{"id":566338,"date":"2026-07-30T05:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T05:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/566338\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T05:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T05:03:10","slug":"final-major-could-be-extra-special-for-nelly-korda-or-ryu-hae-ran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/566338\/","title":{"rendered":"Final major could be extra special for Nelly Korda or Ryu Hae-ran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nelly Korda and Ryu Hae-ran combined to win the first four majors of the season.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only fitting they are paired together, along with LPGA Hall of Famer Lydia Ko of New Zealand, for the first two rounds of the AIG Women\u2019s Open.<\/p>\n

The final major of the season begins on July 30 at Royal Lytham & St Annes in Lytham St Annes, England.<\/p>\n

Either Korda or Ryu could become the first woman since South Korea\u2019s Inbee Park in 2013 to win three majors in one year.<\/p>\n

Korda collected the Chevron Championship and the US Women\u2019s Open<\/a> for a brilliant start to 2026, and Park\u2019s countrywoman Ryu prevailed at the Women\u2019s PGA Championship and the Evian Championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a lot of confidence,\u201d Ryu said. \u201cI got a lot of confidence after two major champion, but this is another golf course and another golf, so I just keep working hard with my team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryu won the Evian earlier in July in France by shooting a record 60 in the third round<\/a> and going on to defeat Canada\u2019s Brooke M. Henderson in a play-off the next day. The 60 was the lowest round ever shot at a major, men\u2019s or women\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Ryu, who took time off afterward and did not play the Women\u2019s Scottish Open, called herself \u201cstill (a) rookie\u201d on links courses, which is exactly the test Royal Lytham & St Annes presents. It is a par-71 layout measuring 6,601 yards this week.<\/p>\n

World No. 1 Korda finished 2 over par at the Scottish two weeks after her first missed cut of the year at the Evian.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvian is just a funky golf course. I didn\u2019t play that bad actually, if I\u2019m being honest,\u201d Korda said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, it\u2019s golf. You\u2019re going to \u2013 just because you\u2019re playing well doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re invincible and you\u2019re going to make every cut and be in the top 10 every single week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve done this long enough where I\u2019ve missed enough cuts that it\u2019s just about the bounce-back.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the topic of links play, Korda said her approach is about controlling the controllables.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes with links golf you can kind of get pretty agitated with the bounces that you get,\u201d she said. \u201cYou hit a good shot, get a bad bounce, end up in a pot bunker, have to pitch out unfortunately and save par.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defending champion is Japan\u2019s Miyu Yamashita<\/a>, who prevailed by two shots at Royal Porthcawl in 2025 as a rookie.<\/p>\n

At just 24, Yamashita has collected 16 wins worldwide, mainly on the LPGA of Japan Tour. She will try to be the first back-to-back winner at the Women\u2019s Open since Taiwan\u2019s Yani Tseng in 2010-11.<\/p>\n

\u201cYani Tseng winning in 2011 was of course an amazing achievement,\u201d Yamashita said. \u201cTo be here again, to have the chance to be the defending champion, is something I really look forward to, and just got to focus on the golf and my performance this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Royal Lytham & St Annes last hosted this major in 2018, marking the most recent time an English player won the title.<\/p>\n

Georgia Hall earned her first and only major trophy that week and is now in a very different stage of life: She\u2019s returning to Lytham for her first competitive round since giving birth to her first child, Conor, five months ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI first picked up a club… six weeks after giving birth,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in Ireland and went to a local driving range. I was really excited because I didn\u2019t know how I was going to hit it and thought I might top it or something, but I actually hit it pretty good, but my rotation, like there is no rotation at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I went there for an hour and I was pleasantly surprised. I was leaving that thinking, \u2018OK, let\u2019s see if I can get back to Lytham.\u2019 Yeah, it was good. I enjoyed the progress coming back.\u201d REUTERS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nelly Korda and Ryu Hae-ran combined to win the first four majors of the season. It\u2019s only fitting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-566338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}