Four past winners will return to the 2023 U.S. Senior Women’s Open for the fifth staging of this USGA championship, set to begin this Thursday at Waverly Country Club in Portland, Oregon.
England’s Laura Davies, who won the inaugural 2018 event, hopes to add a third USGA crown alongside her 1987 U.S. Women’s Open title.
Swedes Helen Alfredsson, who won in 2019, and Annika Sorenstam, who added the 2021 Senior Women’s Open trophy to her three U.S. Women’s Open titles, also will return to competition. (No championship was held in 2020, due to Covid-19.)
And last year’s winner, Jill McGill of Denver, hopes to defend her title as the event’s first American champion. McGill edged out Leta Lindley by one stroke in the 2022 championship staged at NCR Country Club in Kettering, Ohio. Lindley, of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, also will return for another shot at the championship title.
With her win at the 2022 Senior Women’s Open, McGill became only the sixth player to win three different USGA championships, joining the likes of JoAnne Carner, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Carol Semple Thompson and Tiger Woods. Her first two championships came at the 1993 U.S. Women’s Amateur and the 1994 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links.
“I think it’s easier as you age because you realize life happens,” said McGill, who turned pro in 1994 after a stellar amateur career, but never won on the LPGA Tour.
“Debuting the U.S. Senior Women’s Open in 2018 felt like sliding in a missing puzzle piece.” — John Bodenhamer,
At age 50 last year, and on the cusp of finally earning her first professional win, it was Hall of Famer Sorenstam, playing in her group, who advised McGill to mark her ball instead of putting out ahead of Sorenstam on the 18th green.
“I told her to wait, [that] this is the winning putt, and she was surprised,” said Sorenstam, who posted a wire-to-wire 2021 Senior Women’s Open victory. “I said, ‘You need to enjoy this moment, soak it in and let me finish.’ ”
“I was going to tap in,” said McGill, reliving that final round. “I really had no idea.”
Alfredsson also was able to gain redemption at a USGA championship with her 2019 victory after two runner-up finishes in the U.S. Women’s Open. The Swede led for three rounds at the 1994 Women’s Open in Michigan before tumbling into a tie for ninth on the final day.
The U.S. Senior Women’s Open Championship was announced in 2015 and launched three years later at Chicago Golf Club, where Davies defeated Juli Inkster by 10 strokes at the inaugural 2018 event.
It was established to include any female professional or amateur who is age 50 on or before the first day of the championship, with a Handicap Index not exceeding 7.4.
“Debuting the U.S. Senior Women’s Open in 2018 felt like sliding in a missing puzzle piece,” said John Bodenhamer, USGA Chief Championship Officer.
“At the USGA, we value providing lifelong competitive opportunities for those at every age and every level of the game, and to have that opportunity for these women to compete for a national championship at this stage in their careers was important to us,” Bodenhamer added.
The USGA accepted 412 entries this year with 18-hole qualifying rounds conducted at 13 sites and in 15 states. A starting field of 120 players will compete in this year’s 72-hole stroke-play event with the field cut after 36 holes to the low 50 scorers and ties.
Total purse for the championship is $1 million, with the winner earning around $180,000.
The Senior Women’s Open winner also receives a championship exemption for the next 10 years (or through age 65), an exemption into the 2024 U.S. Women’s Open, a gold medal and custody of the U.S. Senior Women’s Open Trophy for one year.
Along with Inkster, Davies and Sorenstam, past U.S. Women’s Open winners competing in this year’s championship will be Amy Alcott, JoAnne Carner, Jane Geddes, Liselotte Neumann and Hollis Stacy.
Carner, who owns eight USGA titles, will compete this year at age 84, but lifelong amateur Anne Sander, who has seven USGA championships spanning from 1958-93, has the distinction as the event’s oldest contestant at 85. Sander is competing in this event for the first time.
Notable “rookies” in the Women’s Senior Open this year — all veteran LPGA players now at the qualifying age of 50 — include Wendy Ward of Spokane, Washington, France’s Patricia Meunier Lebouc, Scotland’s Janice Moodie, Japan’s Akiko Fukushima and Sweden’s Charlotta Sorenstam.
Waverly Country Club is hosting its eighth USGA championship at this year’s staging and will feel familiar to at least two 2023 competitors. Inkster won the U.S. Women’s Amateur there in 1981, while Canadian amateur Judith Kyrinis won the 2017 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur at Waverly.
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