No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 885 - Women's Open Championship Deep Dive

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Randy, Cody and Jordan take their turn at our Deep Dive podcast format with a look at the history of the Women's Open Championship with particular focus on the previous two occasions where The Old Course has hosted the tournament. If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining The Nest: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at nolayingup.com/join Support Our Partners: Yeti Titleist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome into the No Laying Up Golf podcast. Gosh, this is a fun episode. My name is Randy. I am joined by Cody McBride and Jordan Perez, and we are doing a deep dive into the women's British Open. Well, I guess the AIG women's open.

It's had many names. It's had many names. We're gonna get into all of that. We're gonna dive into the history. It's a fascinating event. And we're gonna zoom in on the two instances prior to this year, this week, that they have played this championship

at the Old course in St. Andrews. So great episode on tap before we get into it, Cody, how are you today? I'm great, big. I'm so pumped up about this. I love the assignments that were given here. And I think this honestly is like a pretty tough subject to tackle here. I know we sent Jordan, she had to hit the books and figure out what exactly the history is. But you know who else is familiar with tough subjects, hitting the books and getting your kiddos back to school? Our friends at Yeti. That's right. Yeti.com. They got you covered backpacks, lunchboxes. It doesn't matter if you're looking for, you know, a clear plastic bottle, hard, hard bottle, you name it, customizable options. And I also want to introduce something really cool that's got me fired up coming out.

It's fall. We're almost there, guys. And that's the new Wetlands collection. Beautiful browns, oranges, camo. You guys know I'm a big camo guy. They got it for their hard coolers, soft coolers drink where they got some new apparel that came in the wetlands collection. Hats, t-shirts, you name it. You can find that all at Yeti.com. Thank you to Yeti, of course, presenting sponsor of our LPGA content for this year. Appreciate their support. Big fired up about this, buddy. I am too. I am too. Well let's bring in Jordan. You know Jordan I will say you you really have spurred us to make this episode possible. You really wanted to do some

deep dives on the women's side. Of course Solly and KVV have done a tremendous job with that on the men's side. It's it's an awesome format and there's no reason why we shouldn't be doing it with the women. So our first one today the the British Open. So thank you Jordan. How are you doing today? Are you nervous? Are you prepared? I feel like you had the hardest homework assignment here. I'm nervous but I'm fired up. I guess I really pushed for these and I admittedly feel like I should know more about women's golf history than I do and this taught me a lot. So I'm really excited to nerd out a little bit

and share my findings. And I'm excited to hear your guys's. I think this is gonna be a really fun episode. I do too, I do too. Before we get into the episode though, I just wanna remind folks, Jordan, Cody and myself, we are over in St. Andrews this week.

We are live and on site. We're gonna have a great week of content for you. Besides this podcast, check out our happy hour show tomorrow, Wednesday. We'll be making our official predictions for the Women's Open. We're gonna have a 36 whole live show Friday afternoon in the States,

Friday evening, Scotland time. That will be a ton of fun. Sunday, same thing, live show Friday afternoon in the States, Friday evening, Scotland time, that will be a ton of fun. Sunday, same thing, live show. And then throughout the week, Cody and I are gonna be on open radio, so check us out there. And Jordan's gonna be doing some great stuff on social and writing, so check us out on nolayingup.com. So a full team effort.

Mr. Big, I got one thing I wanna highlight there. Last year, we were invited by the great RNA people So a full team effort. Mr. Big, I got one thing I want to highlight there. Last year we were invited by the great RNA people to not only do radio, but to do a stage session at the little fan village. And we had a small gathering of people. And I think because this is coming out early week, I also want to announce we're doing a stage session again this year, the three of us, we're gonna be live on stage at the Fan Village. I have no clue where that's actually at yet, but I'm sure we'll get that figured out in time.

And I believe that's on Thursday at noon-ish time. Correct. We're slotted in the noon local time Thursday. Come say hi. The Fan Village should be kind of along the first fairway.'ll be you know real close to where all the action is so come say hi We'll have a fun show there with that Cody We have one more let's let's thank our good friends at titleist before we really dive in here. Yeah big I'm really excited about this too because we're coming over for the women's open, but guess what? We're getting a little golf in ahead of time too. And I'm so pumped up to see how you, uh, the control that you have with your new GT driver that you're taking with you, buddy, that's brought to you by Titleist

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lines, they're available for fittings. You can pre-order, you can go to Titleist.com. You know, they're all over the place, but please go out, get on Titleist.com, find a fitter near you and get dialed in. Thanks to Titleist, I'm pump big. I can't wait to play some links golf with you and we'll be gaming the new GT two driver in my bag

for the first time across the pond. I love I'm a GT four baby. And I don't know a lot of people that are in the GT four, but I'm ready. Let's do it. All right, Jordan, you are going to lead us into the history of the Women's British Open. So let's just start at the very beginning. As best as you can describe it, what is the history?

Where do we start with this event? This event kind of has a complicated but an interesting history. Jumped through a good amount of title sponsors, took a while for it to actually even be considered a major, which is fairly surprising to me and any of us considering the prestige the event has now and its resume of winners and finishes and the kind of courses it goes to now, but it took a lot of work to get there. So the Women's Open, and I'll do my best to call it the Women's Open throughout

because they dropped the British Qualifier four years ago, and it's just tough as an American. So I'm sorry if I at any point say the British Women's Open, however, it was referred to as the British Women's Open for most of its existence So yeah, just bear with me for historical purposes and for probably most of us I will be calling it the women's British Open Anyway, I'll try to quiz you guys threw out a little bit just you know We love quizzes

And we'll try to be fair. Maybe we can start off the top. Do you guys have any idea of when the first year of the British Women's Open was contested? This is always a hard one because I'll just walk you through my thought process. You know, on the men's side, it's obviously a tournament that goes back into the 1800s. So certainly it doesn't go back that far on the women's side, but... Listen, man, women weren't allowed to play golf, I don't think then. No.

That's part of the history here when you dig into it that's messed up. I'll say post-World War II, give me like 1950. Yeah, I was gonna go a little bit later than that, probably in the 70s sometime. It was 1976. So that shot, let me just say that's surprising that we're talking about, again, an event that the male counterpart has the richest history of any event in golf.

And the women's version of this didn't start until the mid-70s. That's shocking to me. 26 years after the LPGA was founded. But granted, at this point, international golf, especially in the women's side, still had a lot of fragmentation. So there wasn't a lot of collectivism when it came to a world tour or one tour. So just there were a little all over the place with this one. And it remains all over the place, at least in the event's infancy.

And it only became a major 25 years after it was first contested. I guess it feels like a long time for an event that's still so young. And again, I think just the pedigree, how quickly it acquired it relative to its age is just fascinating. But again, it took a lot of work to get there. So the first champion of the British Women's Open was Jenny Lee Smith. I'll start at the top. This is not the most important part of the first year of the Women's Open, but I'll start off there. She shot a final round 73 to claim victory and won two strokes over amateur Mary McKenna of Ireland. Jenny Lee Smith took home 500 pounds which converted today is 642 US dollars.

That stinks. The one thing that always resonates and sticks out for me here, and I don't want to get too far ahead of you JP, but you're mentioning amateurs. Wasn't this tournament strictly amateur only for a while? No. Really? No. I was dead wrong. Okay. No, but it feels that way, right? When you look at a lot of the early champions and kind of who was playing well in this event, it feels like yes, like it was an amateur golf dominated event. And I think to some of that, it was a lot of the highly competitive players were kept their amateur classification. They didn't turn professional. That's kind of, I mean, that was like a sign of the times at that point. Anyway, that was also happening in the United States a lot.

But anyway, the origin of the event is really based in expanding more playing opportunities, more prestigious playing opportunities to women who were professional golfers. So Vivian Saunders and Gwyn Brandon, two of the five professionals who competed in the first year of the event, were helping organize the event with the Ladies Golf Union, who was the governing body for girls and women's amateur golf in the UK. They're now defunct. They actually merged with the R&A in 2017,

which is important later. So Saunders was a really accomplished golfer, had turned professional, competed for GB&I in the 1968 Curtis Cup. She approached the Ladies Golf Union to ask how much money they would need to make the event open to professionals. And she and Gwen Brandon were told 200 pounds. And she and Gwen Brandon actually put up the prize money for the event themselves.

So the competitors for the event were playing for their own money. True skin in the game. Yeah. True skin in the game. I love that. She said, quote, Gwen and I will put up the money between us. This is a big step in the right direction. And if we can get more tournaments open, perhaps the prize money will attract young players to join the paid ranks.

That's... Oh. Huh. I mean, I can't... I just need to... Sorry. So we're talking about this event starting in 1976, and I think we just breeze past that this is not a major until 25 years later.

So I know where I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but I think that just struck me as this event was not a major until the 2000s. We're talking about 2001. Like that is not that long ago. God, it just blows my mind. Just out of my curiosity, I went and looked up when the women's amateur championship started,

because it kind of blew my mind that we're talking about 1976 here for the first British Women's Championship, first British Open. The Women's Amateur was started in 1893. So it's not like high level competitive women's golf was not being played. It was just not on the professional side of it yet. Right. But they wanted to encourage more women to start taking that direction.

Because, yeah, all of the competition was stacked on the amateur side. And I mean, you can kind of see that reflected when you go back and you look at early Curtis Cubs and even like the Curtis Cup history that goes into like the 90s. It's still there's still so many high level amateurs that never turned pro. Yeah, real quick. I hope I'm not jumping ahead of you, but we're talking about Vivian Saunders and she won the second playing of the women's British Open, I see in 1977. And I've never seen this, but in the margin of victory column, it says count back. What is that? Yep. Yep. What is that Jordan? Yep. So I'll get into that. So yes, the following year,

Vivian won at Lindrick Golf Club. She won in a count back over amateur Mary Everard. Sonder shot a 76, whereas Everard shot a 79. And they actually decided the year after that they would not, that that's not how that they would decide a champion, that they would just end up going to sudden death playoff. So I found that to be really interesting. So it was essentially a scorecard playoff. Yeah. I mean, an 18-hole scorecard playoff.

Wow. Yep. Right? Can you imagine how controversial that would be now? Yeah. No one would allow that. But I mean, hey, if you're getting very few professionals to compete in this, you're really just trying to get your event off the ground.

I mean, we got to decide a champion, right? And the cool part about Vivian is actually she was a pretty significant part of women's golf history in general. I mean, not only with her putting up the money for this event to get off the ground. But a year later, after she won the event in 1977 and 1978, she co founded the WPGA, which is now known as the L.E.T., the Ladies European Door. Good for her.

Do you know, is she still living? Yes. Okay. Gosh, she'd be fun. I wonder if she'd be around this week. She would be a fascinating person to get to meet. Right? Shout out Vivian, which is awesome. So in

its first three years, the Women's British Open did not have a title sponsor. And for a while, it was only considered an LAT event. But in 1978, that same year that the WPGA was founded, it was a pretty, pretty elevating year for the event. I wouldn't say we're really taking it to the top just yet. Pretty Polly, a Stockings and I don't know if they were selling laundry at the time. It looks like they were selling underwear. Looks like they were really deep in the Stockings game. They decide to sponsor the event. Jordan, what are your feelings about that? Jordan Avery They needed some money. Okay, they needed a sponsor.

It's fine. Look, you got to do what you got to do. Ben Gromick I think any sponsor is a good sponsor. Yeah. I know nothing about Pretty Polly. Jordan Avery I respect the hustle, truly. Like shout out Pretty Polly for stepping up and putting up the cash for a little bit. Yeah.

It honestly sounds like a character name on the Sopranos to me. I was sitting here thinking about Polly Pockets. I'm like, is this like, are the early Polly Pocket? Like, what are we doing here? But no, it is indeed a underwear brand. I thought it was Petey Pablo. So listen, we're going all sorts of different directions. Talking about some hosiery, nylons, you name it.

They naturally had their demands as a title sponsor in 78 when the, right around the time the event was starting, they were pretty upset that none of the Curtis Cup team played in the event that year. I guess there was a conflict. They ended up flying to the United States to play the Curtis Cup that same week. Really tough time building up this field. A lot going against it, but it's fine. We're moving. And yeah, even despite

putting up a little more cash, working over some big bucks, the field still struggled to attract many professional golfers. And in 78, only four were in the field that year. So even one less than its first year of the event. So they're doing their best. And sorry, let me correct myself for a second. Pretty Polly was not the title sponsor until 79, but they came on as a sponsor in 78. So it wasn't officially called the Pretty Polly Women's British Open until 79. This time, they increased the purse to 10,000 pounds. So we're getting somewhere where it's better. They'd be the title sponsor for four years. And I found this really interesting article

for the 79 playing that year, where the conditions were pretty tough at Southport and Ironsdale that year. The title of the article was Pretty Polly's Feeling Sick after the first round. So it was a first round recap. And basically, I just took out an excerpt from this article. It says, the players protested, the sponsors pleaded, but the ladies golf union refused to budge.

So to nobody's surprise, the first round scores in the 10,000 pounds Pretty Polly Women's Open Golf Championship went soaring into the blush making 80s and humiliating 90s at Southport and Eynsdale yesterday. Wow, that ain't good. I loved some, I don't know about you guys. I mean, I don't know how far back you guys went in, because I would assume by like 21st century people were mincing their words a little bit in journalism, but like some of these writers just did not hold back. They were really out of pocket.

And sometimes it just really crossed a line. And I found like old articles, sometimes I go through old articles for like college golf and stuff and I'm like, all right, you're out here talking crazy. Like no one would ever sound like this anymore. Just, just a lot of weird coded language toward women and, you know, other, and other things that I would take significant issue with if I read in a professional publication. But even subject matter like that, where they're just not afraid to tell you, yeah, that's a humiliating 90, is hilarious.

Well, sometimes people need just hard, honest facts, some truce out there, JP. But I agree, there is a firm line. And I think it kind of is a sign of the times when you go back and look at some of the things that were written. I don't know. It's fascinating. I know nothing of Southport and Ainsdale Golf Club. It does. It hosted the 1933 and 37 Ryder Cup. It hosted the 2005 amateur championship with Royal Birkdale. I guess it's very, very close to Royal Birkdale. But yeah, sounds like a tough, tough situation. I think that's just a proper setup. I want to see more scores in the 80s and 90s. I feel like pro golf is better for it. I knew you would love it. And you'll love this quote even more. The ladies golf union chairwoman Marjorie Young did not back

down. She said quote, we want a course that will produce a true champion. I think people will realize the girls are playing well even if their scores are high. Totally agree. Let's get those sports writers out there. See what they shoot, you know. I got no problem with a very tough setup. Love it. Randy hates very tough setups when he's playing his own game though. Like despises them.

That's one of the funniest things about this bit. He just constantly is complaining when there's a little bit of unfairness on any left fairway because he feels like it's personally targeting him. Anyway, go ahead, JP. Tough call for the, but not for me. Yup.

I'm sad to report the event would not return to Southport in Einstein. Yeah. I, I, I'd like to see a modern simulation of that. Cause I think that could be pretty fun. That would be sweet. I don't know about petty Paulo Polo or Poly being there, bringing their sponsorship back, but yeah, let's go back to Southport and Ainsdale.

Yeah, let's remix this a little bit. So anyway, continuing on, in the years of Pretty Poly sponsorship from 1979 to 1982, the event would see its only back-to-back major champion in Debbie Massey at the time, who worked as a ski instructor before embarking on pro golf three years before she won two majors. Well, it wasn't considered a major at the time, but I think in conflicting documentation says they are and aren't major champions.

I'll call her a major championship, major champion for the sake of our retelling before she won the event twice in a row. So a couple things here. Yeah, no. Sorry. A couple things here. Ski instructor, that's awesome. I'm sure we maybe don't know the mountain at which she

was ski instructing, but would love to know that. I will just say for the historical record book, any win at the British Open prior to it being officially recognized as a major does not count as a major for these women in like the golf history books. But I'm kind of with you if, you know, if it becomes a major. That's an interesting discussion. We can get into that later, but not technically a major. I struggle with this because on the website right now for the AIG Women's Open, they call Kari Webb a multi-time champion.

They acknowledge her wins from the 90s before she won after it became a major. I think there's two different things. Yes, she obviously won the event. So she's won the event however many times. What is it, three different times? Yes. But I think if you go into Kari Webb's biography, she only gets credit for one major out of those three wins.

The 2002, I think, is when is the only one that she's actually credited for the major. So I don't blame AIG for, of course, they're going to recognize all the winners throughout the history of this event. It's just when we talk like majors in a more global golf context, these aren't major wins before 2001. Which again, 2001 for the British Open, it's crazy. In my opinion, they are major champions, but for the documentation... Which is fine, I won't change your mind on that. I just wanted to clear it up for the listener.

Yes. Yes. They were not considered a major champion. And this I don't know again. Well, we'll proceed. But just thank you for clarifying because I know that can get a little confusing. Yes. Yes. Anyways, Cody, you'll be delighted to know Pretty Polly stepped out of the sponsorship game in 1983. The event tries to bring on Hitachi and they are slated to sign on as the title sponsor

offering a three-year 500,000-pound deal. They weirdly, it falls through, the Ladies Golf Union could not secure TV coverage for the event that year. Purse would have increased from 23,000 pounds to 133,000 pounds, which would have elevated it just behind the men's British Open at the time. They were right there. We were really right on the cusp of equity. And then the ladies golf unions,

treasurers quoted in an article at the time saying, it is very sad. We had several meetings with the BBC, but they said they could not fit it into their autumn schedule. What? So the event doesn't happen. Really? Because of TV? Not at all. Doesn't happen. And this was before like TV money was really like a thing. So it was just like an

ex I guess an exposure play to Hitachi. They just wouldn't come around because they're like, we're not getting anything out of it. So 83 doesn't happen at all. Nope, it's totally canceled. Okay. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Yeah. So they run it back in 84 and the LPGA actually decides to co-sanction it this year. And it seems like the coverage dispute is kind of sorted. BBC finally agrees to carry the Hitachi Women's British Open. But that's not without some issues.

Their programming schedules were severely affected because of five-hour rounds, which were attributed to two things, weather and the difficulty of Woburn, which is a really important venue in the context of this major. But that really pissed a lot of people off. The executive director of BBC Golf, Harold Anderson, was quoted as saying, after the championship, he says, not only were we very disappointed at the number of leading American players who were missing, but because of the standard of golf and slowness of play for 30 minutes during the third round, we were forced to show players who were at least 12 over par

and hopelessly out of contention. We are seriously considering our future investment. Oh, I mean, I get it, but if, I don't even know, I guess I don't even have like really a rebuttal there. I mean, that happens, but at the end of the day, I guess is it because of Woburn, the difficulty of it? Is it because of conditions?

Is it more because of players stinking? Like what, what, what pace of play? What was the matter with TV? Is there anything else there, JP? I almost think, and just based on additional research about the championship itself, I almost think a lot of it was weather, but I think there were more corporate concerns again,

because of the lack of American players and how much momentum was over there at the time. This champion, and we'll talk more about this later, but this championship really wanted more of an American field. That's how they were going to get the eyeballs. That's how they were going to get the numbers. So I think more of the corporate forces were really hoping for that. And granted, I think the TV coverage was an issue

and maybe there were logistical issues at the time to resources, all that, but it was pretty messy. I will say. I will say, considering that 83, they didn't even have the event because there was no TV deal. The fact that they got BBC on board for 84, that sounds like it's at least a step in the right direction, but

they're clearly not really impressed with tournament operations, scoring, everything else like that. But BBC is there, which we know, long, long time staple for the highest level championship golf throughout the all of the UK. Yep, yep. That year, I think this part is a little interesting in terms of the frustration with the TV coverage. That year, Ayako Okamoto would go on to win an 11-shot victory, and apparently, there weren't too many issues with TV coverage in Japan. It seemed like Hitachi, at least from what I read, they'd never expressed any discouragement

by the problems that BBC had, despite the fact that, yes, they had pulled out of it altogether last year due to the coverage. So, um... Got to think that's a dream situation for Hitachi though. I mean, they had a... Totally. It's a Japanese multinational company. You have a Japanese winner that's destroying everybody else.

You have everybody showing how bad they're playing out there with horrible pace of play, and it's their person out there leading the way. That sounds like it's a win-win-win for them. Yeah. Just based on like some of the recaps that I was reading from that year, it didn't seem like the British local media was too stoked about that outcome. Yeah, I won't quote any of that. I didn't like what I read, aged pretty badly.

We'll move on from that. I will say real quick with the Hitachi stuff, the 80s was, as Cody mentioned, Hitachi a big multinational company. The 80s were part of the Japanese economic boom. I just want to go back to that Hitachi deal. The person 1984 was 160,000 pounds, which was up from, obviously, 83 was canceled, but the entire person 1982 was just 23,000 pounds and in fact that

160,000 pound purse They the British Open would not get to that level until 1992 They wouldn't surpass 160 pounds 160 thousand pounds again. So Hitachi was throwing big money at this event. Yep. After the 1984 Women's British Open, Hitachi drops out. They're no longer the title sponsor, and the purse tanks from 160,000 pounds to 60,000 pounds

when Burberry becomes the title sponsor in 1985. Yeah. I don't know. Was Burberry a luxury brand in the mid-80s, probably? Was Hitachi just throwing funny money at this event? Probably, but you don't see many drastic purse decreases in the world of golf like that. No. I tried my best to find out a little more about the Burberry title sponsorship,

what was going on, why they only sponsored the event for a year. But the following year, Weetabix would end up coming into the picture in 1987 and would be the title sponsor until 2006. So they're in it for the long haul. They stick around and support this event. And they see a lot of seasons of this event and a lot of changes start to come through. So I'll just say Weetabix. This is my first memories of the women's British Open was definitely in this Weetabix time. And it always made me, you know, as a kid growing up, I'm like, what the hell is Weetabix?

Never really understood that it was a cereal. I'm not familiar with your game, Weetabix. Yeah. Basically in the United States, it'd be having like the Wheaties Championship. Yeah, yeah. Okay, what were your guys' first memories of watching the women's open?

So we gotta keep going in some history here for me, JP. I'll let the old man Randy go first. Yeah, we haven't quite gotten there for me. Like honestly, I think right around the turn of the century is when I first remember, you know, we'll get there, I guess, but Sayre Pak winning that 2001 event. Certainly remember Kari Webb, Annika. And then definitely remember watching Karen Stupples in 2004.

So my history doesn't, I'm very recent, just in the last 20 years or so. Sorry, I fossilized you guys. That was a bad time to ask that question. No, no, that's okay. Everybody knows I'm old. All right. Shall we continue into the 90s, which is pretty big inflection point for this championship? Yeah.

What's going on? What's driving this change? All right. So things really begin to elevate. Fields get better. Purses get bigger. In 94, the event becomes a permanent LPGA tour event. Pretty incredible era of dominance follows.

Well, crazy that it's an LPGA tour event and not yet a major. Not yet. Why did the change happen in 94 JP? I actually don't have an answer for that. Okay, well we can do some on the ground research this week. I guarantee you some LPGA members gonna, or not member, but employee will have that information for us.

Very, very interesting and great call out though, big that is recognized by the LPGA tour, very interesting and great call out though, Big, that is recognized by the LPGA Tour, not yet recognized as a major championship. But this is also, we got Canadians, women's open major at this point in time, McDonald's LPGA championship is a major. Maybe it's just one of those situations where everything can be a major, which the LPGA kind of tries to stuff that pinata as it is. It was 10 years after they co-sanctioned it once. That was just once in 1984 that they co-sanctioned and then seven years before it would become

a major. So we're not at this midpoint but things are starting to get a little bit better This is started. This is around the time when Annika becomes world number one She would be the runner-up actually three times. She'd have some scar tissue in this decade with this event Before she won one of her own in oh three Which would complete her Grand Slam but the 90s was more of a dominating time for two specific goats. So one of whom was American Sherry Steinhauer who won in 98, 99 and who would later win in 2006.

But then Carrie Webb would kind of rock their world a little bit. She won the event in 1995 in her rookie year and in 1997. So she won twice before it was considered a major championship and then would win again in 2002, which would then be considered the crowning of her Grand Slam. Kari, yeah, I'll just say Kari's first win was at Woeburn, which was a consistent host here through the 90s, but then she won at Sunningdale, and then she won at Turnberry finally in 02. So she won at some very impressive courses.

Totally. And I have a little bit more about why they went to Woburn so much and kind of that transition period from Woburn to Sunningdale and when they started to kind of build up the pedigree and the rotation of courses. So yeah, the 90s was heavy on Woburn. They would go to Woburn for seven years in a row. In the infancy of this championship, they kind of struggled to build the pedigree. The most prestigious courses didn't want to host it, except for one, which we'll cover a little more later as we kind of list out

the courses from the Open Rota that decided to take part and when they did but Wilburn's really important here they were considered the second tier slate of courses that were willing to step up but in 97 in Kari's year when she won the second time, they would break the Woburn streak. And it kind of served as a catalyst for the event. Ahead of the event, one of the local papers interviewed an English pro, Diane Barnard,

and she said, quote, "'I know Woburn has been very good for us over the past few years, but I think this is right that such a prestigious event should move on a rota around Britain's premier courses, just like they do with the Open for the men. The influx of so many of America's top players has to be welcomed, even though it could be a bit of a double-edged sword.

More spectators will surely be attracted by the likes of Nancy Lopez and Brandi Burton. But if they fill all of the top places come Sunday afternoon, it might leave potential sponsors questioning the wisdom of supporting the European tour. So Cody, is Wilburn where Charlie Hall plays? Long time history, not only supporting women's professional golf, but also junior players, future women professionals. That's where Georgia and Charlie practice and play out of, I would say Charlie more than Georgia. But that's also where Ian Poulter got his start at two and still claims Woburn to be his home club. They're one of those things where I think they're fine with their mid-tier status. I guess you could say they're not a true Heathland

course where if you talk about Sunningdale or Walton Heath or any of the other that are down there in Surrey, but embrace it and welcome the next generation of professionals there and let them do what they need to do and the club supports them tremendously. They have an incredible practice facility, which I think sets them apart from all these other awesome Heathland courses that don't have the land available or infrastructure to kind of build that out where Woburn does and they've really focused on facilities and making it a nice warm welcome environment for people to come train, grow, develop, whatever you want to call it. It's really cool.

It's funny, I remember Woeburn, they've played it. Woeburn has two different courses, the Duke's course and the Marquis course. And the most recent one at Woburn, 2019, was the year Hanako Shibuno won, and that was on the Marquis course. All these earlier ones were on the Duke's course. I just remember in 2019 being like, okay, this is the British Open. Why are we, like the Marquis course just looked

like a Parkland course that could be anywhere in the world. I was very disappointed in it. Right. The same thing we say with the Irish open as well. The women's open does not have it in their bylaws that it has to be played on a links and course. They can play it anywhere and that they believe that that opens the pool to other courses and makes it available to them. Case in point, a Sunningdale, a Walton Heath, getting some of those true Welsh and English courses that are not true links into the rotation.

Which I like that. I think it gives the championship its own identity and I think it's really kind of a homage to its history. Because you can still make those venues prolific. Yeah. I mean, I think Woburn, so now I know, like obviously in 2019, I actually never knew the history of Woburn and why it is a venue.

It reminds me a little of like Pine Needles and the significance that that has with the US Open. Yep. Great point, Pig. All right, JP, keep going. Let's crank through the 90s here. All right. So I'm going to focus in a little bit on Kari's win in 97, and kind of how that ties to, I

think if we can trace back to that earlier quote, clearly the English women were put on notice a little bit. They had some mixed feelings about American players coming and playing in their championship, which is important here. Obviously, a lot of stock and expectation, and whether that's from the players, corporate interests, on an American to win, Makari Webb goes and does it again in 97. In the process, she would fire a course record nine under 63 in the third round and go into the final round Sunday

with an eight shot lead. And she maintains it. And though she shoots her worst score of the week, a 71, still wins by 8, her 97 win is a tournament low score and would only ever be matched by Karen Stoupples in 04, which was also at Sunningdale where Karen won her only major. Big, if you want to jump in and kind of talk about watching Karen Stoupples, I think that would be pretty interesting. I don't have a ton for you.

Unfortunately, this, this was, you know, in my early, early twenties, I was beer filled and, and just stupid and dumb. But I do remember Karen at Sunningdale. Just what really was impressed upon me was her story, right? And didn't come from a whole lot of money or privilege necessarily growing up and was kind of given a sponsor by a restaurant that she used to work at. And this restaurant supported her, allowed her to play out on tour. And so when she won the Women's British Open, you know, her home championship, it just was a such a fun story, such a cool story for her, for her

backers. I just remember the feel good nature of it. But you know, not not a ton beyond the broad story there. I think that makes it that that adds a sweet significance to it because Karen was actually the first English woman to win since Penny Grace Whitaker in 1991. So from 1991 to 2004, there had not been an English winner. And only one English woman has won since. Can you guys guess who that is? Georgia Hall.

Yes, Cody beat me. I did know that. In fact, I think that there's only been outside of Georgia and Charlie last year. I think there's only been one other English women that has finished in the top three. And I'm pretty sure that's Jody Eward-Shadoff, just not the best run for English professionals since then. I'm fascinated that Laura Davies, Dame Laura Davies, she won the event back in 1986, you were saying. It's crazy to me that she didn't win more during the 90s here.

It's this fun invasion. And once again, it was just elevating more internationally. It just got better through the decades. But all right, I know we talked a lot about venues, but we're gonna continue to talk about venues a little bit because they're really important here. Can you guys guess which course out of the Open Rota would be the first to step up and host a Women's British Open? And this was not at the turn of the century.

This was pretty early on in the championships history. Well, we know it's not St. Andrews. I don't know. I'll guess. Gosh, something in England. Royal Lithum, St. Anne's. Cody, do you have any guesses? No, I mean, I'm trying to think of kind of drawn a blank. What do you got? So Royal Berkdale hosted in 1982, in 1986.

Okay. And they would be the only course out of the rota to do it until 98 when Royal Litham came in the picture and they were the site of the back-to-back titles for Sheri Steinhauer. I was close then. I was close. So we're getting to the turn of the century. This becomes really interesting because after Now Known, it was the Dumarier Classic, the CKPC Women's Open, a once major. You got to put a little verve on that.

Oh, boy. I think I want to petition for a couple of years to have major status again since LC won it. All right. I think that this year we could consider that a major championship over some of these others. For every five Evianna, five Chevron, we get to choose one Canadian Open and we're going to grant that major status. That's just going to be the... Let's backdate it. 2024 first for LC.

Yeah. I think we should retroactively give all these winners their major championships. But anyway, we'll continue. So sorry for blotching that and not attaching any French-Canadian pronunciation to it. It's okay. We'll let it slide this time. They lose their title sponsor and at that point the Women's British Open is promoted to a major in 2001.

And after that, you start to see some of the open road up here. Turnberry is in the picture, no two. Carnoustie, Royal Liverpool, Royal Troon, Muirfield and St. Andrews, which we'll talk a little bit more about. But the only courses who haven't hosted a women's British Open at this point are Royal St. George's and Royal Port Rush. Which is very interesting because you said earlier

that the ladies golf union didn't merge with the RNA until 20, what'd you say, 2016 or 2017 or something like that. So I wonder what made them kind of take that over. Was that RNA at the time or was it still LET that now started going after some of these venues? It was still overseen by the Ladies Golf Union. So they were still, yeah, like this was elevated by a major, but the ladies golf union was still organizing this event.

That's cool. I wonder if it's major status was tied to, they wouldn't given them till they dropped maybe that a title sponsor. Who knows? Which is weird because in current day now it's on the women's side. You almost have to have a title sponsor for any of these major championships. The opposite what we see, of course, in the men's side. Soterios Johnson Yeah, and I'll say too, you mentioned Muirfield.

That was the 2022 venue for the first time. Historically, Muirfield, a very famous men only club throughout most of its history. So good on the RNA for get when they did get involved finally in 2017. I know they put a lot of pressure on Muirfield, like, hey, if you want to host any men's championships in the future, you're going to have to change your policies. And that ultimately resulted in the women's open going there in 2022, which was cool. SONIA DARAINI Yeah. And so,

purses continue to increase in the 21st century, especially after getting a major elevation to a major championship status. In 2007, the electronics company, Ricoh, would begin to sponsor the British women's open in 2007 is a very important year as We'll touch on a little more later And then in 2009 the prize fund was changed from British pounds to US dollars Yeah cash dollars, homie Good for Katrina Matthew And so we'll touch on a little bit about the R&A getting involved.

Only in 2017 would they begin to oversee the women's open. And so part of this is also them seeing the British women's am and other similar championships. So they agreed to merge the Ladies Golf Union and the R&A, which was part of this campaign that Martin Slumbers had going on, basically trying to persuade the British government to give golf more backing. So the Ladies Golf Union kind of disappears

and now the R&A is taking it over the last seven years. Awesome. Good evolution of the championship. Big mentioned the courses with Muirfield and then obviously through that time, we've seen Royal Troon, we've seen Carnoustie. Next year is going to be phenomenal the first time ever going to Northern Ireland. It's a lot of cool stuff that comes along with that and opens aperture to some interesting locations. Is it, sorry, is it, I think Royal Porthcrawl. Oh, you're right.

Excuse me. We're sticking in Wales before we get to go. Yeah. So just a few things before I finish tying up the history of the Women's Open. I did not realize I would go this long, so sorry, you guys. But a lot going on here. It's just a fun... I think it's a fun history.

Rico would sponsor the event until 2019 when AIG, American International Group, enters the picture and has remained the sponsor and will be through 2025. And in 2020, this was a big deal. The R&A and AIG rebranded the event to drop the British qualifier. And its current name is the AIG Women's Open. Correct, and what I learned last year, they're not the champion of the AIG Women's Open. Correct. And what I learned last year, they're not the champion of the AIG Women's Open

is not the champion golfer of the year, like on the male side. That is a trademark term only for the Open Championship. The women's champion is just the women's champion. Which once again, I think it speaks to that, the own identity of the championship, kind of the championship, kind of the going against the principle of you have to play true links courses.

I think this championship, especially in its young history, trying to pave its own way and not saying, well, we're not going to copy and paste the men's open. We're going to take our own spin of things and do things our own way, because that's kind of how we've always had to do it, I think, is really empowering. And I think the coolest thing is the winner's check has gone from $642 in 1976 to last year in 2023, it was $1.35 million. So in 48 years. Yeah, that is incredible growth. Cody, to your point about venues,

I do think it's interesting with now the RNA heavily involved in this championship, Royal Porth Call in Wales next year, 2026, I believe is Royal Litham and St. Anne's, but they have not announced any future venues beyond that. And so I think my question is, will they kind of develop a rota? Will they try to keep it on Lynx courses? Will we see much of Woburn in the future? How much will they get to the Heathland? A lot of questions will be interesting to track with this championship

over the coming years. For sure. The one thing that I will quick caveat, hang on to that is to the RNA is notorious for not announcing their championship venues crazy in advance, like PGA Championship or PGA of America or the USGA. They very much have their system of, we're keeping it within this little four to five year bubble and we're waiting as things continue to go and adapt. And really, I think that's them looking at changes in technology specific to the golf ball

and trying to figure out where they can best position these championships, because they have a ton of championships that they oversee. So I don't get too worried about that. It would be awesome to see like a Rota big, like you said, kind of form here because you're right. I thought, you know, last year was awesome at Walton Heath. I thought, you know, you've raved about Muirfield, the historical

significance there, but really so good. It's how great that was. I mean, a playoff at the end there with Ash Buhai and, and, uh, NG. I mean, Carnustis always a great venue. Royal Troon. We obviously saw that earlier this year on the men's side, but I think Sophia Popoff, like that's a course to kind of, it just identifies like who's the best at golf for that individual week. There's no really escaping anything there. And that's what I would like them continue to go down.

So very, very excited. Well, and bringing it back to this year, I hope that they can get to St. Andrews more frequently. You know, we've, this is the third time this championship has come here. It's been 11 years since. As the men's game and the distance has kind of outgrown, I mean, not kind of, I think it's definitely outgrown St. Andrews.

What a perfect venue for the controlled, relatively shorter distance of the women's game. I think, you know, St. Andrews should absolutely be a pillar if they're willing to, if the RNA is willing to for some type of women's rota. Well, Jordan, anything else or can we dive into the two previous championships at St. Andrews? One thing real quick and then I will hand it off

to you guys. I just want to shout out some of the other notable winners of the Women's Open in the 21st century since we're here now. Yanni Tseng, Jia Shin, who both won it twice, Inby Park, Anna Nordquist, Lilia Vu, Loren Ochoa, and Stacey Lewis, who you guys will talk about now. Yeah, awesome. I think the one thing that you forgot to mention there, another quick caveat, Anna Norquist won it without chipping. So as long as you can putt wherever you're at, that's a course it sets up for her. Big! This is the third time, as you said, that the AIG

Women's Open, the Women's Open, the Women's British Open, the whatever you wanna call it is being held at St. Andrews, which is fascinating to me. And it's kind of like a, what the heck, man? How did we only get here? How is this only the third time in the history of this event? I went back and I'm like, you know,

it's not like St. Andrews in the old course is not used to hosting women's championships. They're very they've hosted a ton, whether that's a majority of them on the amateur side. They never had any issues at all with with the women's professional game or anything like that. It truly is fascinating as I was tagged with researching the first women's open that was held at St. Andrews as 2007, of course, won by the great Mexican Hall of Fame player,

Lorena Ochoa. She finished the tournament at five under par, shooting a total 287 across the old course. Her margin of victory was four strokes. Um, and she ended up, you know, I think I'm gonna dig a little bit into Lorena and who she is, because I think she's a fascinating character. And she has such a rich depth of history and kind of where the modern game is at for somebody who truly

played professional golf for eight years. And that's it's just a staggering, staggering thing to say. So welcome to the 2007 Women's Open Championship. We're at the beginning of August here at St. Andrew's, the old course, the winning purse. Jordan, of course, I'm going straight USD here. Two million bucks total is the purse here. Winner's share of that is gonna be $320,000 and a little bit of change. First ever women's professional event held at the Old Course. Now I went back and KVV

helps us out big time. He provided us his login information unless you're any sort of cyber guy that belongs to newspapers.com. I apologize, but we're sharing passwords over here. Newspapers.com. I found an LA Times article written by a guy named Chuck Culpepper. He doesn't even work for the LA Times. He did a special on assignment from St. Andrews. What a good gig, you know? Hey, 2007, the economy is great. Let's get a paid gig over to St. Andrews. Good on Chuck. Now, he goes over to St. Andrews to cover the Women's Open on behalf of the LA Times, and he got a couple.

Now in the article, he has a lot of historians, whether they're St. Andrew's historians or they're, you know, local townspeople who claim to be historians, and he identifies them by name. But when it gets to specific details surrounding the RNA and everything else, he actually doesn't identify who the person actually is. So there's very widespread of a historian at the RNA stated, one asked why this is the first time a women's professional event is held at the old course. And he said, listen, it is news to us because 50 years ago, 30 years ago, 10 years ago,

it doesn't matter how many years ago, a women's British Open could have been played at St. Andrew's upon request. Now this is, I think, where they're driving the line here between what the ladies, whatever the organization that used to run this Open Championship. And when we see it now is RNA, there's clearly lines separating the two at this point in time. And they literally just said, Hey, we would have given them T times off the T sheet. They just never requested it. And that is literally their reason why there has never up until this point was not a major championship held at the old course,

which is crazy to say. Yes. But I think it also goes along with kind of that old head mentality at the RNA at that point in time. We know that there is some, when Tiger first came on the scene, that there's a lot of upset RNA members then who, you know, couldn't swallow the fact that there is an African American who is winning their major championships. So there's a lot of history that kind of goes with that organization and they have drastically improved over time and continue to make improvements obviously to where we're at in this day. So I say that not to pull cold water on any of

this, but just to clearly state facts. Leading up to this major championship, we brought her up earlier, the dame Laura Davies was asked, are you excited about playing the women's British Open at the old course of St. Andrews? She's like, of course, I'm very, very excited. What kind of question is that? Now we know Laura Davies to be, she's the queen of British golf. She's a multiple, multiple major champion. She's in the world golf hall of fame. She's done so much for the women's game and she states literally, this is the week leading up into the British open. She said, yes,

I'm very, very excited because I have never ever been there. I've never, ever been there. I've never played the old course. Wow. Incredible. This is the year 2007 and the greatest woman female golfer from Britain had never been to St. Andrews and had never played the old course. That like truly that blows my mind. It's crazy to sit here and think about. played the old course. That like truly that that blows my mind.

It's crazy to sit here and think about and there's tons of other the newspaper clippings are awesome. Unfortunately, you know, I went back and tried to find old telecast and you only get a couple little highlight packages and stuff like that. You don't get the full telecast like we do on the men's side. But this was of course, peak Anika time. Anika was just surpassed as number one player in the world by Lorena Ochoa, but Lorena coming into this event always had this monkey on her back, how she was the best to never win a major championship. She'd had a lot of close calls. This would be her first major championship win. She would follow it

up the following spring at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, which is now the Chevron, to get her second major championship. That's where she would end it. She would end up retiring with two major championships, another playoff loss at the Kraft Nabisco, and a slew of other top 10s. She took basically top 10 in every other major championship she ever contended in. In 2007, really the newspaper clippings kind of shine because this is peak Michelle we time this is peak like Michelle is

professional and she's growing and she's pounding the ball and what is Michelle going to do to the old course? Oh my goodness, she's going to render it helpless. I remember some of this for sure. Now this was also the gen two version of the Sasquatch driver was out. So the first gen was that like crazy yellow one. The gen two was we finally like had a black crown to it with like silver in the back. So they have all these pictures of her swinging this driver

because everybody's talking about her length and her distance and how she's just gonna render it helpless. And she has that dumb looking square driver in her hand. I think it's hilarious to go back and look at. But Lorena ends up winning. As I said, it is the only real change. Quickly, Cody, were there any quotes from Michelle

to respond to this? None, really. I mean, you gotta think too, this is a young Michelle Wee. And I didn't specifically look at, like I thought the driving distance is just like a fun, funny little fact because it was the first time they're playing it at the old course. And really it didn't end up being a driving display

as it is. There was horrible weather all week, everybody was bundled up, it was super windy, and driving accuracy was the key over driving distance because the rough was up and the women struggled around the old. The one change that we see from most other major championships, the 17th hole, the road hole,

played as a par five, kind of the way that they drew it up, but I know big, I know you're gonna say that. I hate that. I know. But listen, it was par five and surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, it also was the easiest hole of the week.

So it carried like a 4.1 scoring average or something like that. Do you happen to know? So did they just make it a par 73 for the week with that being a par five? It was par 73. Yep. Measuring 6,600 yards. Gross. Yeah, there's 100, 149 players in the field. Sixty nine of them made the cut. The cut was at plus five. And as I stated,

Lorena ended up winning at five under par. Now, Lorena Ochoa, we all know her now to be in the World Golf Hall of Fame. She's in the LPGA Hall of Fame, recently joined, of course, by Lydia Ko in that LPGA Hall of Fame. But the one thing that sticks out to me during all this Hall of Fame talk is because of Lorena that got them to drop this 10-year minimum that they had. That's right. That's right. So prior to Lorena, you had to be on the LPGA Tour for a minimum of 10 years as one of the qualifying criteria to get into entrance.

And Lorena famously did not play 10 years as a professional golfer until, well, really full-time professional golfer because even post retirement she played, she would play in her event and a couple other events later on down the line. But it's kind of fascinating. I don't know if you guys want to get too far down the Lorena Ochoa route, but she is a fascinating character who has done, I think, more for her country and developing the sport that she loves. And it's crazy to think that, like, Randy, Lorena Ochoa is one year older than you are. And we kind of talk about Hall of Fame and we think of like these elder statesmen and

everything else like that. That's not the case. The Raina is very, very young. And it's crazy the fact how she ended up retiring at the end of the 2010 season. Well, not even the end, like really midway through the 2010 season, because she had gotten married the year prior and she always was just kind of this, you know, she loved being at home and she based everything still out of her hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico and the travel really weighed on her.

And once she got married and they started thinking about having kids, it was just that pull back to being by family and friends in Mexico really made her realize that like, hey, I don't want to travel and do this. This isn't the thing that I love anymore. Because it's crazy how she ended up getting her start is her dad, you know, she they're not a wealthy family by any means. They basically had to pool money from their local community in order to get to pay for lessons for her when she was a little girl. By the time that she was eight years old, it was the first time that she came to the United States.

She played in the Optimist Junior Championship. I think it's at Torrey Pines every year. She showed up there as an eight-year-old with her dad and her brother, and everybody was wearing new clothes and had, you know, looking real fresh and brand new golf balls, and that's not how Lorena arrived to San Diego. By any means, she had beaten up golf balls,

she had broken tees in her golf bag, and handed down golf clubs, and she played two practice rounds, and the people that she played with during the practice round, she realized like, wait a second, like, I'm obviously really nervous to be in the United States the first time out of Mexico, to be in my first big competition. But like, I'm better than all these kids.

And she went out and like whooped everybody's butt. And from age eight until the time that she retired in 2010, that's what she did. She whipped everybody's ass, man. And it just, she didn't let up. She ended up playing a pretty full junior career across the world, traveling still out of Mexico, winning everything, ended up getting recruited to the University of Arizona, famously would only spend two years there, just like Rose did at Stanford. If you look at overall wins, I think it's wins, top tens and top fives. Lorena has more of each category than Rose ended up finishing with. They both were individual champions. I think the only thing that Rose ended up

clipping her in was scoring average. And then Rose brought with her all the other amateur accolades that Lorena really didn't play in. She didn't really play in any of the US girls am or of course, annual wasn't around by then or anything else but trying to stack who lorraine ochoa was as an amateur golfer against somebody that's more recognizable now as rose saying. It's fascinating to see she turned pro after those two years she didn't get any real sponsors exemptions or anything the LP LPGA tour told her at the time, you're not gonna get into this at all. You need to go play in the futures tour. And if you play well on the futures tour, they have like three cards at the time

that are gonna get LPGA status. So her and her dad and her brother, again, fly to the United States. Her brother ends up caddying for her for her 2002 season on the Futures Tour. They end up being on the road for 13 weeks straight. In those 13 weeks, she played 12 events in a row. Her dad driving them to every single tournament. They're sharing a hotel room.

They're literally beg, barring, and stealing to get this career going. And famously, the story goes, and she told this during her Hall of Fame speech, is that at the 10th event that they played in a row, they're playing a practice round. And earlier that morning, her dad had been complaining about having a stiff neck and her right shoulder hurt, and his right arm was feeling weird. and he had like this tingling sensation. And Lorena speaks in very, you know, broken English and is telling her playing partners about this. And, and one of the other caddies hears it and he says, Oh my goodness, you guys, like your dad can't just be sitting back at the hotel room by himself. Like those are signs of a heart attack. Like you need to go, you need to take your dad and like go get him checked out right now at a hospital. And of

course, they love the she loves her, her mom and her dad. Her brother drops a bag right there during the practice round, and goes back and has somebody from the clubhouse drive him to the hotel room, where he can meet his dad and then they take their car to the hospital while the rain of finishes her program, they get to the hospital, the reina finishes her pro am they get to the hospital the doctor does a full evaluation on her dad and everything like that and it comes out that he actually is does not have a heart attack had never had a heart

attack his heart is in great health and everything like that he's been using his right arm and his right shoulder ironing all their clothes after they were washing them in the bathtub at the hotel room to save money. So they didn't do laundry. He was ironing all their clothes and then he would fold them and hang them and they built out the trunk to be like a little locker for them as they travel week to week to week. He had been doing that so much that he aggravated something in his shoulder and it was all the nerve endings shooting down the right side of his body.

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. So you sit there and look at it and kind of where they started, what her mom and dad did for her and her brother and the rest of their family. Lorena would go out, end up I think being the first professional player to win $4 million in a year, she did that in 2008. By 2010, I think between winnings and endorsements, she was bringing in between like $5 to $6

million a year and doing really, really well for herself and sticking with kind of the brands that were with her from the very beginning. And Ping and the Solheim family invested heavily in Lorena when she was a junior still and got her hooked up with clubs and that carried her through college and the professional rankings. And it's just a really cool, fascinating story. And I was looking and searching desperately for kind of what all of this would mean to Lorena after she finally won her first major championship. I thought there

would be this overwhelming swell of emotions and everything else like that. And it really wasn't the case, but I found this ESPN Deportes audio clip of her immediately after winning her first major championship, the 2007 Women's Open at St. Andrews. Lorena Ochoa of the Women's British Open. Lorena, just describe the week and what it means to get your first big one where it all started in St. Andrews. Yes, well, I think it's, you know, hard to describe, but I, you know, I couldn't be more happy and just, you know, being here in the 18 green

with the trophy is just what I dream. How hard was it, you know, all the adjustments, the weather, the rain, just how hard was it you know all the adjustments, the weather, the rain, just how hard was it to really get out there and play good golf? Yes well you know I wanted to just you know have a for sure a good run and I told myself just be aggressive and try to make birdies and don't even look at the other players scores and you know that's what I did it was great to to start with those couple birdies and then you know the nine. It was a lot easier and we did it.

What does it mean for Mexicans, for Mexico, for your country? I love it. This is a good time to say hi to all of them and thank you for the support. And hopefully they are back home celebrating. Thank you, Lorena Ochoa. It's your first major in St. Andrews. Back to you. Not a lot of emotion shown, but I would say that the defining thing

that kind of sticks out to me about Lorraine is that she's always as gracious as a champion as she is. She always is reaching back and trying to pull up everybody who's looking up to her in her home country of Mexico and saying like, hey, if I can do this, you guys can too. And kind of, you know, follow my lead here, which I think is an awesome seat, you know,

something awesome to see. I was gonna say, you can just hear that little extra sparkle in her voice when she's talking about the people back in Mexico. That's really cool. And also like good on ESPN Deportes for being there, you know, covering the event. That's wonderful.

For sure. Post retirement, of course, she stood event. That's wonderful. For sure. Post-retirement, of course, she stood up the Lorena Ochoa Foundation. She held an LPGA event, hosted it for many, many years before that went away in like 2016, 2017. But her foundation is really aimed at education and giving education opportunities to, you know, underprivileged kids throughout Mexico,

specifically in Guadalajara. And I think she was on Golf Central a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago. And she said that just her, you know, it's not just the foundation that's giving money out. She's actually creating schools. I think she had just graduated her 10,000th child last year, which is just crazy, crazy to think of. And now when you look at the professional ranks, both men and women, you can go down and there's, you know, 40, 50 young professionals on both sides trying to make it in every professional tour across the globe. And on the LPGA tour, specifically Maria Fossey and Gabby Lopez

both point directly to Lorena and watching the 2007 women's British as what kind of started their love and drive and determination to get to where they are today. I love that. Representation is important. 100%. Yeah. Big, that's what I got. Yeah.

2000s homebody. Can I pose a question to you guys real quick? Sure. Can you imagine the outrage if Lorena Ochoa turned pro in, you know, a moderate, now, right? The matter, imagine the outrage of her having no sponsors exemptions, no, like, I mean, and she would have NIO as a college player. Now, there's just absolutely no way she wouldn't, right? Because the closest comparison is Rose, and

obviously she had some great NIO, and she had sponsors exemptions entering her professional career. And to even think that that's how the best amateur was treated at the time. And speaking to the entire, the career that Lorena had is just, that's so difficult for me to comprehend. Yeah, I know. It's an amazing career. I went and Cody was saying that about,

you know, she's absolutely dominant in college and you just gotta go out and earn it on a futures tour. I knew that would get you riled up Jordan. That's a block you're on. I know that, you know, it really is amazing what she was able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. And Cody, what'd you say, like nine years? But one of that was like a partial year.

I think she retired in April of 2010. So like not even really that many starts. 2003 was a partial year. I think she retired in April of 2010. So like not even really that many starts. 2003 was a rookie year. So really she accomplished the bulk of her Hall of Fame career in like a six year span. It's that's just wild to think about. Yeah. And really like not playing gangbusters and like, you know, obviously 2003 came out on tour. She was rookie of the year, but she was the LPGA player of the year in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009. She won the VAR Trophy in all those years as well.

She was the money leader in six, seven and eight. It's just crazy how quick she was able to stack everything up. Yeah. And then, you know, selfishly as golf fans, we didn't get to see those next three, four, five years, you know, where she was still at the height of her powers, but home and family and a lot of good

with her foundation was calling. So ultimately good on her for doing what she needed to and following her heart. Not only that, I'll say this as a flip side, JP, you go from being like the single point of focus of your entire world is like your competitive golf. And then you meet this guy, he sweeps you off your feet and you like fall in love with somebody who is a CEO of the largest airliner in Mexico.

Her husband is the CEO of Aero Mexico, who comes with like this whole new world of like Lorraine always joked about going, there's quotes of whole new world of like, Lorraine always joked about going, there's quotes of her out there of like, oh my goodness, we have these Pro-Am parties and everything else. I don't really know, I need to go get this new dress and has always been super humble based off of her upbringing. Now she's going to all these fancy dinners and traveling the world and doing all this other stuff as the supporting spouse.

Had to be like a tough transition, not just because she's a woman, but like for anybody whose sole focus has been yourself for that long. And she's done it seamlessly and like with the utmost class and they have three little boys now and it's just, it's awesome to see. Honestly, like we need more the rain out show up in in golf. I wish that that event would come back around because it was going strong to like 2016 17. Then they tried to make it the match play event for that one year. And then it just

kind of went away. And it sucks because I know she loved hosting it and raised a ton of money for her charity. But ultimately, like she's just a that's such a good ambassador. Overall. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you, Cody. That was fantastic. Could hear I really like we need to we need to really effort Lorena Ochoa or an extended interview on the podcast. All right, 2013, we'll wrap this up. The second time the Women's British Open came to St. Andrews, and yes, it was the Women's British Open. We were in our Rico era. The British was officially part of the tournament title. Just like 2007,

this tournament occurred August 1st through 4th, so early August. The purse, 27, what was it? 2,750,000. The winner share just over 400,000. Again, when you compare it to what Lilia Vu won last year, we're talking like 300% increases in both the purse and the winner share from 2013 to 2023, which is cool. This was an ESPN televised event, which I know.

I remember watching this just to kind of, before we dive into the event itself, I want to set the stage with what's going on in the wider world of women's golf. Embi Park is the biggest story in women's golf coming into this week. And she is the biggest story because she had won the first three majors on the LPGA calendar. In 2013, the British Open was played prior to the Evian. The Evian used to be played in September.

So MB Park was three for three. There was a lot of talk about not only a calendar grand slam, which would be unprecedented, but even winning four consecutive majors. I mean, that's something that of course Tiger did that over two years, just heady, heady territory. MB was a clear number one in the world ahead of number two, Stacey Lewis. Now it was a wide gap.

It's kind of the type of gap that we've seen most of this year between Nellie Korda and Lillie Avoo. So a clear separation there. I thought the rest of the top 10, just kind of a trip down memory lane here real quick. The top 10 in the world heading into the 2013 women's British Open, you had MB Park, you had Stacey Lewis, number three, current Solheim Cup captain,

Suzanne Pedersen of Norway, three in the world. Na Yeon Choi of Korea was number four. Remember that name, she plays a big role this week. So Yeon Ru, who just retired from the LPGA Tour not too long ago, she was ranked five. Kari Webb was still on top of her game, ranked six. Sean-Chan Feng of China was seventh. G.A. Shin of Korea, eighth.

I.K. Kim of Korea, ninth. And Katrina Matthew of Scotland was 10. A couple names everybody might know. A young Lydia Ko, a 16-year-old Lydia Ko was ranked 17th in the world at this time. Amy Yang, who we just saw win in Sahale, was ranked 22nd in the world at this time. Lexi Thompson, 26th in the world. Jess Korda was ranked 30th in the world. So some names we still know today. So as we get into the event, I want to preface this by saying, I thought it was very interesting,

and I didn't realize this until going back and researching that Stacey Lewis had played at St. Andrews. She was a part of the U.S. Curtis Cup team in 2008 that traveled over to St. Andrews. They defeated GB&I 13 to 7, and Stacey Lewis actually went five and oh that week. So she took to the old course right from the get go was coming into the 2013 women's British Open on, you know, all the good memories from her experience there in 2008. This event kicked off as it does with Camilla Lenarth of Sweden, a name I do not know, but she jumped out along with Morgan Pressell. They both shot 66 and they led after round one by one shot.

You had Stacey Lewis firing and opening round 67 to trail by one. Thursday and Friday, I should say, were great weather days. So round two, more low numbers. Korea's Na Yeon Choi, she posted a second consecutive 67, so she was your clubhouse leader at the 36th hole mark at 10 under par. And then Japan's Miki Saki was at 9 under. Morgan Pressell was third at 8 under. There was a group

of women at 7 under. And then Stacey Lewis was part of a group tied for eight at five under par. So through at the halfway point, she trailed Na Yeon Choi by five shots. Now this is where things started to get dicey weather wise. So round three, Saturday players wake up and it's sunny skies, but very, very gusty winds. And guys, this kind of hurt my heart to read,

but I didn't realize play was suspended just after noon local time on Saturday, and it would be suspended the rest of the day because high winds gusting up to 40 miles per hour. Now granted, sunny skies, all we have are high winds. That hurts my heart that we have to stop play. There were 20 players that did not tee off at all. This included of course the entire front page of the leaderboard and also included Stacey Lewis. So Stacey did not strike a shot on Saturday, meaning that these players would play 36 holes the next day on Sunday.

So you turn over the day, Sunday morning, it's still breezy, but it's obviously not gusty enough where they had to stop play. So we're gonna get the tournament in today. A crucial fact to keep in mind, which I think played a little part in this championship, the round three groupings, they would not regroup after the third round. So whoever you went out with and in the slot you went out with in the third round, you just stayed with them to continue into the fourth round and that was to expedite pace of play.

So when everybody finally did get their third round completed, you had Morgan Pressell out on top at nine under total. She shot a 71 for her third round and then Stacey Lewis made her move in that third round. She posted a 69. It got her to eight under total ahead of a group again with Nayan Choi tied for third at seven under. So St Sacy finishes their fourth round. She goes back out and due to the positioning where she was at the halfway point, she goes out, you know,

well in front of all of the final groups. The tournament is really up in the air through everybody's front nine. And then Na-Yan Choi starts to kind of take hold of the event through 12 holes through her 12 holes and she's in the final group she stood at nine under par which was three shots clear of Stacey Lewis and some other women so Nayeon Choi is standing on the 13th tee she's got a three shot lead and that's where things start to move quickly.

Ahead of her, Stacy Lewis, pars the 16th and she's still three shots down, okay? So she plays the 16th hole three shots down. As this is happening, Na-Yan Choi would bogey her 13th hole. So Stacy Lewis steps to the 17th tee, the road hole, the famous road hole, which I can note is playing as par four. Thank God they didn't keep it as a par five again. She hits a good drive. Stacey's got the prototypical approach shot into the road hole. It might be one of the more, maybe the most famous kind of approach shot in all of golf. It's that kind

of left side pin, the famous pin that's protected by the road hole bunker that guards the green short and left. And she's got a five iron and the wind's moving, you know, pretty good right to left, her right to left. And she hits the five five five iron of her life. Guys, it is you know I know Mizuho. We do the Mizuho winning moment. This is the Mizuho winning moment for Stacey Lewis. She hits this five iron and she would say afterwards. I'm quoting her.

It's one of those shots you see in your head, but you don't ever really pull it off. On this day she did pull it off. She hit a kind of low draw. The wind helped knock it off. On this day, she did pull it off. She hit a kind of low draw, the wind helped knock it down. The ball kind of bounces short of the green. It avoids the road hole bunker and it settles three feet from the hole. She of course makes the birdie and this is when it's like, okay, it's on now. So she gets to the 18th. I should note, the AP's Doug Ferguson, who we still see

at tournaments, Doug Ferguson, he's still doing it. He was at the 2013 British Open, and he called it, by far, the shot of the tournament. And what I thought interesting, too, in the moment, he said, perhaps the shot of Stacey Lewis's career. And I think even 11 years on, I would love to ask her, but it still has to be the best golf shot that she's hit in her career.

So she gets to 18, she hits a drive, wide fairway, she's 40 yards short of the green. I remember this. And the next big decision, do you chip, do you putt? How do you wanna play this little 40 yard kind of, you know, you got to navigate the valley of sin. She thinks about it, she pulls putter, she hits a good putt, you know, she she, she kind of hits it up to about 25 feet. And this is kind of the putt of the tournament,

right? Ney, excuse me, Na Yeon Choi has, I'd mentioned she had bogeyed the 13th, well, she's bogeyed the 14th as well. So all of a sudden, this Stacey Lewis birdie putt on 18 becomes extremely, extremely important. And she caches the putt, she kind of her she's obviously very emotional, her hands dropped to her knees. I love this quote she gave afterward, just kind of about the whole day in general. She said, it's unbelievable talking about her whole round of golf. It all happened so fast at the end. You're afraid

for every shot and all of a sudden you make a couple birdies and it's over. I mean, what a way, I think what a great way to describe kind of chasing down a major title, you know, at a place like St. Andrews. Love that quote. So Stacey finishes her round. She's eight under par. She's birdied 17. She's birdied 18. Na-Yan Choi has dropped from nine under to seven under, but of course she still has four holes left to play. So Stacey has about a 45 to 60 minute wait as these final groups come in. And I think for a long time people were thinking playoff, certainly 18 is a good birdie opportunity, but the wind comes out of Nayeon Choi's sails on 17. She makes bogey on the road hole, meaning the championship is Stacey Lewis'. Nayeon Choi, after signing her card, I really love this quote too.

She finally realized what had happened, that Stacey had birdied 17 and 18. And Choi said, she birdied 17 and 18? That said she birdied 17 and 18 that's huge especially on this golf course and she would go on to give Stacey her props very gracious in defeat. So our final standings Stacey Lewis wins the 2013 women's British Open at eight under par. He Young Park would finish in a tie for second with Na Yeon Choi, both at six under par and then quickly rounding out the top 10. You had Suzanne Pederson and Morgan Pressell tied for fourth. Lizette Salas was the name. You know, Lizette always, she's done really well on Lynx Golf. She finished in sixth at three under. You had a pair of Japanese women, Miki Saki and Mamiko Higa at two under, and then a couple Americans, Nicole Castralli and Natalie Golbis finished tied for ninth

at one under par. MB Park, I said, this would prove to be a disappointing week for MB Park. She would finish 14 shots back of Stacey Lewis, tied for 42nd. So never really in contention. A few fun facts from the day. Stacey Lewis was the only player in the final 21 groups to play under par for her fourth round. So again, she just went out and won this championship, obviously culminated by the shot on 17, the birdie on 18.

This was a case of her winning the tournament, which was awesome. And at the time of this victory, Lewis's win snapped a winless streak for Americans across all the LPGA majors. It had stood at 10 majors, which at the time was the longest. I went back and the American women would experience a 12 major winless streak from Angela Stanford's 2018 Evian to Nellie Korda's win at the 2021 KPMG. But at the time, a lot of talk of what's wrong with American women, can they not win a major?

Lewis's win snapped that streak. It was her second major title. In fact, she was the one that had won prior to the winless streak. She had won the Evian back in 2011, or excuse me, the Chevron back in 2011. The Smythe Salver Trophy that year for Low Am was shared by two women that we all know,

Georgia Hall, who would go on to- 18 year old Georgia Hall we all know, Georgia Hall, who would go on. 18 year old Georgia Hall. 18 year old Georgia Hall, who would go on to win a British Open of her own in the coming years. And New Zealand's Lydia Ko also was a low am that year. So two very deserving, what would become very accomplished professionals showed out that week. Both turned professional the following year. Yeah, exactly. Just kind of putting this win for Stacey in context,

this would be her second and final. She is still playing. Maybe she'll capture some magic this week and run it back as the defending champ at St. Andrews. But I think it's probably safe to say that she's gonna end her career with the two majors. After this 2013 victory though, she would win five more times on the LPGA Tour. Of course, she's the Solheim Cup captain.

She did a very good job last year over in Spain with the 14-14 tie. And we'll kind of see how that's settled in a few weeks in Virginia at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club. But I think beyond that, I just, you know, Stacey, Stacey's just become a very important voice in professional golf. And certainly somebody that, you know, through her relationship with KPMG, I think was huge for the women's game, has really done a lot to advance the women's game specifically. And she's not afraid to speak her mind. We saw that last year with the Ryder Cup, you know, her thoughts that what a missed opportunity not to put the Solheim and Ryder Cup kind of more close together in Europe,

make it a two week celebration for the game of golf. She's not going to make the LPGA Hall of Fame, at least not playing her way in. She certainly could get there one day as an honorary member. But I think, you know, it's great to look back on her career. She has been one of the more important players both on the course and off the course in the 21st century, certainly on the American side. And I think, had a ton of fun kind of reliving this event. The drama of that fourth round had escaped me a bit, but what a worthy champion she was. She has said that St. Andrews is like her favorite place

in the world. She feels at home there. She loves the history. So she might have another run this year. And I think that would be a lot of fun. But that 2013 event, if you want to go to YouTube and watch that shot on 17, it's just a hell of a golf shot. And I think it epitomizes her week and really was the pinnacle of her professional career, which is cool. the pinnacle of her professional career, which is cool.

God, that's good stuff there. Big. So, yeah, guys, that's gosh, that's that's a lot of information dumped there. But I Jordan, I loved being walked through the history of this event. There are things that just blow your mind. There are things that I don't realize things that you know, memories that that get conjured up. As I think back on on some of these events that I did watch as a younger version of myself, Cody the Loreno chose stuff. I mean, first class, we we must effort her for a for a longer form interview. And then I had a great time with the Stacey Lewis win.

I just hope we have a great week this week. I hope it's a mix of fun, but yet tough conditions. I think the wind will be fresh. We might get a little rain Thursday. You never know. We could have pop-up showers any of the other days, but good to be back at the home of golf. And I hope for the women's game that it's a stop that they can make more frequently going forward.

Here, here, pigs. Very well said. Well, thank you everybody for listening. I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the women's British Open. Now the AIG Women's Open. Enjoy the coverage this week. Check us out all week. Again, happy hour tomorrow. Stage show, if you are in St. Andrews, come by the stage in the fan village at noon on Thursday. Come through, man.

Come on, come say hi. Friday night live show, check us out. That will be around 4 PM.m. 430 Eastern in the United States. And then of course, Sunday as well. Check out nolayingup.com for Jordan's Dispatches from St. Andrews. And of course, we'll be active on social media. So thank you everybody for listening. Enjoy the AIG Women's Open. Cheers. Cheers. Be the right club. Be the right club today. Johnny, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most.

than most. Better than most!