LANCASTER, Pa. — Lancaster Country Club’s treacherously steep 18th green stared at Yuka Saso on Sunday evening from an all too familiar angle.
A chip from just short of the putting surface on one of the most severe back-to-front greens on the property stood before her as the shot that could seal her second U.S. Women’s Open victory at 22 years old. Leading by two shots, a memory flashed into Saso’s mind. It wasn’t a good one. For many players, even the semblance of such a thought would trigger their downfall. Saso seized the information instead and used it to her advantage.
“I chipped from the front yesterday too, and I left it more than 10 feet (short)” Saso said, recalling her bogey on Saturday’s closing hole. “I just told myself to be aggressive, and not to be short by 10 feet. I’m glad that I was able to do it.”
She clipped the ball off Lancasters’ tight fairway grass, causing it to hop, skip and roll out to 21 inches, leaving a tap in for par. Saso learned from her Saturday blunder, envisioned her intended result, and executed it. That’s exactly how Saso prevailed while her competitors crumbled.
Saso didn’t peek at leaderboards on Sunday afternoon. She didn’t need to. She found the will within herself, just as in 2021 when she won her first U.S. Women’s Open at the Olympic Club — her only other LPGA victory. Saso’s rock-solid process and patience carried her until the championship’s final moments. Others at the top of the leaderboard could not say the same.
“I’m not sure how the others played,” Saso said. “I just tried to be focused on my routine and my game.”
TWICE AS NICE! 🏆🏆
Yuka Saso has won the U.S. Women’s Open for the second time!#USWomensOpen | @Ally pic.twitter.com/TIIMUIvhfd
— U.S. Women’s Open (@uswomensopen) June 2, 2024
Three shots back to start the final round, Saso wasn’t as firmly in the conversation about potential champions as her three peers — Minjee Lee, Andrea Lee and Wichanee Meechai — who stood tied at the top at 5-under. But as Sunday unfolded, the leaders began to feel Lancaster’s wrath. Thanks to water balls and wayward tee shots, they fell like dominoes, and it slowly became clear that Saso should have been a favorite, if not the favorite. She’s been on this stage before, and a three-shot gap in this U.S. Open was practically meaningless.
Saso played the front nine in one over par, with one birdie and one nasty four-putt double bogey on the par-3 sixth hole, where the pin was placed just four paces away from the green’s sharp edge, which borders a creek. After marking down a 5 on her card, she deposited her ball into the water — ridding herself of the negative presence — and listened to a brief pep-talk from her caddie, before moving on.
Then, Saso went on an improbable tear, one that few could have expected to witness by anyone on this brutally difficult U.S. Open setup, let alone during the championship’s final round. Saso made five consecutive pars to bounce back from her costly double. She followed that stretch with four birdies in the span of five holes. The first came on the par-3 12th, the same hole that ejected world No. 1 Nelly Korda from the championship within hours of its commencement and played at almost half a shot over par for the week. Saso hit her tee shot 10 paces past the pin and to the right. She drained the lightning-fast putt for birdie.
Playing in the final group, two pairings behind Saso, Minjee Lee watched her tee shot plummet off the front edge of the 12th green into the hazard. She walked off the hole with a double. The chances of Lee capturing her second U.S. Women’s Open vanished within seconds.
Saso not only persisted where her competitors saw their demise. She thrived.
Saso continued to climb up the leaderboard, with birdies on 13, 15 and the driveable 239-yard 16th hole, where she nailed her 3-wood to 16 feet. A three-putt bogey on the 17th caused her multiple-shot cushion to be slightly less comfortable. But Andrea Lee made the ultimate result inevitable: The Stanford product bogeyed her final two holes, as Saso’s peers emptied water bottles onto her head in the scoring tent to celebrate the win as it became official.
Yuka Saso’s back nine charge was enough to win her second major. (Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
It wasn’t just Saso’s mind that unlocked the keys to surviving a U.S. Women’s Open that beat down some of the biggest names in the sport. Her style of play made it easier to conquer the Lancaster beast. Saso is top 20 in LPGA average driving distance, she launches her irons high into the air, and this week, her putter got hot. Saso led the field in strokes gained putting at Lancaster.
“She hits it long. She hits it high. She putts it well. Those are all the things you need to win a U.S. Open, right?” Saso’s caddie, Dylan Vallequette said, standing outside the scoring tent at Lancaster.
Saso, who represented her mother’s native country of the Philippines when she won at the Olympic Club in 2021, but now plays under the Japanese flag, the nationality of her father, was in tears speaking of her family’s support of her professional career during the 18th green winner’s ceremony. Three years have passed since that maiden victory. She admitted that she didn’t know when, or if, the next one would ever come. But Saso kept at it, honing in on every part of her game, because that’s what it takes to pull off a victory like this, she said.
“I try not to focus on one thing, because to be able to win a tournament everything has to work,” Saso said on Friday. “Everything has to come together to win a tournament.”
Everything fell into place for Saso this week in Lancaster — from her putting stroke to her patience — while her competitors fell apart. That’s what Saso knew it would take, and that’s how she became a champion yet again.
(Top photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
