This year’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship is the fifth major championship held at the Blue Course at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., and the first for women.

In addition, the LPGA plays the course for the first time since its year-and-a-half renovation in June 2021.

Here are some of the storylines to follow from this year’s tournament, which begins Thursday.

The major purse surge continues

The 2022 season will go down as one of historic purse raises on the LPGA Tour.

From the U.S. Women’s Open breaking tradition with the first presenting sponsor to bring the purse from $5.5 million to $10 million, only two weeks later the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship doubled from $4.5 million to $9 million.

“When this partnership came about and we had the first KPMG Women’s Championship in 2014, we really made a commitment,” PGA of America President Jim Richerson said. “We really wanted to make sure we utilized this event to showcase the best women’s players in the game and do that with one of the biggest purses.”

All five LPGA majors have had purses increase by over $1 million in 2022. The Chevron Championship went from $3.1 million to $5 million, the Amundi Evian Championship went from $4.5 million to $6.5 million and the AIG Women’s Open went from $5.6 million to $6.8 million. The total is an incredible $13.9 million increase in major purse size, just shy of the total purse of the LPGA’s 1990 season, which surpassed $14.8 million.

With a first-place check of $1.35 million, once the announcement reached players’ email inboxes, they quickly got moving to practice.

“Someone else said that the news hit while the players were in dining,” LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan said, “and all of a sudden they all scurried out to the range. That was the joke in dining.”

.@KPMGInspire announces the purse will DOUBLE from $4.5 to $9 million effective this week. LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan joked that players learned via email during lunch and after hearing the news the players all headed to the range to begin practicing. pic.twitter.com/vqEYgWKhgw

— Amy Rogers (@TheAmyRogers) June 21, 2022

It’ll be the fourth check exceeding a million dollars handed out this year, with Minjee Lee and Mina Harigae winning $1.8 million and $1.05 million, respectively, at the U.S. Women’s Open and $2 million to the CME Group Tour Championship victor, the first multi-million dollar prize in LPGA history.

U.S. Solheim Cup 2021 roster performing well at majors

American Solheim Cup Captain Stacy Lewis had 20 players out for dinner in Bethesda to chat about the team and keep them in the loop about plans for the 2023 match-play event in Spain. While Lewis didn’t point out any specific name, she gave props to potential rookies Lilia Vu, who finished third at the LPGA’s Bank of Hope Match Play in late May, and Andrea Lee, who posted two top-five finishes in her last five starts.

Lewis went on to acknowledge team veterans Nelly Korda, who lost in a playoff last week in her second start since returning after four months away due to a blood clot complication, and Lexi Thompson, who has four top-five finishes in eight starts this season.

“I think American golf is in a good spot,” Lewis said, “It’s just different faces than everybody is used to, and that’s just the natural progression of it. There’s always going to be changes. There’s always going to be changing kind of rolling over of players. This new guard coming up is really good. Got some new names for people to learn.”

LIVE from Congressional: Stacy Lewis Press Conference https://t.co/iJM7yeGM03

— KPMG Women's PGA Championship (@KPMGWomensPGA) June 21, 2022

Three Americans have won or finished runner-up at the year’s first two majors. First, Jennifer Kupcho won the Chevron Championship, with Jessica Korda finishing in second. Then Mina Harigae followed up with a runner-up finish at the U.S. Women’s Open.

Kupcho became one of two multiple-time winners in 2022, along with Minjee Lee, after defeating Korda and Leona Maguire in a playoff last week at the Meijer LPGA Classic.

“I think for sure we’re definitely trending that direction more so than even when I first came out here,” Kupcho said, “I think there’s a lot of great American players right now.”

Minjee Lee takes aim at third major

Last year, Nelly Korda was No. 3 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings before winning the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. This year, Lee — arguably the top-performing golfer on the LPGA this year with two wins, including the U.S. Women’s Open, and eight top-25 finishes in nine starts — sits in the No. 3 spot in the world rankings.

Fueling the Australian’s campaign is the working out she did in the offseason, mainly throwing a medicine ball around to average 270 off the tee. It’s eight yards further than 2021, helping her to lead the tour in birdieing 26.7% of her holes, a 2.5% lead over Atthaya Thitikul and a 5% leap from last season.

It led the eight-time winner to the 72-hole scoring record in the U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles (271), and she’s leading the LPGA in major scoring with a combined score of 38-under par, leading Nelly Korda by four strokes.

Swing of a 2x major champion 💪@minjeegolf | @KPMGWomensPGA pic.twitter.com/kwMVzjFqgV

— LPGA (@LPGA) June 22, 2022

If her current form holds, Lee may end up in the winner’s circle for her third major title in her last five major starts, becoming the first multi-major winner in a season since Jin Young Ko in 2019.

“I like to embrace the challenge [of majors],” Lee said, “and I think the harder the golf courses get, I think the better I play. You do have to focus a little bit more on smaller details, so I think that’s where I kind of excel. When I play under pressure, that is where I excel as well. I think it just really sets up well.”

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.

25-year-old American pro golfer Nelly Korda secured her spot in LPGA history on Sunday, notching her fifth-straight title at this weekend's Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas.

Ranked No. 1 in the world by Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda joins Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sörenstam (2005) as just the third LPGA player to rack up five consecutive tour wins. She is also the third No. 1-ranked player to capture The Chevron Championship victory since the rankings debuted in 2006, accompanied by Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LPGA Tour (@lpga_tour)

The Florida native shot three-under 69 in Sunday's final, besting Sweden's Maja Stark despite Stark's valiant come-from-behind attempt in the 18th. Korda finished with a four-day total of 13-under 275, celebrating her two-stroke win by cannonballing into Poppie's Pond, much to the crowd's delight. She left The Club at Carlton Woods with $1.2 million from an overall purse of $7.9 million.

It wasn't long ago that the two-time major champion's current winning streak seemed unimaginable. After maintaining her No. 1 position for 29 weeks, Korda underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm in 2022. She returned to the course not long after, but failed to win a single tournament in 2023 before seeing a surge in form during the first four months of 2024. As of today, she hasn't lost a tournament since January.

Korda will attempt a record sixth-straight win at next week's JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, where she'll vie for a cut of the $3.75 million purse.

USWNT regulars Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson furthered their cases for Olympic inclusion with their respective club victories on Saturday and Sunday.

After a roller coaster of a week that saw former Thorns head coach Mike Norris reassigned and a flurry of last-minute roster reshufflings as Friday's trade window closure loomed, the NWSL sprung to life over the weekend with standout performances from ninth-place Portland and third-place Chicago, among others.

After her blocked attempt at goal set up a volleying sixth-minute opener from veteran Christine Sinclair — now the only player in history to record a goal in all 11 NWSL seasons — Smith swiftly netted her own in the 27th minute off a breakaway run that eluded Houston's backline. The goal represented Smith's third of the season as well as her 35th for the Thorns, ultimately leading to the home side's first win of the season in a 4-1 routing of the Dash.

But that wasn't Smith's only stat of the evening. The star forward also lapped former Chicago Red Star Sam Kerr to become the youngest player to reach 50 NWSL goal contributions across all games, chalking up 40 goals and 10 assists at the age of 23 years and 254 days.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

"Obviously it feels good to get a win," said Smith in a post-match press conference. "But this is the standard the Thorns have always had. So a win is great, but a win is the expectation — we're hungrier than ever after the way we started."

170 miles up the road, Lumen Field similarly showcased some promising Olympic prospect footwork on Sunday. In Chicago's 2-1 victory over the lagging 13th-place Seattle Reign, striker Mallory Swanson racked up an impressive counterattack assist on fellow forward Ally Schlegel's fourth-minute goal. Swanson went on to find the back of the net herself before halftime, lacing an explosive ball into the top corner in the 31st minute, her second of the season after returning from a lengthy sidelining injury.

Speaking of injuries, fellow USWNT favorites Alex Morgan and Tierna Davidson were not as fortunate as their national squad teammates this weekend. Each exited their club matches early, Morgan with an ankle knock in San Diego's loss to Orlando and Davidson with an apparent hamstring incident early on in Washington's win over Gotham.

LSU came out on top at the 2024 NCAA women's gymnastics championship in Fort Worth on Saturday, besting Cal, Utah, and Florida to capture their first-ever title.

The Tigers' win was far from a landslide. LSU took the first rotation handily thanks to 2024 All-Around winner Haleigh Bryant's team-leading 9.9375 backed by four additional 9.9+ scores from her teammates. But Utah then responded with three strong beam performances of their own, causing the Red Rocks to slide confidently into second place by the end of the second rotation.

By the halfway point, all four teams fell within .288 points of one another before Utah overtook the pack with a dominant floor showing after three rotations. LSU then went on to ace the beam event with Konnor McClain's meet-leading 9.9625 score, coming away with the highest collective score ever awarded to the event in NCAA championship history. The achievement propelled the Tigers to victory, ensuring them the title after the final rotation.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

"This team is full of individuals that have incredible character and integrity and love for each other and all the things you hear from coaches when they sit at a podium like this in a moment of victory, but I promise you it's a real thing," said LSU coach Jay Clark in a post-meet press conference. "I'm just so happy for them."

Contributing to Saturday's atmosphere of excitement was the absence of last year's champion and this year's heavily favored Oklahoma Sooners. Hot off earning the highest team score in NCAA history just last month, the top-ranked Norman squad suffered a shocking loss in the semifinals, where five major mistakes contributed to a third-place finish and a season-low team score of 196.6625.

With Oklahoma out, it was truly anyone's game.

"Every team was out there fighting for their lives — all four teams, it could have gone any of four ways out there," Clark told reporters. "As much as I feel for what happened to Oklahoma in the semifinals, I think it made for a championship that became so packed with emotion because every team out there believed they could do it. It was just tremendous."

LSU is now the eighth program in the sport's history to earn an NCAA women's gymnastic championship.
They share the honor with Georgia, Utah, UCLA, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, and Michigan.

Cameron Brink already has her rookie of the year pick for the upcoming WNBA season, and it’s Indiana-bound star Caitlin Clark. 

In the latest edition of Kelley on the Street, host Kelley O'Hara caught up with Brink in New York hours before the Stanford phenom went No. 2 overall to the Los Angeles Sparks at the 2024 WNBA Draft. When O’Hara asked who would win the WNBA's rookie of the year, she answered without pause.

"Caitlin Clark," she said, while a fan commented that she thought Brink would take home the award. Brink later added that the extra foul granted to WNBA players will be "good for me."

"I hope it’s me," Charisma Osborne, who was later drafted by the Phoenix Mercury, said when asked her ROY prediction. "But, I don’t know — we’ll see."

Watch more of Kelley on the Street: