson plays a much more aggressive game than Lydia Ko. She’s going to take risks when Ko elects the safer, conventional route from tee to green. If those risks pay off, look for Henderson to take control of the CordeValle leaderboard on moving day. If they don’t, Lydia Ko still won’t have an easy time of it because Ariya Jutanugarn is locked and loaded and ready to put a major championship on her resume this year.

Ariya Jutanugarn

I’ve been watching 20-year old Ariya Jutanugarn make her way onto golf’s big stage for several years. The powerful young Thai golfer started competing in pro venues – both LPGA and Ladies European Tour – in 2007 and she turned in some very respectable cards even before she turned pro in 2012.

Jutanugarn played on the LET in 2013 and notched her first pro victory that year at the Lalla Meyrem Cup. Then disaster struck. During a practice round at the LPGA Championship Ariya and her sister, Moriya, were horsing around, squirting each other with water bottles. Ariya slipped, fell, and sustained a shoulder injury that required extensive surgery and protracted rehab. Golf went on hold until 2014 LPGA Q-School., where she easily earned her 2015 Tour card.

Jutanugarn played a competent rookie year, recording 4 top-10 finishes that included a runner-up at the Pure Silk Bahamas LPGA Classic. But when the calendar rolled over to 2016 Ariya Jutanugarn was a player transformed. She’s started at 16 Tour events and played the weekend 15 times. And after a devastating 4th round meltdown at the ANA Inspiration, Ariya Jutanugarn turned a corner and figured out how to close the deal.

May was her magic month. Jutanugarn won 3 consecutive events, and followed with a 3rd place finish at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. After two near misses, I have no doubt that Ariya Jutanugarn is coming to CordeValle planning to hoist the US Women’s trophy, and she has the game to do it.

Tee to green, Ariya Jutanugarn and Brooke Henderson will match each other shot for shot and their performance on the putting surface is more or less equal as well. It’s going to come down to a matter of mental strength in the clutch shots and that always unpredictable element, the lucky drop or unlucky lip out. They’ll both be playing hard to get in the mix and stay there and that’s always good news for golf fans.

Jutanugarn and Henderson will both need to guard their edge, however, because Lexi Thompson can outplay both of them tee to green and if she gets an opening she’s going to power her way past them.

Lexi Thompson

Playing her 4th year on the Tour, Lexi Thompson is by far the most experienced of these four standouts, and experience counts when it comes to successfully navigating the stress and pressure of a major championship. With 41 top-10 finishes on her resume, 7 of them victories, Lexi Thompson has learned how to close the deal.

Thompson’s Sunday Shootout against Michelle Wie at the 2014 Kraft Nabisco Championship remains, for me, one of the most riveting displays of golf guts I’ve ever witnessed. At the time, by the numbers Wie should have been able to outplay Thompson. But Wie lacked the mental strength to withstand the pressure of a final round that was playing out like match play.

Thompson has never recorded a top-5 finish at the US Women’s Open although she’s consistently signed very respectable cards. I don’t know what to make of that, but I’m thinking that the top-ranked American in the field at CordeValle may feel a certain obligation to dig deep and push hard to claim victory at the national championship.

Certainly Thompson has the game to compete with Lydia Ko, Brooke Henderson, and Ariya Jutanugarn. She leads the Tour in distance off the tee and that gives her a 20+ yard advantage over Henderson and Jutanugarn and 40+ yards over Ko. Her weakness lies in her short game. Once on the putting surface they can all out-putt her, but I’ve seen Lexi Thompson focus in with the flat stick and deliver some hair-raising putts.

Lydia Ko, Brooke Henderson, Ariya Jutanugarn, and Lexi Thompson aren’t the only players in the US Women’s Open field who will deliver championship-level, stand-out performances at CordeValle, but they’re my pick for the penultimate and final groups on Sunday.

Cover Image via Flickr