By ED TRAVIS
The 80th U.S. Women’s Open will be memorable for three distinct reasons starting with Sweden’s Maja Stark gutsy play in rounds three and four with scores of 70 and 72, two under par which bettered the field average by 7.4 strokes for the two days.
Stark showed she could play the proper shot at the proper time as illustrated by her bogey on the 72nd hole not jeopardizing the lead she had worked so hard to maintain. She triumphed by two shots over world number one Nellie Korda and Rio Takeda from Japan.
The course Erin Hills is located 35 miles north of Milwaukee, Wisc. and was very difficult as was shown by the average score of the field for the four days of 296.6. Stark’s winning score was 281. Over 1,900 players, the second most ever, entered qualifying for the 156 spots in the 2025 championship.
Erin Hills opened in 2006 as is a design by Dr. Michael Hurdzan, Dana Fry and Ron Whitten and covers more than 600 acres of rolling—at times very steep—terrain. The par-72 layout played to a daunting 6,835-yards and was also the venue for the 2017 U.S. Open won by Bruce Koepka.
Finally, for the second year the purse was $12 million with the winner receiving $2.4 million, the largest payday in women’s golf.
Stark joins Annika Sorenstam and Liselotte Neumann as the only natives of Sweden to have won the U.S. Women’s Open.
Perhaps the best expression of Stark’s determination was in her after-round interview Sunday, “I didn’t look at the leader boards until I was on like 17. I caught a glimpse of it. It was nice. I wasn’t as nervous as I thought that I would be because it felt like I have somewhat control of my game and I kind of know what’s going on. Then obviously with the pressure and everything, your mistakes get bigger, but it felt like I could just like control anything that was thrown at me really today.”
