Last Sunday was a most interesting day in the world of professional golf. New England native Keegan Bradley captured the Travelers Hartford Open. It was a nice home game win for the former PGA champion. On the senior set, Irishman Padraig Harrington ran off five birdies and an eagle over the final seven holes to run down Joe Durant and win on the Champions Tour. Shooting 7-under-par over the final seven holes to win a tournament on a Sunday afternoon is most impressive. Finally, the LPGA Tour hosted one of its major championships, the KPMG PGA Championship, at the storied Baltusrol Golf Club in New Jersey. Ruoning Yin, a 20-year-old professional from China, used her precision ball striking prowess to put herself in position to win her first major title.
On Saturday and Sunday, Yin, hit all 36 greens in regulation. She came into the final hole tied for the lead. A crooked drive, a nice lay-up second shot, and a solid wedge into the green left Ruoning with a 15-foot putt for birdie and the win. She drained the putt and put herself into the LPGA record books. Yin is only the second native of mainland China to win on the LPGA Tour, with Shanshan Feng being the first. She also was able to add $1.35 million to her bank account for her first major and most impressive victory.
What really caught my attention was the recent growth on the LPGA Tour when it comes to prize money as well as the caliber of the courses where their grand slam titles are contested. The Women’s PGA at Baltusrol had it total purse elevated to $10 million. For the first time in its storied history, the LPGA circuit now has total purses north of $100 million. On top of that, the best women golfers in the world were playing one of their five majors on a course that has tons of history and tradition.
Designed by golden age of architecture giant A.W. Tillinghast (Winged Foot, San Francisco, Bethpage) in 1918, Baltusrol is a 36-hole complex that has hosted a number of memorable major championships on its Lower Course as well as the Upper Course. Ed Furgol won the 1954 U.S. Open there, Hall of Famer Mickey Wright captured the 1961 U.S. Women’s Open, and Jack Nicklaus won a pair of Opens at Baltusrol some 13 years apart, in 1967 and 1980. In the modern era, Lee Janzen won his first U.S. Open on the Lower Course in 1993 while Phil Mickelson prevailed in the PGA Championship there in 2005. Jimmy Walker won the most recent playing of the PGA at Baltusrol in 2016.
Aside from that long list of men’s and women’s majors, Baltusrol has also opened its doors to other top flight events, including the 2018 U.S. Junior, and the 2000 U.S. Amateur as well as the 1946 and 1926 Amateur. The Upper Course at Baltusrol has also hosted the 1985 U.S. Women’s Open and the 1936 U.S. Open.
Yet Baltusrol is not alone when it comes to high-quality courses starting to host major championships on the LPGA Tour. The KMPG PGA will be held at Sahalee next year, will go to PGA Frisco in 2025 and 2031, and visits Congressional in 2027. First contested in 1955, the Women’s PGA didn’t always play at top-notch venues. It visited courses such as Orchard Ridge, Forest Lake, Churchill Valley, Stardust, Pleasant Valley, Locust Hill, Bay Tree, and Dupont CC, all nice layouts that lacked the pedigree of major championship sites. Yet within the last decade, the Women’s PGA has been held at Sahalee, Olympia Fields, Atlanta Athletic, Hazeltine and Aronimink.
It’s the same story at another of women’s golf storied majors, namely the Women’s British Open. First played in 1975, the tourney was held at courses such as Fulford, Lindrick, Ferndown and Moor Park. Like some of the more obscure sites for the Women’s PGA, these courses lacked grand slam credentials. Beginning in 1998 the Women’s Open Championship started using great links courses that had previously hosted the men. That 1998 Open was held at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. Since then it has been contested at Royal Birkdale, Turnberry, St. Andrews, Carnoustie, Royal Troon and Muirfield. The Muirfield Open was ground breaking since Muirfield was one of the last of the British courses of note to keep their course closed to women. The membership changed that policy and welcomed competitive women’s golf.
The Women’s United States Open begins this coming Thursday at the Pebble Beach Golf Links. Playing the Women’s National Open on one of the world’s top-notch golf courses is a big feather in the cap of the LPGA Tour and more importantly for the image of women’s golf. Initially played in 1946, the Women’s U.S. Open lacked the commercial successes of the Men’s U.S. Open. The early Women’s U.S. Open venues included Starmount Forest, Druid Hill, Bala, Northland and Worchester. Yet as early as 1961, Baltusrol hosted the Open as Mickey Wright won her third national title. It visited Del Paso CC in Sacramento in 1982 and continued on its semi-rudderless path until 1986 when it once again visited Baltusrol. Since the 1990s the USGA has held the Women’s U.S. Open at major venues such as Colonial, Oakmont, Cherry Hills, Pinehurst and San Francisco’s Olympic Club.
Pebble Beach is no stranger to hosting top-notch women’s golf tourneys. Opened for play in 1919, Pebble Beach hosted the Pebble Beach Championship For Women some four years later. It would continue to hold the Pebble Beach Women’s until 1951. Marion Hollins, the best known woman golfer of the time, won it on seven separate occasions. Hollins is especially well known for her architectural impact on such noted courses as Pasatiempo, Cypress Point and Augusta National while serving as a consultant to famed designer Alister Mackenzie.
Pebble Beach hosted a pair of Women’s U.S. Amateurs, initially in 1940 and again in 1948. It hosted the LPGA Weathervane in 1950 and 1951. With the cream rising to the top, the 1950 Weathervane was won by Babe Didrikson Zaharias while Patty Berg captured it the following year. The California Golf Association Women’s Amateur was held at Pebble Beach from 1967 through 1986 and its past champions included Juli Inkster, Patty Sheehan and Amy Alcott.
From 1972 and every decade or so thereafter, we’ve seen Jack Nicklaus’1-iron off the flag, Tom Watson’s chip-in, Tom Kite’s chip-in, Tiger Woods total domination, Graeme McDowell fighting the wind, and Gary Woodland’s marvelous short game at Pebble. The most important tournaments in the world of top-notch women’s professional golf should be held at the very same courses that the men’s best have always gotten to play. You can be pretty sure that there will be a magical Pebble Beach moment next weekend at the U.S. Women’s Open.L
