Twenty-five men can say they’ve won an Open at St. Andrews. However, only two women share that same feeling, though another is coming soon.
This week, The Open will be staged at the Home of Golf for the 30th time. The men’s Open was first played there in 1873, but it would be another 134 years before LPGA pros were given the same opportunity. Lorena Ochoa won the first AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews in 2007 and Stacy Lewis followed suit in 2013.
"(St. Andrews is) my favorite place in the world,” Lewis said Tuesday ahead of the LPGA’s Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational. “I love St. Andrews, being in that town. So just to see it on TV is really cool.”
But for Lewis and her fellow LPGA competitors, they won’t just be seeing it on TV in 2024 as the Women’s British will head to the birthplace of golf for the third time.
“We get to go back in a couple years,” Lewis said, “so I’m really excited for that. And I know (Maria Fassi, Lewis’ partner this week) will be. The younger players won’t have played there, so it will be a really special week for our tour again.”
Full-field scores from the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational
Fassi was nine years old when Ochoa, a fellow Mexican, won the Women’s British at St. Andrews. Though she doesn’t remember watching it, Fassi recalls the pride Mexico took in claiming the first female major winner at the birthplace of golf.
“I remember kind of everything that followed after that win,” Fassi said. “I mean, the pictures and just I was reading actually this morning something about like how crazy that night was in St. Andrews.
“Very on brand for us Mexicans to throw a good party after a win. So it’s pretty cool to see, like Stacy was saying, that only the two of them have their names written in history at St. Andrews.”
Fassi added: “Very excited to get to see a lot more of that hopefully in a couple years and get to experience what St. Andrews truly is.”
Lewis, who also helped Team USA to a Curtis Cup victory in 2008 at the Old Course by going 5-0, has such a deep admiration for St. Andrews that last year in between quarantine bubbles for the women’s Scottish and British Opens, she visited the historic greens.
“My caddie, Travis and I, walked around and reminisced a little bit,” she said. “Walked on 18 and stuff like that. It truly is, it’s my favorite place. Any opportunity I have I’m going to stop back through there.”
As the women’s game continues to grow, many of the LPGA’s next generation of stars will have a chance to etch their name in history at the Old Couse alongside Lewis, Ochoa and the slew of men who have vied for a major victory there. And maybe, after 2024, many of the LPGA’s young stars will feel as passionately about St. Andrews as Lewis and many others do.
“The [LPGA Tour] is going there to add another winner to that list, so I think just that opportunity for the women is huge. We have an awesome opportunity at Muirfield this summer. So just the investment across the board, we’re giving our players lots of great opportunities to do things that have never been done.”