The towering red cedar, hemlock and Douglas fir trees that line the fairways at Sahalee Country Club take generations to reach their majestic highs. That the champion took her time to reach a career milestone among them is fitting.
In her 75th major start, Amy Yang broke through with a career-defining victory at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. Yang’s career has been one of persistent elite play, with 21 top-10 finishes in majors before her victory last week in Washington. She now has a signature win previously missing from a deep on-course résumé.
In a week when saving par often felt like making birdie, Yang’s exquisite short game propelled her to victory. For the championship, the field scrambled at a rate of 46.8%. Yang got up-and-down 16 of 21 times (76.2%), best of anyone in the field.
This was an especially prescient metric given the entire field’s propensity for missed greens. Like most elite championship setups, the difficulty level was ratcheted up all week long. A field comprising the world’s best missed the green in regulation more than 40% of the time at Sahalee. Yang ranked second in the field in strokes gained around the green, picking up more than five shots on the field with her short game alone. It led to her carding just seven bogeys or worse for the week, fewest of any player in the field.
While Yang’s short game and bogey avoidance numbers stand out the most, she showcased every facet of her game to get the victory at Sahalee. Yang ranked eighth in strokes gained off the tee, 16th in approach and 20th in putting to go along with her sterling short-game performance. She was the only player in the field ranked in the top-20 in all four of the key strokes gained disciplines.
Yang entered the final round with a two-shot lead over Lauren Hartlage and Miyu Yamashita, giving her a 45.6% win probability according to KPMG Performance Insights. By the time she walked off the eighth green with birdie, that figure had ballooned to 90.6%, breathing room that undoubtedly made the pressure of major championship Sunday slightly less oppressive. Neither her bogey at No. 16 nor double at No. 17 knocked her win probability under the 99% mark.
While her name might have been unfamiliar to most fans who regularly follow the LPGA Tour, Miyu Yamashita showed at Sahalee why she’s racked up 11 wins on the JLPGA at just 22 years old. This season on that tour, Miyu ranks in the top-10 in fairways hit, greens in regulation, scrambling, birdie percentage and putting average. Last week, she was the only player in the field ranked in the top-15 in strokes gained off the tee, approach and putting.
Yamashita’s excellent week in the Pacific Northwest pushed her into the top-20 of the Rolex Rankings. She’s unquestionably a name to watch in the year’s remaining two major championships as well as the Olympics in Paris.
Had it not been for a front-nine 39 on Thursday, Lilia Vu may have won her third major championship last week. Vu opened the week with a 75 but still managed to finish in a tie for second place. Had she won, it would have been the highest opening-round score by a KPMG Women’s PGA champion since Kathy Ahern in 1972.
Lilia’s approach play was the key factor in her success at Sahalee. The Rolex Rankings No. 2-ranked player ranked fourth in the field in proximity from the fairway and in the top-10 in both strokes gained approach and overall approach proximity. Vu also improved her strokes gained putting figure each day for the week, capped off by picking up 3.47 strokes on the green Sunday, second-most in the field.
Not to be outdone was Vu’s Solheim Cup teammate Ally Ewing, who continues to play some of the best golf of her career in 2024. Ewing has now finished in the top-five in three consecutive LPGA Tour starts, two of which have been majors. She’s gaining 3.29 strokes on the field per round in that stretch, averaging more than 3.6 birdies or better per round. Ewing ranked third in the field at Sahalee in strokes gained putting and is now in the top-10 on the LPGA Tour this year in strokes gained total per round.
You would be hard-pressed to find a round quite like the one Lexi Thompson assembled in the final round at Sahalee. She got off to a nightmarish start, playing the first eight holes in 8-over-par. She hit only three greens in that span, dropping almost three full strokes to the field from tee to green.
While it would have been easy to melt under the heat lamp of that disappointment, Thompson bounced back emphatically. Lexi played the last 10 holes of the championship in 6-under, going bogey-free and gaining a ridiculous 5.16 strokes on the field tee-to-green in that span. She missed only one of her last 10 greens in regulation, too. Thompson’s tie for ninth place is her best finish in a major in two years.
It’s been five years since Jin Young Ko’s multi-major season of 2019, but Sunday in Washington she showed why it might not be long before she’s back in the winner’s circle at the game’s biggest events.
Ko gained a field-high 4.38 strokes with her approach play in the final round, her first time picking up four or more strokes in that metric in one day since April. Her average proximity to the hole for the day was an obscene 18 feet, 1 inch – 4 feet better than any other player (Yealimi Noh, 22’1”). Ko was the only player to gain double-digit strokes with her approach shots for the championship.
The Amundi Evian Championship, site of Ko’s last major triumph, begins July 11.
