ROGERS, ARKANSAS | There’s been a lot of talk lately about 54-hole events and how they fit into the golf ecosystem. Is it really a championship if you only tee it up for three rounds? Can you call yourself a real “winner” without a full 72? Colleges do it all the time, playing 36 holes on Mondays and 18 on Tuesdays before heading back to their respective campuses, but even at the amateur level, the biggest stroke-play events, including the NCAA Championship, go a full 72 holes. So, how do you judge the value of a 54-hole contest?
Fortunately, there’s no need to guess. Fifty-four holers (the Roman numerals of which are LIV, which adds no more historical heft than playing in kilts), have been a staple of the LPGA Tour since the organization’s founding.
The first Chevron Championship, then called the Colgate-Dinah Shore and won by Jane Blalock, was only 54 holes. Anna Nordqvist’s second major, the Amundi Evian Championship, was also 54 holes (actually 55, because it took a one-hole playoff for Nordqvist to win).
If you’re a fan of the game, you likely know those players and those wins. But you might not have known that they were less than four complete rounds.
French star Celine Boutier has five wins on major professional tours – two on the LPGA and three on the Ladies European Tour – but you probably didn’t know that three of those were 54-holers.
Nancy Lopez has 48 LPGA Tour victories, 17 of them in fewer than 72 holes, while Betsy King won 34 times, 14 of those in three rounds.
These days, only two LPGA Tour events are 54 holes: the ShopRite LPGA Classic in New Jersey, which Brooke Henderson came from behind to win in dramatic fashion this summer, and the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship presented by P&G, which was contested last week and authored one of the most fun finishes of the year.
“Everyone kind of knows that you have 18 holes less than a typical event, and it makes you want to get out there and shoot a good round just to get the jump. We're trying to keep that mentality, stay more aggressive, more than standard."
Megan Khang
They’re not quite sprints, but 54-hole contests are far from marathons. As Morgan Pressel said on Sunday in Arkansas, “A three-day tournament gives you fewer opportunities to make a mistake.”
“Everyone kind of knows that you have 18 holes less than a typical event, and it makes you want to get out there and shoot a good round just to get the jump,” said Megan Khang, who finished in a seven-way tie for fifth. “We're trying to keep that mentality, stay more aggressive, more than standard. But at the end of the day, it’s also about keeping your same game plan.
“For me, I try to hit the refresh button and just kind of go into the next day as, ‘Hey, this is a new day, new round.’ Who knows what the body is going to say? You’ve got to deal with the task at hand and focus on the next shot.”
You also have to focus on making birdies fast and often. Walmart has been hosting short-week shootouts for 15 years. Last week, in the final nine holes, 25 players were separated by four shots. Fans were treated to birdies, eagles, a couple of nervy double bogeys, and, in the end, a playoff with two of the most talented players in the women’s game.
“It's been a fun week,” said Lydia Ko, who won the Walmart in 2016, finished in that same tie for fifth, and hasn’t fired a single round over par in 31 trips around Pinnacle Country Club. “I love seeing the fans out here. I think this weekend was one of the best crowds we've had (on the LPGA Tour) in a while. Nice to kind of play in front of them.”
Danielle Kang, who said she felt like crying just being back in contention after taking a long break to recover from a tumor on her spine, shot a final-round 64, capped off with a pitch-in eagle on the final hole, a shot where she could not see the bottom of the flagstick.
Kang didn’t quite put on a Tom Kim-level show, but the roars when that shot fell reverberated all the way to Oklahoma.
That left the outcome in the hands of Atthaya Thitikul, the 19-year-old who was Player of the Year on the LET a year ago. Thitikul, a long-hitting Thai who shot a 61 on Saturday, had to lay up on the par-5 18th after pulling her tee shot. Still, she had a 20-footer for birdie to win outright, a putt that looked good until the very end when it hung a little high.
The subsequent playoff began on the 15th, a par-3 one Walmart aisle over from the 18th-green grandstands. Both players halved that one with nervy pars, and went to the difficult par-4 16th, a hole where fans ate barbecue, chicken and waffles, and called the hogs – “Woo pig, suey” – all week. Thitikul birdied that hole to end it.
So, this one took 56 holes. But you couldn’t have asked for a better week.
That’s typical of the Walmart NW Arkansas. There are a lot of things to criticize in today’s game. But as LPGA Tour history shows, 54-hole events are not among them.
Top: Atthaya Thitikul beats Danielle Kang in a playoff at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship to notch her second LPGA victory.
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