Click for Groups and Tee Times for the Opening Rounds
*All tee times are local
Minjee Lee, Jin Young Ko, Inbee Park- 10th Tee, 7:44 A.M.
The Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings No. 1, 2, and 7 all tee off together at the largest major purse of the year.
Minjee Lee comes into the second major of the year having not finished worse than T21 since April arrived. She has three top 10s, along with her victory in Los Angeles, and a T13 finish at the Pure Silk Championship last week. Jin Young Ko had her worst finish since the beginning of March in Williamsburg, finishing T21. She had five top five finishes over six events before the Pure Silk Championship, including her wins at the Founders Cup and the first major of the year.
Inbee Park has won the U.S. Women’s Open twice, in 2008 and 2013. Park rolls into Charlotte with three consecutive top 25 finishes, including a T5 at the HUGEL-AIR PREMIA LA Open. The Hall of Famer is embracing the opportunity to become a three-time champion, explaining in her press conference that, “If I can write my name one more time on the trophy, it will be just something unreal.”
The Country Club of Charleston presents itself as a second shot golf course, with plenty of bunker laden green complexes and undulating greens requiring precise approaches. Ko, Lee, and Park’s games are setup to be able to avoid the challenges around the greens. They are numbers 1, 5, and 9 in greens in regulation this year, sitting at 80.2%, 76.9%, and 75.8% of greens hit, respectively.
Ariya Jutanugarn, Sung Hyun Park, Lexi Thompson- 10th Tee, 8:06 A.M.
The last two U.S. Women’s Open champions are paired together alongside Lexi Thompson, who has three top 10s to her name in the U.S. Women’s Open. Thompson has held steady in the last three U.S. Women’s Opens she has played in, shooting between 70 to 75 in her last 12 rounds. It’s resulted in a T32, T27, and T5 finishes. Her T5 finish was last year in Alabama, where she closed with two rounds of 70 to move from 34th to T5.
Jutanugarn enters the Country Club of Charleston in a bit of a lull of her game, slowing down after a T3 finish at the Lotte Championship. There’s quite a bit of history against Jutanugarn as well: no one has defended their U.S. Open Championship since just after the turn of the millennia, when Karrie Webb won in 2000 and 2001. The history against Jutanugarn and Sung Hyun Park? There’s been a different winner in each of the last 10 U.S. Women’s Opens, with Inbee Park’s win in 2008 being the victory to break that streak.
Sung Hyun Park’s year has been comprised of before and after the start of April. Before April, in four starts, she had her victory in Singapore that launched her to No. 1 on the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, a T2 finish at the Kia Classic, and two other top 25 finishes. After the start of April, Park has a T52, a T35, and a missed cut. Park returns to an event she’s found great success in as the calendar is about to change to June, as she won the U.S. Women’s Open in 2017 and finished T3 at Cordevalle in 2016.
Jennifer Kupcho, Sierra Brooks, Maria Fassi- 1st Tee, 8:28 A.M.
Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi, after delaying their LPGA Membership, make their highly anticipated professional debuts this week. Kupcho, the Wake Forest Alum, has played in two U.S. Women’s Open as an amateur before, missing the cut in 2016 and finishing T21 in 2017. Kupcho took home the first Augusta National Women’s Amateur, beating Fassi by four strokes. Fassi has played in the U.S. Women’s Open twice, missing the cut in both appearances in 2015 and 2018. She comes to Charleston after winning the individual NCAA Championship last week by four shots over Sierra Brooks. Brooks played in the U.S. Women’s Open in 2016 and missed the cut. The Florida Junior is the lone amateur of the group, sitting in 24thon the World Amateur Golf Rankings. She qualified for the event in Florida, taking one of two spots at the Country Club of Ocala.
Nelly Korda, Brooke Henderson, Danielle Kang- 10th Tee, 8:17 A.M.
Nelly Korda came out of the gates running to start the season, opening with five consecutive top 10s and six out of seven with her eighth-place finish at the LOTTE Championship. Korda showed a touch of that magic in her second round 66 in Williamsburg. Korda is entering her fifth U.S. Women’s Open, with her best finish coming in Alabama last year at T10. She sat in seventh after the first round with a (-2) round to start the event, her same start she had in 2017.
Brooke Henderson’s had an up and down season with plenty more up than down. Outside of her two missed cuts, her worst finish has been T17. She won the LOTTE Championship, and finished T2 last week at the Pure Silk Championship. Henderson has a pair of top 10s in the U.S. Women’s Open to her name, finishing T5 in 2015 and 10thin 2014. She had to WD due to personal reasons from Alabama last year but finished T13 in 2017.
Danielle Kang is riding a hot streak heading into Charleston. Outside of her WD last week, she had four consecutive top 10 finishes before finishing T18 at the LPGA MEDIHEAL Championship. Kang had her best performance in the U.S. Women’s Open last year, finishing in fourth place at Shoal Creek. This year marks Kang’s 10thappearance in the U.S. Women’s Open, as she’s looking for her second career major victory.
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