“Fatima Fernandez Cano is no stranger to Mesa, Arizona or Longbow Golf Club. The two-time Epson Tour champion secured one of those victories in 2022 at the Carlisle Arizona Women's Golf Classic. The third annual event sponsored by the Carlisle Companies returns to Longbow Golf Club in 2023, along with Cano, to defend her title. Although the 27-year-old did not learn to play golf in the desert, Cano has grown to love and trust her game in Arizona.”
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“Brittany Lincicome was hoping to slide under the radar at the Florida’s Natural Charity Classic. But it’s hard for a two-time major winner to blend in at an Epson Tour event.
Before Lincicome begins her 2023 season on the LPGA later this month in Arizona, the mother of two thought she’d try to regain some confidence at the season-opening event that’s about 90 minutes, without traffic, from her St. Petersburg home. It’s her first time playing on the official qualifying tour. The 37-year-old went straight to the LPGA from high school and was a rookie in 2005.”
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“DemandScience, a global B2B data company that partners with customers to drive demand generation, today announced that Megan Khang is the first member of the LPGA Tour to become a brand ambassador for the company. DemandScience now has partnerships with 18 elite professional golfers from North America and Europe playing on the LPGA Tour, the PGA TOUR, PGA TOUR Champions, and the Korn Ferry Tour.”
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“Two-time major champion Stacy Lewis has been named captain of the 2024 U.S. Solheim Cup Team. Lewis is already hard at work as captain for the 2023 Team and will now also lead the top 12 American female golfers as they represent their country at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va., on Sept. 10-15, 2024.”
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“Ana Belac ended 2022 on a high with a T38 result at LPGA Q-Series before she headed to Spain and secured LET status with a fourth-place finish.
The Slovenian carded rounds of 68, 69, 73, 71 and 67 on the North and South courses at La Manga Club easily finishing in the top 20 and clinching her LET card for 2023.”
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“Shelley McGill O’Keefe says she loves everything about Thanksgiving. One highlight arrives just before the traditional dinner begins, when each person gathered around a bountiful table takes the opportunity to articulate what it is that makes him, or her, grateful.
When it was Shelley’s turn to speak this year, she might have taken a little more time than usual. Same for her younger sister, Jill McGill.
Seven months past her 50th birthday, Jill won her first professional golf tournament this summer, capturing the U.S. Senior Women’s Open at NCR Country Club in Kettering, Ohio. Jill was a college hotshot, a two-time All-America at USC and 1993 U.S. Women's Amateur champion who seemed destined to win a bunch when she stepped onto the LPGA nearly three decades ago.”
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“Quietly and with remarkable consistency, Megan Khang is constructing a pretty solid career with the LPGA. The young woman who was born in 1997 in Brockton, Mass., to parents who as children had escaped war-ravaged Laos in 1970, will be teeing it up in the CME Group Tour Championship, which begins today.”
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“A few months ago, Lauren Stephenson’s life off the course was turned upside-down when her younger sister, Hannah, had a cancer scare. Stephenson continued to play, but her golf game reached a breaking point after her second straight missed cut at the LPGA MEDIHEAL Championship. She decided that it was time to step away and focus on her sister.”
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It has been only a few months since Brittany Lincicome last played in a tournament, as she went on maternity leave in late June for the birth of her second daughter, Sophia.
But it feels like “years when you take that much time off,” the Seminole native said.
During a media event Tuesday for the LPGA Pelican Women’s Championship, which tees off Nov. 10 at Pelican Golf Club, Lincicome said the mental side of golf is one of the most difficult hurdles she will have to overcome. She gradually has ramped up her preparation for the event but said it still snuck up on her.
Lincicome knows that she can hit the ball the same. She knows her abilities have allowed her to win on the tour before, and she reminded herself that it hasn’t changed even with the time off.
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There’s been no closer call for Megan Khang this season than the final round at the Dana Open presented by Marathon. Khang started the day four back of 54-hole leader Lucy Li and came out swinging on her opening nine holes, carding five birdies in seven holes to turn in 29 and tie the lead. Her next birdie came on the 11th, giving Khang the solo lead at -16, but her putter went cold and her playing partner, Gaby Lopez, got hot, birdieing Nos. 16 and 17 to pull one ahead. Both players put their second shots in the bunker on the reachable, par-5 18th and Lopez barely got hers out, splashing it to mid-range, with Khang nearly holing out for eagle, setting up a two-foot birdie that would send the pair to a playoff. But the fiery Lopez buried her putt in the heart of the cup, spelling the end for Khang who was looking for her the first win of her seven-year LPGA Tour career.
“My front nine was incredible. I was rolling the ball really well on the greens, and Jack and I kind of just were out there and we were like, Hey, we're not in the last group but we're pretty close. We're chasing and we just got to give ourselves the best chance at it,” said Khang who only needed 27 putts on Sunday to finish solo second. “There is always a little bit of disappointment, but Gaby played an amazing round as well. A lot of mixed feelings, but I gave myself chances, and just going to take what I learned from this week and carry it on for my career.”
Even though Charles Dickens wasn’t a golfer, his words rang true on Thursday. It was, indeed, the best of times and the worst of times in “A Tale of Emma Talley.” During the first round of the CP Women’s Open, the 28-year-old Kentuckian got off to the kind of lackluster start on which mediocre weeks are built – 11 straight pars, including three on Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club’s four par fives. Then, as Dickens would say, the winter of despair released its grip on the spring of hope as Emma shed the epoch of incredulity to go on the run of the day.
“It was a crazy day,” Tally said after posting a 6-under par 65 to take an early lead in the first round. “My front nine was really boring. I didn't actually hit the ball that great, but I turned it around. On No. 12 I looked at my caddie and I was like, ‘I know exactly what I'm doing wrong. I'm just going to start hitting it better.’
“That's all I said, and then made a birdie. The next hole I made a hole-in-one and almost made a birdie on the next. It was like a completely different golf for the last seven holes than the first half of the day.”
Talley’s last seven holes read more like a phone number than a scorecard: 314-2424. The ace was “perfect shot” with “an easy 6-iron” from 172 yards on the 13th, Talley said. a shot that led Talley to break out in a little dance afterward.
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“I'm just proud of myself for putting myself in this situation.”
Though disappointed in the eventual result, Emma Talley had nothing to be ashamed of in her performance at the 2021 ISPS Handa World Invitational presented by AVIV Clinics. The American, who had held part of the 36- and 54-hole co-leads last year, found herself in the first playoff of her Tour career with Pajaree Anannarukarn by Sunday’s end. After failing to make par on the second playoff hole, the par-5 18th, Talley finished the week with a new career-best runner-up showing. She said the sting of the playoff definitely sat with her for a bit, but the experience and result helped Talley retain her LPGA Tour card for this season. And even with memories of last year ever reminiscent, her return to Galgorm Castle is one of joy.
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Some memories can be fickle and fluid, changing as the echo travels farther away from the source. Others are utterly seared, frozen in time like a perfect Kodachrome slide. The moment I fell in love with the Old Course at St. Andrews is unequivocally in the latter category. I can project it on the back of my forehead in razor sharp focus.
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Stacy Lewis, 37, isn't slowing down anytime soon.
In her 14th year on the LPGA Tour, the two-time major champion and 13-time winner continues to etch her name in the history books while redefining what it means to have it all as a professional athlete.
At the start of 2022, the LPGA board of directors elected Lewis as player director alongside Ally Ewing. Shortly after, Lewis was named captain of Team USA for the 2023 Solheim Cup. Lewis will make history as the youngest American captain in Solheim Cup history, leading a team of the top 12 American golfers who will face off against Team Europe at Finca Cortesin in Spain in Sept. 2023.
Since her LPGA rookie season in 2009, Lewis dominated the leaderboards with multiple victories and consecutive weeks in the top 10 world rankings, including 25 weeks at No. 1. As her career reaches new heights, Lewis looks to claim another major title this week at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland.
Lewis talked to ESPN about how she continues to elevate her career, why it's important that the Championship be hosted at Congressional and how she balances it all.
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STORE Capital Corporation (NYSE: STOR), an internally managed net-lease real estate investment trust (REIT) that invests in Single Tenant Operational Real Estate, today announced that it is sponsoring a team of professional golfers on the LPGA Tour. The STORE team will include Stacy Lewis, Lauren Stephenson, Fatima Fernandez Cano, Brooke Matthews and Sarah Schmelzel. The partnership will debut June 2-5 at the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club (Southern Pines, NC). The STORE Capital logo will appear on each athlete’s left collar in competition this season.
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I LOVE digging into the bags of our LPGA staff players; it not only speaks to the gearhead I have living inside, but it’s also quite informative as a player. Most of us should model our bags after these players than those on the PGA Tour. Why? Well, for one, the speed numbers are closer to us, and second, the level of accuracy and spin control LPGA players roll with is nothing short of ELITE. The whole bag is built around plotting AROUND the golf course, not OVER it.
LPGA players aren’t chasing distance as much as the rest of the population. Sure, they all want to get faster and longer, but spin control, precision, and the short game tend to hold more weight as it relates to success. In simple terms, long hitters don’t dominate the LPGA Tour as they appear to on the men’s side.
Defending U.S Woman’s Open Champion Yuka Saso piques my interest even more. She would be considered one of the longer hitters on the LPGA, and her launch conditions sit just shy of where I live (you will see her numbers below). Yuka would be considered one of the BIG hitters on the LPGA with 150+ ball speed (the equivalent on PGA is 180+), but as you will see, spin and control are pretty heavy-handed when it comes to picking the gamers.
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“A few months ago, Lauren Stephenson quietly took a shot at a dream she has had since seeing Brittany Lincicome compete at the PGA Tour’s Barbasol Championship in 2018. The 24-year-old South Carolina native, still searching for her first LPGA win in four years on tour, wrote a letter to tournament director Steve Wilmot at the RBC Heritage requesting a sponsor’s exemption into the PGA Tour event she attended in her youth at Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island.”
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“Being a mom is a hard job. Being a mom while competing on the LPGA Tour, well that’s another story. Hear from some of the greatest LPGA players about playing on the Tour while raising a family.”
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It’s been four weeks to the day since Emma Talley got engaged to her longtime boyfriend Patrick Smith and the happiness she’s been feeling off the golf course is definitely showing in her on-course play. The University of Alabama alum fired a 4-under 67 to open her week at the DIO Implant LA Open and needed just 26 putts to get the job done on a gusty day one at Wilshire Country Club, a place she feels especially comfortable with as a fade player.
“I putted well today. (The greens are) just tricky,” said Talley who has a 29.09 stroke putting average through nine events. “To putt well in the afternoon, that's great because tomorrow I'll have fresh greens at 7:30 in the morning. I think it sets up really good for a fade which is what I hit. I also have always loved this golf course ever since my rookie year. For some reason, it sets up good for my eye. I'm hitting the ball really well right now, and that goes a long way, especially when it's windy.”
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