Nelly Korda horseshoed in a par putt from slightly below three ft to assert the 81st US Ladies’s Open at storied Riviera Nation Membership and declare her second Main win in a row.
“A pleasant ice cream swirl to cap off the day,” Korda stated after a dramatic closing day in Los Angeles. “Why did I depart myself such an extended putt?”
She closed with a two-under 69 to win on eight-under 276 — the identical whole that gave Ben Hogan the US Open on the identical venue in 1948 in his comeback from a near-fatal automotive crash — to edge out England’s Charley Hull and Mexico’s Gaby Lopez by one stroke.
A yr after tying for second at Erin Hills, 27-year-old Hull took the outright lead for the primary time when she knocked in a nine-foot birdie on the par-five seventeenth earlier than occurring to gap out from two ft 10 inches for her nineteenth LPGA win, the primary two majors of 2026 and her fourth Main victory.
It was an exhilarating finish to a dramatic closing day that noticed Hull observe a Saturday 65 with a 67 to set the goal earlier than Lopez birdied the final from 15 ft to shoot 68 and be a part of the English star at seven beneath.
Ultimately, Hull needed to accept her fifth Main Championship runner-up end.
In Gee Chun, the 2015 champion, obtained to 9 beneath by way of 11 holes earlier than back-to-back bogeys on the twelfth and thirteenth derailed her bid for a fourth main, and he or she completed solo fourth on six beneath.
“After I entered the again 9, all [caddie Jason McDede] and I had been speaking about was one shot at a time,” stated Korda, who was tied for 56th after a first-round 73.
“Not getting too forward of myself. Not wanting on the leaderboard, seeing what different folks had been doing. It was only a shot at a time.”
Korda’s driving improved dramatically over the weekend because of a grip change urged by her sister Jessica. Nevertheless it was her quick recreation that gained her the title.
“My most anxious a part of the golf course [was] on Thursday,” Korda stated. “I simply saved hitting these drives out proper, out proper, and out proper, and I saved telling J, I can not compete on this golf course if I am not within the fairway.
“Such as you can’t cease it on these greens. Am I simply going to repeatedly simply rely on my quick recreation? Which I did all through the entire week”? I did rely on my quick recreation.”
Her birdie on the seventeenth, the place he fist pumped after making her nine-footer for birdie, left her needing par on the 18th to win.
She hit a superb drive and located the inexperienced, however left her 35-footer far shorter than she wished.
“I want that putt was nearer,” Korda joked. “It makes it actually cool to stroll as much as see the enduring golf, the clubhouse and everybody sitting round cheering me on.
“I needed to, truthfully, a few instances, inform myself, okay, keep within the second, keep within the second, as a result of I used to be dreaming, I used to be dreaming of hoisting the trophy a bit of too early. And I saved reverting again, I am just like the job’s not finished, the job’s not finished, yeah.”
