Haeran Ryu wins KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, denying Nelly Korda’s run at history

· Yahoo Sports

Haeran Ryu has broken Nelly Korda’s chokehold on the major championships for women’s golf in 2026.

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Ryu shot a 70 on Sunday at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minn., to win the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, emerging from a crowded leaderboard in a final round that went far longer than anyone had planned.

As Ryu tapped in a par putt on the 18th green to finish at 13 under par, a crowd of her South Korean countrywomen surrounded her and sprayed her with champagne in what has become a trademark celebration in women’s golf.

Korda had won the Chevron Championship and U.S. Women’s Open already this year, and was bidding to become the third woman and first in 13 years to win the first three majors of the season. Korda got within two of the lead but faded down the home stretch to finish tied for eighth. With a win, Korda would have also clinched her spot in the LPGA Hall of Fame and passed Annika Sorenstam for No. 1 on the career money list.

Ryu, 25, is a first-time major champion. The South Korean is ranked 12th in the world and had a pair of top-five finishes previously in majors, but she started the day with a one-shot lead at 11 under par, in front of Brooke Henderson and Ina Yoon.

Yoon, who shot a 63 on Thursday and took a five-shot lead into the weekend, finished solo second, two shots behind Ryu. Henderson and Dewi Weber tied for third at 10-under.

A crowded sports landscape was always going to hurt the chances of the third major of the women’s golf season pushing through to a broader audience, but weather and TV contracts dropped the majority of the final round from network television entirely.

With the final round of both the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and the PGA Tour’s Travelers Championship slated to be on NBC Sunday, the former moved tee times up, going off in threesomes with the leaders at 10:25 a.m. ET. The expectation was that the final round would be completed by 4 p.m., when NBC would switch to the PGA Tour.

Instead, there was a 3.5-hour weather delay, as Hazeltine took on more than an inch of rain, which put both championships on roughly the same schedule. The final group was through seven holes at 4 p.m., when coverage moved to Golf Channel and Peacock. NBC did eventually go back to the Women’s PGA for the finish, with the Travelers under an extended weather delay.

NBC’s decision to go with the popular Travelers made viewership sense. A year ago, the PGA Tour signature event drew an average of 3.519 million viewers on CBS, while the LPGA major drew a disappointing 428,000 on NBC.

On Sunday, CBS had the WNBA’s reigning champ, the Las Vegas Aces, facing the Chicago Sky.

When play began, Ryu stumbled with three bogeys in her first five holes. Birdies on Nos. 7 and 9 got her to the turn in an even-par 36, but six players were within three shots of the lead.

Ryu, who had won three times on the LPGA Tour before Sunday, kept it going with birdies on a pair of par 4s at Nos. 10 and 12. She began the final three-hole stretch at Hazeltine, best known for hosting the 2016 Ryder Cup, with a three-shot lead, and played comfortable, careful golf, including taking a hybrid off the tee on the par-4 16th when Henderson took driver.

All Ryu had to do was hold where she was, and she did just that with pars on her last six holes.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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