For the second straight week, a major championship held not just the promise of etching players’ names in the history books, but also a last ditch effort for pros to book their trip to the Olympics. First came the men, at Pinehurst, where Bryson DeChambeau’s win was close-but-not-enough to join Team USA. Second came the women, at Sahalee, where Amy Yang’s career-defining win launched her into the Olympics field.
Yang leap-frogged from outside the qualification line to the top qualifying Korean, joining Jin Young Ko and Hyo-Joo Kim in the pursuit of gold in Paris later this summer. It also booked Korea as the only non-American country to host three players in the field.
Team USA is led by Nelly Korda, of course, with her six wins this year on the LPGA Tour. Korda will be joined by the No. 2 player in the world, Lilia Vu, who nearly won the KPMG Women’s PGA Sunday. Rose Zhang was always going to be on this team as well, ranking 9th in the world. But the Americans were on the verge of getting a maximum four players to France if Ally Ewing had just finished two strokes higher last weekend.
Ewing made a valiant effort by shooting 71 Sunday, but finished with a 37 on the back nine. Were that number a 35, she would have vaulted from T5 into solo second and cruised into the top 15 in the world. A maximum of four players from each country can make the Olympics, so long as they’re ranked in the top 15. Ewing’s final-nine 37 was enough to push her to 16th in the world, mere fractions of a point from donning the red, white and blue. (She will no doubt have another chance to do that later this summer at the Solheim Cup.)
Korda will look to defend her Gold medal from the 2020 Games, played in 2021, while Lydia Ko will look to be on the podium for the third time. Ko took home the Silver in 2016, in Rio, and then Bronze in 2020, in Japan. Missing from the 2024 Games will be Mone Inami, who won Silver in her home country of Japan, falling short of Korda by just a single stroke. You can find the entire list of Olympians below.
1. Nelly Korda, United States
2. Lilia Vu, United States
3. Jin Young Ko, Korea
4. Ruoning Yin, China
5. Amy Yan, Korea
6. Celine Boutier, France
7. Hannah Green, Australia
8. Charley Hull, Great Britain
9. Rose Zhang, United States
10. Yuka Saso, Japan
11. Minjee Lee, Australia
12. Atthaya Thitikul, Thailand
13. Hyo-Joo Kim, Korea
14. Brooke Henderson, Canada
15. Xiyu Lin, China
16. Lydia Ko, New Zealand
17. Miyu Yamashita
18. Maja Stark, Sweden
19. Patty Tavatanakit, Thailand
20. Linn Grant, Sweden
SOURCE: GOLF.COM
