The next chapter in the long and storied history of the Chevron Championship begins Thursday at the Club at Carlton Woods just outside Houston, Texas. It's the first time in more than five decades that the major will be contested away from its original home at Mission Hills Country Club in Palm Springs, California.

And while it's always a question of who will emerge victorious in a major championship, that question looms particularly large this week as the Club at Carlton Woods remains a largely unknown commodity. The club has hosted several elite amateur championships but is hosting the LPGA Tour and a major championship this week for the first time.

In time, players will learn the intricacies of the major's new home at the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course, which has plentiful trees and is located in an aptly named part of town called The Woodlands, about a 30-minute drive north of downtown Houston. The Nicklaus design features water throughout and fast greens. It's one of two courses at the Club at Carlton Woods which will play about 6,800 yards during the championship and to a par 72.

And Mother Nature will be much more of a wildcard than she was during previous championships played in Palm Springs, where conditions were mostly sunny and warm year after year. Instead, the forecast for the week at The Woodlands is scattered with rain and thunderstorms, adding to the abounding variables in a major's first trip to a new venue with a wide-open field.

The major championship marks the seventh stop of the LPGA Tour season, and through the first four months of the year, no one player has emerged as a dominant force, making the major ripe for a first-time winner.

Just look at the first six events of the year. Three of the six winners so far this season are Rolex First-Time Winners, including the most recent champion in rookie Grace Kim, who outlasted a three-person playoff at last week's LOTTE Championship to win in just her third start as a member.

And seeing a first-timer win a major has become quite common in recent years, and not just first-time major winners but also first-time winners on Tour. Especially at the Chevron Championship, where three of the last five champions made their first win a major. In 2022, Jennifer Kupcho became the most recent first-timer to hoist The Dinah Shore Trophy, and she used her maiden win as a springboard to a breakout season in which she won twice more.

While seeing a first-time winner in a major championship has become more commonplace, it's certainly no easy feat and it won't be this year either as the field in Houston is stacked with the best players in women's golf with the top 20 in the Rolex Rankings and 29 major champions poised to compete.

Lydia Ko headlines the field as the top-ranked player in the Rolex Rankings and the winner of the 2016 Chevron Championship. The reigning Rolex Player of the Year sits just two points shy of qualifying for the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame and a win on Sunday would give Ko the last two points she needs to become the youngest ever to qualify for the Hall at the age of 25.

Brooke Henderson, a two-time major winner who followed her 2016 KPMG Women's PGA Championship title with a win last season at the Amundi Evian Championship, could pick up the third leg of the career grand slam with a win on Sunday in Houston. The Canadian has had an up-and-down start to her year, having won the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions but has recorded just a single top 20 since her victory.

Nelly Korda, the top-ranked American in the field, has had a surprisingly quiet start to her season, but a closer look at her results show a player who looks poised to peak at one of the biggest events of the year as she has four top 10s in her first five starts of the season.

A new era in the history of the Chevron Championship will be written this weekend in Houston, where a new venue, an unpredictable forecast, and a wide-open field will collide. Storylines abound at the season's first major. And the Chevron Championship's next step in history is just one of many.

The Chevron Championship, LPGA's First Major, Makes Its Debut in Texas

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