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The Women's Open at Walton Heath
Last Major of the year, PGA Tour playoffs start, LIV rolls on
Jack Middlebrook
August 09, 2023
Top 100 preview
Purses
FedEx St. Jude Championship
LIV Bedminster
Women's Open
Pinnacle Bank Championship
Doosan E&C We've Championship
NEC Karuizawa 72 Golf Tournament
AIG Women's Open
The Women’s Open Championship heads to Surrey, England, for the year's last major. The course, Walton Heath, is a new venue for the Women’s Open and famed for hosting the 1981 Ryder Cup, as well as a Senior Open Championship and a British Masters.
How big a part will the heather play in the outcome this week?
— AIG Women’s Open (@AIGWomensOpen)
1:52 PM • Aug 8, 2023
One of the signature features of Walton Heath is the heather around the course that adds to the course’s beauty and challenge. The dense, bushy heather can swallow up errant shots, making them difficult to play from and often requiring a wedge to get back out to the fairway. Inci Mehmet has a good video showing the difficulty of playing out of the heather from around the greens.
For a longer preview of the course, Iona Stephen played with Walton Heath’s president Jill Thornhill giving a great look at the setup.
The hottest player in the women’s game, Celine Boutier, is coming off back-to-back victories. The Frenchwoman recently clinched her first major at the Evian and then followed it up with a win at the Women's Scottish Open. Now she vies for a hat trick at The Open where she finished in a tie for seventh last year.
The other three major champions this year are Lilia Vu, Ruoning Yin, and Allisen Corpuz. For Rouning Yin, this will be her first appearance at the Women’s Open, and her elite ball striking should play well at Walton Heath.
World number one Nelly Korda has shown flashes recently with a win at the Aramco Team Series and a 64 in the third round of the Evian. She seems to have recovered from the back injury that set her out earlier in the year and looks to claim her second major title.
Last year's champion Ashleigh Buhai returns to defend her title, albeit on a different course, having won at Muirfield in a playoff last year. Buhai has two wins and seven top-10 finishes on the year and looks prime to be in the mix again this year.
PGA Tour - FedEx St. Jude Championship
The playoffs start for the PGA Tour in Memphis. The field is narrowed down to the top 70 players in the FedEx Cup ranking and is the first of three playoff events. Players will need to finish inside the top 50 in points to move on to next week’s BMW Championship.
LIV Bedminster
LIV is on for a second week in a row and their 11th event of the season. This week they return to Trump National Bedminster in New Jersey for a second time. Last year at Bedminster saw Henrik Stenson capture his first LIV victory and Matthew Wolff and Dustin Johnson finish in a tie for second.