This US Women's Open is special for a very big reason
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – There's an image at the Riviera Country Club that seems to rule the roost. From the top of its site, just outside the clubhouse on the hill, Ben Hogan's dark brown shot overlooks the 18th green. The course is named Hogan's Alley, after his three separate wins here in the 1940s, and at the bottom of this photo are the names of other Riv winners. In a few months, here on the centenary year of its founding, that statue will put a woman's name on the plaque. This is the first women's tournament to be played at the Riviera Country Club.
“I say it all the time,” Morgan Pressel said Wednesday morning, near First Street. “I say it honestly every chance I get. I'm a big believer in how important places are.”
It has been a mystery to Presstel, the idea that some of the biggest events in women's golf have long struggled to reach courses where men have made golf history. That's why Pressell signed off on his 2021 USWO broadcast week on NBC in such a bad mood. She had just watched Yuka Saso chase Lexi Thompson at the Olympic Club, which has hosted five US Opens, but never played the women's.
“To add our own history to the already storied history at the Olympic Club – it was a really special week … I remember when Pebble Beach was announced. [as 2023 host]. I was like 'Oh my goodness. We're going to play Pebble Beach.'”
Prespel can have it loved competing in Riv during his days at the pro game level. But she played at a time when the biggest event in women's golf was played on lesser-heralded courses. The reason why will never be clear, but instead of playing in Pebble Beach, Northern California, the USWO went to nearby Cordevalle. Instead of taking the best of the game to Merion, where the most famous photo of competitive golf was taken – yes, Hogan extra – the ladies played 70 miles west in Lancaster. Instead of taking on the big and mighty Shinnecock in 2013, they also came out of Long Island in Sebonack. And instead of making that weird distinction forever and ever, the USGA made a pivot.
“Over the last eight or nine years, our strategy has changed,” said John Bodenhamer, the USGA's chief executive officer, on Wednesday. “We're putting the top of our pyramid to the greatest places in America. When we say that, we mean it, and we start with the golf course, and [Riviera] it's one of America's great places.”
The launch has been unusual, as Lancaster also hosted in 2024 and Erin Hills last summer, but the USGA's campaign to bring women to the game's most popular venues begins in earnest this week.
From the Riviera, the ladies will head to the Inverness Club, the Donald Ross classic in Toledo that has hosted six majors for men, zero for women. Then it's off to Oakmont, where last summer JJ Spaun made one of the most memorable putts in USGA history. Then it's Pinehurst in 2029, the week directly after the men's US Open – a fund with the ultimate goal of elevating the women's game. Oh, watching Rory and the boys tear up the dumpsters? Nelly and the girls will do the same in just a few days.
The USGA has announced 17 of the next 22 USWO venues, many of which will host women for the first time after decades of hosting men. We're talking Oakland Hills, Merion, Shinnecock.
“If we're going to talk about equality and equity, we have to talk about the playing fields,” Prespel continued. “If you're talking about golf specifically, there are historic places that stand the test of time. They're more famous than any one player or any era. Every era has its moments and its history and its fame.”
In Riv, it goes back to that statue on the hill. Hogan's 18-month run included the 1947 LA Open, the 1948 LA Open and the 1948 US Open. But in today's age it's more than Hogan or the majors – it's been the Genesis Invitational, every year one of the top events on the PGA Tour, where Dustin Johnson seems to have perfected the game in 2017, where Hideki Matsuyama shot 63 to win in 2024, and where Adam Scott and Phil Mickelson and Jon Rahm all won with Jon Rahm.
Women see all their peers have been able to through the decades – using the same lobby, the same gym, planning their way to the 10th place with the devil in the same and different ways than men ever did. Some of them have been asking their PGA Tour friends about how to work their way around the course. They'll get photos from Riviera's epic 1st tee, where 16-year-old Tiger Woods hit his first shot in a professional event. And at the end of the week they will reach that mountain of stairs behind the 18th hole, where each of those winners is announced seconds before they sign their cards. Yuka Saso carried his crutches up that hill Monday afternoon, almost out of breath, but still had enough to shout, “I just climbed Mount Everest!”
That's what the women's game was finally allowed to do, slowly but surely change its height. Royal Troon, Scotland, is hosting the first Women's Open in 2020. Muirfield, on the other side of the old world, debuted in 2022. Both clubs have existed for more than a century without female members, let alone hosted major women's awards. It still took the Old Course in St. Andrews until 2007, during Prespel's second year as a professional, hosted the Women's Open. It has been held three times now, and has produced three legendary winners: Lorena Ochoa, Stacy Lewis and Lydia Ko.
Presstel is calling it all an “arms race” between golf's governing bodies – recent history and the list to come. The PGA of America has Congressional, Hazeltine and Bethpage Black on tap. In 2027, the R&A will bring women to Royal St. George's first … after hosting 15 men's Opens – with victories from Vardon to Hagen to Norman.
Pressel believes in the connection between the winner and the place. He thinks about the feeling NBA players get at Madison Square Garden. He thinks back to the time he flew to see Taylor Swift perform at Wembley Stadium. She thinks about her friend, Paula Creamer, not just winning the US Open, but winning the Open at Oakmont.
“Everybody wants to be a competitor there, or to be a spectator,” he said. “Everything just elevates women's golf if they can be on the playing field.”
