KPMG Women’s PGA Championship begins Thursday in Washington State
Hannah Green – in fine form in 2024 and chasing a 2nd KPMG PGA title – image PGA of America
The world of women’s professional golf tackles its third major of the year this week when the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship is played at the Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish in Washington State.
The US$10.4 million event will be played at Sahalee for the second occasion, the first being in 2016 when Brooke Henderson defeated Lydia Ko in a playoff.
Prizemoney in 2024 will be the highest on offer for the event, the winner this week securing US1.56 million of the US$10.4 million.
Three Australians have won this championship, Jan Stephenson (1982), Karrie Webb (2001) and Hannah Green (2019). In 2024 nine Australians and one New Zealander have earned their right to tee it up.
Hannah Green, Minjee Lee, Lydia Ko, Grace Kim, Gabi Ruffels, Stephanie Kyriacou, Sarah Kemp, Robyn Choi, Hira Naveed and New Zealand’s Lydia Ko will fly the flags for our part of the world.
Lee and Ko have struggled for much of this season and it has been Hannah Green who has stepped up to the plate with two wins and a runner-up finish which have elevated her to her highest standing in the game (5th) and she will start as one of the favourites to challenge Nelly Korda.
Korda has missed the cut in her last two starts on the LPGA Tour this season so she appears a little more vulnerable than was the case a month or so ago when she was in the process of winning six events in seven starts and surging well clear in the Rolex World Rankings.
Lee missed the cut by a large margin last week in Michigan and with three missed cuts in her last six starts there is concern about her game at present. She finished inside the top ten at the Women’s US Open however so when good she is very good.
Ko played well early in the season but has lost her way in recent starts, missing her last two cuts. She is capable of much better than that but like Lee appears to be well below her best at present.
Gabi Ruffels just keeps getting better and with three third-placed finishes this season in her rookie season on the LPGA Tour she has jumped 110 places in the world ranking to 41st and might well threaten the leaders this week.
In just her second LPGA Tour season, Grace Kim has already won on the LPGA Tour and lost a playoff last week for another title and expressed great satisfaction with her game.
Kyriacou, Kemp and Naveed have done well to make the field, perhaps surprising with a runner-up finish in her rookie LPGA Tour season earlier this year.
