Paula Martin Sampedro
CHARLIE CROWHURST, R&A via Getty Images
LYTHAM ST ANNES, ENGLAND | Spain’s Paula Martin Sampedro won the Smyth Salver, awarded to the low amateur at the AIG Women’s Open, after finishing T29 on 4-over par at Royal Lytham & St Annes.
The 20-year-old won last year’s Women’s Amateur Championship and European Ladies’ Amateur and is multi-titled in U.S. college golf where she represents Stanford.
In effect she retained the Smyth Salver, having won it last year when she finished T8 at Royal Porthcawl.
The only other amateur to make the cut was Korea’s Yunseo Yang, who finished T53 on 9-over par.
There was another Royal Lytham-associated amateur success when the club’s Jamie Van Wyk defeated Morton Bailey in the 36-hole final of the English Amateur Championship at Beau Desert.
His name is now added to those of Nick Faldo, Tommy Fleetwood and Danny Willett on the trophy, and he was being toasted by Royal Lytham members in the clubhouse on Sunday.
This year’s Open Championship at Royal Birkdale was nostalgia-tinged with the thoughts of everyone harking back 50 years to the performance of Severiano Ballesteros.
Inevitably, his name cropped up again at the AIG Women’s Open because the host course, Royal Lytham & St Annes, was where the great Spaniard won his first and last major championships, the 1979 and 1988 Opens.
For many in the field the glory days of Ballesteros are something of a mystery – an era long before they were born.
But not for Charley Hull.
“I prefer watching golf back in the 1970s and ’80s,” the Englishwoman said. “Golf back then was more of an art. You see all the old-school players. If it was a back-right pin they used to have to hit a high fade and cut the ball in, where these days you can just [aim] straight at the pin and you’re so far down there you are just hitting wedge instead of 6-iron.
“It was a lot more creative, and that’s the golf I like to watch and like to play. It’s more fun and more challenging.
“I hit some old hickory clubs last week and I loved the feel. I’ve always played with blades. I’ve never not played with blades. I like the challenge of needing to be a pure ball-striker to be rewarded for a good shot. Even though sometimes I might need a bit of help, I choose not to.”
Many ask what is needed for Hull to break her major championship duck. It won’t happen, but banning utility, rescue and similar clubs would help. So would forbidding cavity-back irons.
If everyone in the field had to use exacting clubs that demand the purest of strikes, Hull might not be seeking her first major championship triumph, but her fifth or sixth.
At Lytham on Sunday, Hull made two double bogeys on the front nine to derail her title hopes. She finished T6 at 1-under par.
World No. 1 Nelly Korda closed with a 68 at Lytham to finish T4, her second top-five finish in three years in the AIG Women’s Open. In her pre-championship news conference, however, Korda addressed the difficulties she’s had in the past with links golf.
“I would say I have a little bit of a love/hate relationship with it, depending on the bounces that I get,” she said with a wry smile.
She also added a subtle distinction, that the testing element of British and Irish seaside golf, which demands patience to deal with its capricious nature, also comes at a stage in the season when she feels her mental energy levels are already strained.
“I feel like you’re a little bit more on edge because you’ve been in these high-pressure moments throughout this middle part of the year when the majors are condensed on the schedule,” she said.
“I’m a little bit more tired so the bad bounces get to me a little bit mentally. So I’m just trying to not get into that state of mind. I want to control what I can control. It’s easy to say, harder to do, of course.”
Korda is correct: the last four majors of the LPGA’s 2026 season have come within the span of seven tournaments – and the last three of them in just four tournaments over a six-week period.
Japan’s Shiho Kuwaki, the newly minted winner of the AIG Women’s Open, is typical of her nation’s golfers in thriving on playing frequently.
She turned professional in late 2021 and in the four full seasons on the Japan LPGA Tour that followed she played 35, 38, 36 and 34 tournaments.
To put that in context, this year’s LPGA Tour season includes 31 events and the LET has 28 – and most players typically compete in around 80 percent of the tournaments on their home tour. (Kuwaki’s compatriot Rio Takeda played the most on last year’s LPGA schedule with 30 starts).
With the Open Championship scheduled to return to Royal Lytham & St Annes in 2028, last week provided an opportunity to assess how the course, which last hosted the oldest major championship in 2012, is likely to fare in two years’ time.
The first point to note is that Lytham is a wonderful course for spectators. Its dunes are not as high as Royal Birkdale’s, but there are many areas of high ground where it is possible to station yourself and then peer around, watching action on multiple holes.
You can also be in the tented village, decide to watch some back-nine action, and be on the 16th tee, 15th green or 14th tee inside 20 minutes.
In less time you could be standing between the second and fourth greens, watching action on both whilst also noting what happens on the fifth tee.
The best spot might be behind the third green. Not only do you see action there, but also on the fourth tee, the sixth green and the seventh tee.
The tight nature of the layout is, however, also a problem because there were 300,000 fans on site at Royal Birkdale and the R&A has already acknowledged that Royal Lytham cannot accommodate that number.
Even with reduced numbers, it is going to be a devilish task to manipulate large galleries around the far corner of the course.
Indeed, drone footage of Nos. 8, 9 and 10 are likely to resemble video footage of boa constrictors that have swallowed a goat whole and are yet to digest it.
Good luck to the championship operations team.
Matt Cooper
