Lexi Thompson’s 2021 U.S. Women’s Open – a tale of two nines

The golf weather gods gave with one hand and took away with the other for today’s final round of the U.S. Women’s Open. The foggy, damp conditions of the previous three days were just a memory as Friday morning dawned sunny and bright—with brisk, blustery winds but otherwise picture-perfect conditions as the final pairing of the day— leader Lexi Thompson; Yuka Sosa, 19, of the Phillipines; and the Low Amateur leader, 17-year-old Megha Ganne—stepped up to the first tee.

Lexi Thompson hits her tee shot on the 12th hole during the final round at the 2021 U.S. Women's Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, Calif. on Sunday, June 6, 2021. (Darren Carroll/USGA)

As the pair of young, talented teenagers with whom she was paired struggled early in the round, Lexi Thompson, a veteran of 14 U.S. Women’s Opens and 36 other major championships, started out strong with a birdie on the par-5 first hole, then stuttering slightly with a bogey on #2. She made up the lost stroke with a birdie on five that was set up by a slingshot from the right rough that caught a good slope and rolled to near kick-in range.

Throughout the front nine Thompson looked cool, confident, and in command of her game, but on the second nine she resembled nothing so much as a front-running race car that was down on power, leaking oil, and struggling to hang on to an early lead.

That apparent command of her game started to drift away on the 11th hole. A wayward drive led to a hard chop out of the left rough that fell short, and was in turn followed by a duffed chip shot that came up short of the green, and a dead-push bogey putt. It was Thompson’s worst hole of the day, a double-bogey six that halved her (then) lead over China’s Shanshan Feng.

Not that her command of her game had totally left her—apparently unfazed by a flyer out of the right rough on #12 that raced through the green and over the back side, she rolled a long-range masterpiece of a putt to kick-in distance to save par.

After a fairly routine par on the par-three 13th hole, more trouble in the deep rough left of the 14th fairway left Thompson chipping on for her third and leaving nearly 16 feet for par—a putt that was spot-on for distance but misread for line by nearly a foot. The resulting bogey cut her lead, once again, to two strokes, now over the trio of Megan Khang, Nasa Hataoka, and Shanshan Feng.

On 15, with room to shoot at a back-center flag, Thompson played short, leaving herself 51 feet for a desperately needed birdie that, true to recent form, she didn’t get.

In the meantime, Thompson’s playing partner Yuka Saso had righted the ship after her par-double-double start, putting up four pars and a birdie to close out her front nine with a 3-over 38. Saso stumbled slightly at 11 with a bogey, but eventually closed strong with birdies on 16 and 17 to finish regulation play, and narrowly missed a potential tournament-winning putt at 18, to finish at four under.

Also moving up fast on the inside was Japan’s Nasa Hataoka, who put up six birdies against a double and a bogey to post 34-34–68, catching up to Thompson at four under as the Floridian approached the final hole.

The death knell for Thompson’s hopes of a 15th-time-lucky U.S. Women’s Open win was her second shot at the par-four 18th hole. From a good lie on the right-hand side of the fairway, she chili-dipped her approach into the deep, bowl-shaped right-front bunker. From a good lie on flat, groomed sand she overshot the tight-front flag, leaving herself a slippery, downhill 11-foot putt that she had to make to join Saso and Hataoka in a playoff.

She missed.

That putt was the climax to the latest in a long line of close calls and missed opportunities for Thompson, whose major championship record now includes three second-place finishes, four third-place finishes, 11 Top-5s, and 17 Top-10s. A certain five-letter word that starts with “c” is being thrown around in the commentary surrounding Lexi Thompson’s performance in this Women’s Open, and being as charitable as possible, it is still hard to argue with.

And those two young, talented teenagers that comprised the rest of Lexi Thompson’s group? Megha Ganne gamed up with a string of pars and one last bogey after a front-nine 41, making a got-to-have-it birdie at #17 to clinch Low Amateur honors. Yuka Saso went on to defeat Nasa Hataoka on the third hole of a playoff, stiffing her approach shot on their second time through #9 and sinking the birdie putt for the win. With this week’s effort she has made history as the first Filipino major champion in golf, and has exactly equaled Inbee Park’s age as youngest U.S. Women’s Open winner from her 2008 win in this event: 19 years, 11 months, 17 days.

Good going, ladies.

Friday – Cut Day at the U.S. Women’s Open

For most folks Friday is a day to celebrate. The weekend is almost here, and we are looking forward to knocking off of work and having a couple of days to relax and have fun—maybe play some golf. For tournament golfers, though, Friday has an entirely different meaning—Friday is Cut Day.

They call Saturday “Moving Day”, the day when players put the pedal to the metal and try to move up the scoreboard to be in position to make a run at a win on Sunday, but to get to Moving Day you have to get past Cut Day.

While we recreational golfers pay to play, the pros play to get paid, and Friday is when it gets real. The field in most professional events—and USGA championships, too, though there are amateurs in the field—is around 150 to 156 players, and less than half of them get to play the weekend for a chance at a trophy and a paycheck (or just the trophy, in the case of the amateurs).

Friday is the day when you sink or swim. If you had a bad day on Thursday, in the first round, you had better step up on Friday; if you rocked the house in the first round, you better keep it up and stay in that Top-60-and-ties group.

Missing the cut was known as “trunk slamming” back in the days when Tour pros drove from tournament to tournament. I guess now they just slam the tailgate of the SUV courtesy car before they head to the airport—but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

Who made a move today?

There were few big moves on Cut Day at the Olympic Club for the 76th U.S. Women’s Open—mostly just a lot of hanging on grimly to a position above the cut line.

Less than half of the players who occupied the top 20 spots on the leaderboard after the second round improved their scores from Thursday to Friday, and with few exceptions they improved, if at all, by one or two strokes.

Sarah Burnham, a second-year pro out of Michigan State, orchestrated a ten-stroke turnaround. After carding a 5-over 76 in the first round she came back and hammered out a 5-under 66 in the second. She turned her first round birdie/bogey of 1/6 count on its head, carding six birdies against one bogey and turning a T-84 and a likely missed cut into T-12 and playing on the weekend.

A little outside the Top 20, NorCal player Yealimi Noh, the winner of the 2018 U.S. Girls’ Junior at the NCGA’s home course, Poppy Hills, also made a dramatic move, as she went from a 5-over 76 in the first round to a 2-under 69 in the second. 

Noh’s seven-stroke turnaround came on the strength of five birdies against a bogey and a double, as opposed to her first-round count of three birdies against six bogeys and a double, floating her fifty-five spots up the leaderboard from T-84 to T-29.

San Francisco-born Danielle Kang made a four-stroke improvement from Round 1 to Round 2, obviously carrying no scar tissue from a triple-bogey 8—yes, the dreaded snowman—on the long par-five 16th hole in Round 1.

How did the rest of the NorCal players fare?

Between Danielle Kang at T-12 and Yealimi No at T-29, two more NorCal players made the cut. Lucy Li, the one-time girl wonder who qualified for the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open at age 11, posted 73-71–144 for T-20, tied with Monterey native daughter Mina Harigae with 71-72–144.

Harigae, whose round I followed today, missed a much higher finish by a cumulative 18 inches or so, based on the number of close-call putts that just didn’t drop for her today. If she figures out the mysteries of the Lake Course’s greens over the weekend she could well be a contender for the title.

In other news…

In other second-round news, anyone who was waiting for the Megha Ganne bubble to burst was disappointed. The 17-year-old amateur, whose biggest success previous to this event was in Augusta National’s Drive, Pitch, and Putt competitions, matched three bogeys with three birdies to card an even-par 71 and hold on to her 4-under score. She was dropped out of her co-leading position when Yuka Saso of the Phillippines added a second-round 67 to her first round 69 to take over the lead, and Korea’s Jeongeun Lee6 moved to 5-under and solo second after posting 70-67–137.

Ganne shares third place with Megan Khang, an LPGA pro since 2016. Khang, of Rockland, Massachusetts, can call on a familiarity with the local conditions based on having played in the 2012 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship, which was held at nearby Lake Merced Golf Club.

Reid and a surprise player hold co-lead after Day One of 2021 U.S. Women’s Open

When the men last played the national championship at the Olympic Club, in 2012, some British golf fans took umbrage at the USGA’s course setup, claiming that the event was “spoiled” by a course setup “designed to expose stars” and “humiliate our heroes”. Well, I hope those same blokes were watching the first round of the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open from the Olympic Club, because one of the UK’s finest distaff players, Mel Reid, showed the fellas how it should be done.

Reid posted a 4-under 67 on the par 71 setup, with five birdies and a lone bogey on the par-4 eighteenth hole spoiling the fun, taking only 28 putts on greens which were running at 12 to 12-1/2 today.

Reid was chased down at the last by comes-out-of-nowhere amateur Megha Ganne, who carded 32-25–67 to tie for the lead in the clubhouse, while Canada’s Brooke Henderson sweated ice chips over a slippery 3-foot downhill putt on the 18th hole as the sun set into the Pacific, hoping to close her round as part of a three-way tie for the lead. She missed it, but sank the comebacker back to join the trio of Angel Yin, Megan Khang, and Lexi Thompson at 3-under, one off the lead.

Among the NorCal-affiliated players in the field Mina Harigae’s even-par 71 tops the list, with Lucy Li at +1 right behind. Danielle Kang survived a beating at the par-five 16th, holing out a chip to get away with only a triple-bogey eight, to finish the day at +2, and 2014 U.S. Women’s Open champ and new San Francisco resident Michelle Wie West came in at +4. Amateurs Rachel Heck and Claire Choi joined San José native Christina Kim at +4 on the day.

A quick note from Wednesday at the U.S. Women’s Open

Wednesdays at a golf tournament have a certain feel, a “calm before the storm” quality that is palpable, and never more so than at a USGA championship. All USGA events are special, of course, but the Men’s and Women’s Opens are the crown jewels of the championship season, and it is the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open that I have the pleasure to find myself at this week.

Pulling into the media parking lot today at San Francisco’s Olympic Club, where I have covered a U.S. Open (2012), the inaugural Men’s Four-Ball Championship (2015), and the NCGA’s California Amateur (2017), I could feel the energy in the air even before I got to the entrance gates. Then I walked past the practice green, across the street from the club’s pro shop, and saw dozens of the hopefuls—well-known and practically unknown—who will tee it up in the opening round tomorrow, grinding over their putting, getting a feel for what is, for many of them, a very different environment for golf.

Further up the way and around the curve, at the practice range, players are working on full shots, accustomizing themselves to the dense, cool air a little more than a long par-5 from the crashing Pacific surf. On the course competitors are playing their final practice rounds, learning their way around the slopes and canted, rumpled fairways of one of the most challenging championship venues they will ever play. Belying the name, there are no water hazards on the Lake Course, and only one fairway bunker—on the inside of the slight dogleg-left on hole #6. The angles, uneven lies, and demanding putting surfaces comprise the championship test here at the Olympic Club—and they have tested, and bested, the games of some of the legends of golf—Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer, just to name two.

Will local knowledge help a NorCal player on their way to a championship this week? Two past U.S. Women’s Open champions with roots in the area are in the field this week: 2010 champ Paula Creamer grew up in Pleasanton, across the bay in the warmer, drier, inland reaches of Alameda County; and Michelle Wie West, a native of Honolulu, Hawaii, who studied at Stanford University while playing on the LPGA Tour, and who now lives in San Francisco. Will her membership and frequent playing time at nearby Lake Merced Golf Club stand her in good stead at the Olympic Club this week?

I’ll be out early on Thursday morning to follow a pair of NorCal competitors who are teeing off at 7:15 a.m. and who represent two extremes of experience in the event: San José native Christina Kim, who is playing in her seventeenth U.S. Women’s Open; and Pleasanton’s Jaclyn LaHa, a rising high school junior who is playing in her first. Kim was co-medalist in her qualifying tournament at Dedham, Massachusetts’s Country Club with a 3-under 137; LaHa placed second at the Marin Country Club qualifier with a 7-under 137 (70–67).

I can hardly wait for it to begin.

Some familiar—and not so familiar—NorCal-affiliated players in the field at this week’s U.S. Women’s Open

San Francisco’s Olympic Club is no stranger to USGA championship golf; the world-renowned golf club that sits between Lake Merced and the Pacific Ocean in the western reaches of the city has hosted five memorable U.S. Opens, two U.S. Amateur tournaments, three U.S. Junior Amateurs, and the inaugural Men’s Fourball Championship, in 2015. This week, though, the club records a first, as it hosts the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open on the challenging Lake Course.

While the field at the second USWO to be played in the Bay Area (the 2016 event was hosted by the CordeValle Resort in San Martin, south of San José) will be replete with world-class players, local fans may be interested in following the play of the even dozen golfers with Northern California connections who are listed below. They range from a high-school-age amateur to experienced professionals with major championship victories to their credit—including two who have hoisted the very trophy which will be awarded to the winner here on Sunday afternoon.

Will one of these twelve women, with their local knowledge and experience of NorCal weather and turf conditions, hoist the Harton S. Semple trophy on Sunday afternoon? 

Claire Choi (a)

Amateur competitor Claire Choi, a native of Honolulu, Hawaii, is a rising senior at Santa Clara University and a graduate of Punahou High School in Honolulu, the alma mater of 2014 USWO champion Michelle Wie West.

Claire qualified for the 2021 USWO, her first, with a 4-over-par 144 at Oahu Country Club on May 10th—the day before her 21st birthday.

Paula Creamer

Pleasanton, CA, native Paula Creamer has been a well-known presence in LPGA fields since 2005, after a junior/amateur career that included 11 AJGA titles, selection to the 2004 Curtis Cup team and low amateur honors in the 2004 U.S. Women’s Open.

Paula took the 2010 USWO title, carding the only under-par total score over 72 holes at Pennsylvania’s Oakmont Country Club. Her USWO record includes 11 straight Top 20 finishes, and five Top 10s, from 2004 to 2014.

Mina Harigae

Monterey’s Mina Harigae made waves early in her golf career, winning the first of four consecutive California Women’s Amateur titles in 2001 at the age of 12. Other highlights of her amateur golf career include semifinalist finishes in the U.S. Girls’ Junior in 2003 and 2006, winning the 2007 Women’s Amateur Public Links at the age of 17, and representing the United States on the 2008 Curtis Cup team.

Mina turned pro after one semester at Duke University and has seven professional victories to her credit: three on the Symetra Tour, and four on the Cactus Tour in Arizona during the LPGA’s COVID-19 hiatus. This is her 11th U.S. Women’s Open appearance.

Rachel Heck

Currently the hottest amateur in the country, Stanford University freshman Rachel Heck took medalist honors at the May 3rd qualifier at Marin Country Club in Novato with an 8-under 136. Last August she was the stroke play medalist at the U.S. Women’s Amateur before being defeated in the Round of 16, and in 2017 was the youngest competitor in the field at the U.S. Women’s Open, finishing T-33.

Danielle Kang

SoCal-raised but born in San Francisco, Danielle Kang is making her 11th start in the U. S Women’s Open this week. Her best finish in the event is a solo 4th at Shoal Creek in 2018, but Kang is no stranger to the podium in USGA competition; she took back-to-back U.S. Women’s Amateur titles in 2010 and 2011.

Christina Kim

San José native Christina Kim has made 16 previous U.S. Women’s Open appearances, her highest finish being a T-8 in the 2010 event at Oakmont Country Club. She has one USGA championship title to her name—the 2001 U.S. Girls’ Junior. Kim has represented the United States on three Solheim Cup teams, and has racked up six Top-10 finishes in major championships, including a tie for third in the 2009 Women’s British Open.

Jaclyn LaHa (a)

Another Pleasanton native, Jaclyn LaHa, a 16-year-old rising high school junior, is the second-youngest competitor in the field of the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open. LaHa shot a 7-under 137, including a 5-under 67 in the afternoon round, at Marin Country Club in Novato to take the second and final qualifying spot from that event.

Lucy Li

Making her third U.S. Women’s Open appearance this week, 18-year-old Lucy Li, of Redwood Shores, played in her first in 2014 at Pinehurst Resort and Country Club. Li set a record for the youngest competitor in the history of the event at 11 years, 8 months, and 19 days, but shot a pair of 78s to miss the cut.

Other notable “youngest competitor” marks she has set include youngest match-play qualifier in U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links history at 10 years, 8 months, 16 days in 2013, and youngest U.S. Women’s Amateur qualifier (10 years, 10 months, 4 days), also in 2013. Li played on the winning 2018 United States Curtis Cup team, and took medalist honors that same year in the U.S. Girls’ Junior and U.S. Women’s Amateur.

Yealimi Noh

Another native of the East Bay, Concord’s Yealimi Noh is making her second U.S. Women’s Open appearance. She contended for three rounds in last year’s late-season Open in December at Champions Club in Houston, Texas, but slipped to a tie for 40th after a final-round 80.

Noh is one of six Northern California natives to claim the U.S. Girls’ Junior title, at Poppy Hills in 2018, joining Pat Hurst (1986), Jamille José (1988), Dorothy Delasin (1996,) Lisa Ferrero (2000), and Christina Kim (2001) in that honor.

Kathleen Scavo

Benicia’s Kathleen Scavo joins the field for the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open on the strength of a medal-winning 1-over 143 in the April 26 qualifier at Half Moon Bay Golf Links.

This is the second U.S. Women’s Open appearance for Scavo, a graduate of the University of Oregon; she qualified for the 2014 event but missed the cut on the challenging Pinehurst #2 course. Her resulyts in previous USGA championships include advancing to the quarterfinals of the 2013 U.S. Girls’ Junior, and advancing to the round of 16 in the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball at Bandon Dunes, Oregon, with partner Lucy Li.

Michelle Wie West

A native of Hawaii who graduated from Stanford University and who now resides in San Francisco with husband Jonnie West and daughter Makenna, Michelle Wie West needs no introduction to golf fans.

A prodigy who qualified for the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links at age 10, Wie West became the championship’s youngest winner at age 13, She showed showed major championship mettle in the 2003 Kraft-Nabisco Championship (now the ANA Inspiration), becoming the youngest player to make the cut, and playing in the final group on Sunday after a blistering 66 the previous day.

Wie West’s U.S. Women’s Open record over 15 appearances is a checkered one—it includes a win, in 2014 at Pinehurst; a T-3 finish in 2006 at Newport Country Club; a T-10 in 2018 at Shoal Creek; four MCs; and two WDs due to injury.

Rose Zhang

Set to join the Stanford Women’s Golf team in the fall of 2021, Irvine, California, native Rose Zhang is making her third U.S. Women’s Open start this week. Zhang is the reigning U.S. Women’s Amateur champion, and took low amateur honors at this year’s ANA Inspiration.