RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — The 51st and final edition of the Chevron Championship at the Dinah Shore course started with a celebration of the end of the longest-running women’s major.

Jennifer Kupcho shot an eight-under 64 on Saturday, setting the 54-hole tournament scoring record to take a six-stroke lead and sit 18 holes away from her coronation as a major champion.

“Everything was working,” Kupcho said, “I mean seriously, this week I think my putting is definitely the props. I have putted really well, and you got to make putts in a major championship.”

After watching the final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in the morning to keep her mind off of what was ahead of her, Kupcho scorched the Coachella Valley. She birdied the second and third holes to move into a three-way tie for the lead at 10-under par alongside Patty Tavatanakit and 36-hole leader Hinako Shibuno. From there, the rout was on.

Kupcho birdied the fourth and fifth holes to make it four birdies in a row, with her 10-foot putt on the sixth narrowly sliding by the low side of the cup and keeping her from extending the streak to five.

Kupcho posted a five-under 31 on the front nine, giving a quick wave to the fans after dropping an eight-footer on the eighth for birdie.

The 2019 August National Women’s Amateur champion continued to pour it on from there, birdieing three in a row on the back nine to pull away at 16-under and threaten the tournament-record 62 Lydia Ko set in the final round last year.

Kupcho carded a birdie, a bogey and four pars the rest of the way to sign her card. The 24-year-old’s 200 total strokes earned her the 54-hole scoring record and bested the previous record of 202 set by Tavatanakit (2021) and Pernilla Lindberg (2018).

Kupcho couldn’t quite pinpoint where this round ranks among her all-time best, but she credited her mental game and her putting for helping her make history.

“It’s all a blur,” Kupcho said, “You’re just out there grinding shot by shot. I think that’s one thing I’ve really done well this week, is taking it shot by shot and not thinking about the end result.”

A sizzling 64 🔥

Watch highlights from @jenniferkupcho career round at the @Chevron_Golf 👇 pic.twitter.com/doD9wMNYfh

— LPGA (@LPGA) April 3, 2022

Instead of sports, Kupcho plans to watch “Bridgerton” ahead of her Sunday afternoon tee time. If she polishes off the victory Sunday, she will become the first American to win the Chevron Championship since Brittany Lincicome in 2015.

Tavatanakit, the defending Chevron champion, sits in second at 10-under par, a bit of a disappointment given how she started the day. The Thai native hit two birdies on the first two holes to get to 10-under with 16 to play. She struggled to maintain her momentum from there, carding three bogeys to fall to six back of the lead.

Tavatanakit will need a near historic comeback to reenter the winner’s circle Sunday. The most strokes a player has overcome to win the Chevron Championship was seven in 2006, when Karrie Webb, the Australian Hall of Famer, holed out for eagle on the 72nd hole to force a playoff against Lorena Ochoa.

Tavatanakit said she was up for the challenge.

“I like chasing,” Tavatanakit said, “Better feeling. You play without fear, and I love doing that.”

If Tavatanakit were to pull it off, she would be the first golfer to defend her title at the Chevron Championship since Annika Sorenstam in 2001 and ’02.

Entering Sunday, Jessica Korda is the only other player within seven strokes of Kupcho. The 29-year-old’s five-under 67 came from a clean front nine, where she went bogey-free for four-under par.

A six-time LPGA winner, Korda has the most victories on tour for a player without a major championship on her resume. Despite the drought, Korda has learned from experience that there is always a chance. She need look no further than last year, when Ko cut into Tavanakit’s 54-hole lead with a final-round 62.

“I was three-over through, like, seven on the first day,” Korda said. “I’m never out of it.”

A third round 67 and @Thejessicakorda is in the clubhouse at 9-under 👏

Watch the @Chevron_Golf now on @GolfChannel! pic.twitter.com/umvDm4zoDb

— LPGA (@LPGA) April 2, 2022

Shibuno, the leader after 36 holes, said she felt nervous at the start of her third round, especially on her drives and approach shots. The 2019 AIG Women’s Open Champion shot a five-over par 77 on Saturday and sits four-under entering the final round.

“My shots were left, right, to the left,” Shibuno said through her translator. “Tough day today.”

The day concluded with the sun setting over the looming San Jacinto Mountains, giving off purple and yellow hues one last time at the Chevron Championship.

From the LPGA’s 51-year history at the course, the players will remember the swaying palm trees, the burning desert heat and the roars of crowds. And whoever comes out on top Sunday will walk away with their name etched into the final slot of the tournament record books at Dinah Shore.

“I mean, just to be out here, I love this place,” Kupcho said. “I love stepping on this property. You just get positive vibes. It’s such a beautiful course, so I think I’m just taking it all in.”

Kent Paisley is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering golf and the LPGA. He also contributes to Golf Digest. Follow him on Twitter @KentPaisley.

The Chicago Sky showed up in a big way on Tuesday night, taking down 2023 WNBA Finals runners-up New York Liberty by an impressively wide margin. 

The Sky walked away with a 101-53 win, boasting a 48 point swing that still looms large despite the fact that it's only preseason. Perhaps the team felt extra pressure to perform — not only did WNBA League Pass follow through on their promise to stream the game for free, but Chicago Bears rookies Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze also happened to be watching on from the stands.

“I’m gonna just say — it’s about time," said Sky guard Dana Evans in response to the star-studded turnout at Wintrust Arena. "Everybody wants to watch women’s basketball. I feel like we’ve been doing a really good job of doing stuff on the court and off the court. So just having them support us is great — but keep bringing them out."

Chicago's Marina Mabrey was lights out with four threes and 20 points on the night, while training camp addition Chennedy Carter racked up 11 points and two steals. 

Sky rookie Angel Reese proved that she can do it all, putting up 13 points, five rebounds, and two steals in 19 minutes — all less than 24 hours after she walked the Met Gala red carpet in New York. The 6-foot-3 top draft pick out of LSU even knocked down a layup over 2023 WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart in one of the night's many highlights.

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"So now yall can delete them drafts & tweets saying i shouldn’t have gone to the met gala & i can’t do both," she later wrote on social media. 

While some may chalk it up to preseason coaching choices and the fact that it was the Liberty’s first real game outside of training camp scrimmages, New York head coach Sandy Brondello still voiced disappointed in her team’s result.

"We just got our butts kicked, everywhere. I mean everything. It’s an embarrassing effort, I don’t care that it’s preseason," she said in a postgame press conference. "Our starters didn't get us off to a good start. We missed a lot of layups early, but they just took us out of everything."

On a lighter note, the third-year Liberty coach had some kind words for undrafted rookie Jaylyn Sherrod, who showed real effort on defense.

"She has speed," remarked Brondello. "She could guard Dana Evans. No one else could."

As the WNBA plans to implement league-wide charter flights, the NWSL is struggling with some travel issues of its own. 

Missed flights, inclement weather, and a stretch of midweek games have spurred workload and logistical concerns for a number of NWSL teams. Last week, three games were played Wednesday night, while another three games are set to be played tonight. 

"You can't play your best XI right now because of the amount of games you have," said Red Stars head coach Lorne Donaldson after last Wednesday's 4-2 loss to Washington. Donaldson emphasized the importance of rotating through the team’s depth so as to avoid injury.

"You have to get to about 16 deep where you can," he continued. "Or else your best XI is going to be injured or walk off the field and they can’t finish the season."

Kansas City has faced some of the league's most extreme turnaround times this season. On Sunday, the Current missed an evening flight to Seattle due to a multi-hour rain delay in Houston, throwing off their training schedule ahead of their midweek match against the Reign. The NWSL eventually gave them the green light to charter a plane, but not before frustration spread throughout the team.

"We lost the whole day of the opportunity to recover," said Current head coach Vlatko Andonovski after the Current's weekend draw against the Dash. "So the schedule, it's already challenging to begin with. We have by far the worst schedule in the league, and this just made it even worse.

"We don't have a hotel, we got to figure out a hotel. We don't have flights for tomorrow, we got to figure out flights. We had trainings for some players that we believe needed training time to be able to perform on Wednesday.”

While the team was given permission to charter a plane, navigating such approvals has proven difficult in the past. This past July, the NWSL fined Kansas City $55,000 over the unauthorized use of a charter flight.

Recently retired WNBA superstar Candace Parker has her next gig lined up: president of women’s basketball at Adidas.

Parker announced her retirement at the end of April, bringing a close to a 16-year professional career spanning three WNBA championship titles with three different teams. And now, she’s stepping into a slightly different role — this time off the court — with longtime sponsor Adidas.

"The brand and I have grown together, and we’ve done some amazing things," she told Fast Company in an exclusive interview published Wednesday morning. "I’m excited about what the future holds on this side of things, because I’m so passionate about growing the game of basketball."

Parker initially signed with Adidas at the end of her first professional season in 2008, going on to spend the vast majority of her illustrious WNBA career linked to the German athletic brand. In 2010, she became the first woman to receive a signature Adidas shoe: the ACE Commander.

Her most recent Adidas collaborations include basketball sneakers Exhibit B (2022) and Exhibit Select (2023) in a variety of different colorways, as well as limited edition off-court apparel.

In 2022, Parker led a mentorship program for the brand’s first class of NIL-sponsored college athletes, a stacked roster that involved the likes of rising star Hailey Van Lith, among others. In her new position, she’ll be "overseeing pretty much everything" when it comes to the brand’s women’s basketball operations.

That "everything" includes weighing in on shoe and clothing design, navigating new and existing athlete partnerships, and taking control of Adidas' grassroots growth strategies. She’ll also help with "how we actually speak to the women’s basketball consumer," Eric Wise, who leads the brand’s global basketball business, told Fast Company.

According to Parker, the decision to accept the offer hinged on her desire to be more than just "the face" of Adidas women’s basketball.

"I said to [Adidas], 'I don’t want to be a mascot,'" Parker said. "'I really want to be in the meetings, and I want to be a part of making decisions.'"

Charter flights are on the horizon for the WNBA, with commissioner Cathy Engelbert saying on Tuesday that the league will provide teams with full-time private travel services beginning as soon as this season. 

The move is set to address years of player safety concerns, among other issues. Engelbert told AP Sports Editors that the league aims to launch the program "as soon as we can logistically get planes in place."

The initiative is projected to cost around $25 million per year over the next two seasons.

The WNBA has previously provided charter flights on a limited basis, including during the postseason and when teams were scheduled to play back-to-back regular season games. Individual owners seeking to independently provide their teams with private travel — such as the New York Liberty’s Joe and Clara Wu Tsai back in 2022 — faced significant fines for using unauthorized charters.

While players and team staff have been calling for league-wide charters even before Caitlin Clark and other high profile rookies joined the league, Engelbert has routinely cited steep year-to-year costs as the reasoning behind sticking to commercial flights. 

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However, the WNBA's surging popularity means increased visibility, and a subsequent uptick in security concerns — especially when it comes to big name newcomers like Clark — has Englebert reconsidering her previous decision. 

WNBA Players Association president Nneka Ogwumike called the move "transformational," and credited the WNBPA as well as the league for its implementation. 

"Our league is growing, the demand for women's basketball is growing," Ogwumike told ESPN. "That means more eyes on us, which is what we want, but that means more protection from the organization that we play for, the whole W that we play for.

"Chartering flights not only is a safety measure, the biggest thing, and then obviously what it means to be able to play a game and go home and rest and recover and be the elite athletes that we try to be every single night when we step out onto this court."

Aces coach Becky Hammon called the immediate response to the charter announcement "great" but noted that there are still kinks to be worked out. 

"What it all looks like, we’re still gathering information, we don’t know," she said Tuesday.

Several players emphasized the importance of safety, highlighting how last season the Phoenix Mercury’s Brittney Griner was harassed in an airport while traveling commercial.

"All these players and these faces are becoming so popular that it really is about that as much as it as about recovery," Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier said.

"Above everything else, I think it's the safety of our players," Mercury player Natasha Cloud added. "We have a prime example with BG on our team that needs to be safe. At airports, it's like a madhouse. You see Caitlin Clark walking through airports, people following her, people trying to touch her, get pictures with her. It's just a safety measure, through and through. You would never have an NBA team walk through an airport."

Prior to Tuesday's announcement, the league had said it would charter flights for the playoffs and back-to-back games via a program introduced last year. The latest news, however, promises that teams will also be provided charters to and from all regular season games.

"Our safety is being taken seriously now, finally. In no world should our security not be a priority," Griner told ESPN. "If we want to be the league that we want to be and have the respect that we have, it comes with some risks. Sometimes people want to get close to you and it's not people you want, so I'm just glad that we don't have to deal with that anymore."