Ryu ready for KPMG Women's PGA Championship (Jun 28, 2017)
South Korea's So Yeon Ryu, the newly crowned top player in women's golf, heads an uber-talented field at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship beginning Thursday at storied Olympia Fields Country Club outside Chicago.
It's the second of the five major championships on the LPGA Tour's schedule. Ryu won the first -- the ANA Inspiration in April -- but to keep alive a dream of winning the Tour's Grand Slam she will have to fend off a sterling field of 155 other golfers that includes all of the top 100 members on the LPGA official money list.
There are 26 major champions who own a combined 53 major titles in the field for this event, which has been competed since 1955 (as the LPGA Championship). It is in its third season with KPMG as its sponsor.
The LPGA Tour and KPMG announced this week that the sponsorship had been extended to 2023 and that the ensuing two tournaments would be held at Kemper Lake Golf Club and Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota, respectively, in 2018 and 2019.
The total purse for this year's 72-hole event is $3.5 million, with $525,000 and 625 Race To the Globe points going to the winner. Olympia Fields was founded in 1915 and its North Course -- which will play to a par of 71 and at 6,588 yards this week -- has the likes of Walter Hagen (1925 PGA Championship) and Jack Nicklaus (1968 Western Open) and Jim Furyk's victory in the 2003 U.S. Open, Olympia Fields' most recent major, as winners.
Ryu, who will turn 27 on Thursday, moved to the top spot in women's golf with a win last week at the Wal-Mart NW Arkansas Championship, supplanting Thailand's Ariya Jutanugarn, who held the No. 1 mantle for two weeks. Ryu is still reeling a bit from the move up the ladder; her victory last week made her the only two-time winner on Tour this year.
"I actually still cannot believe it -- I always dreamed about being No. 1," Ryu said. "I'm really thrilled to have won twice already on the LPGA this year. Here I am, I've finally become No. 1, and, as you said, 'dreams come true.' I'm living in a dream.
"Last week I got a lot of confidence to play this major tournament. I think this week is really important to (hit) great iron shots, and my iron shots have been really great. I feel pretty comfortable playing this golf course."
The 2017 field is highlighted by defending champion Brooke Henderson of Canada, who became the second youngest player to win a major championship in LPGA history at last year's event when she was 18. She will be joined by Jutanugarn, three-time champion Inbee Park of South Korea, and world No. 3 Lydia Ko of New Zealand in the talent-rich field.
Last year, Henderson denied Ko a third straight major victory by defeating her with a birdie on the first playoff hole at Sahalee Country Club near Seattle. Henderson set up the birdie by hitting a 7-iron to 3 feet, finishing off a round on which she shot 65. Ko carded a 67 and Jutanugarn fashioned a 66 and fell one shot out of the playoff.
Jutanugarn has won at Olympia Fields in the past, capturing the 2011 U.S. Girls' Junior Championship in 2011, which was held on the club's South course.
Ko, who hasn't won this season, said she is more focused on her consistency than pushing back to the No. 1 spot.
"There might be a little less pressure on me now because some of the other girls are playing to such great standards," Ko said. "This is a new week, and every day is a new day, so you just never know what's going to happen. With the rankings and with how well all the girls are playing, you never know exactly what's going to happen, and in one week things can change.
"I'm trying to stay positive, and to me I'm thinking more about how can I be more consistent and put myself in contention rather than thinking about, 'Hey, I really want to be the No. 1 ranked player again.'"
The LPGA Tour is in the midst of a gauntlet of 12 tournaments in as many weeks, with this week's KPMG Women's PGA Championship serving as the Tour's seventh consecutive event and the first of three major championships in a six-week period. The U.S. Women's Open is in two weeks at Trump National in Bedminster, N.J., and the Ricoh Women's British Open at Kingsbarns in Fife, Scotland, will be competed in the first week of August.
