Allisen Corpuz turned the primary girl to win a significant at Pebble Beach along with her three-stroke victory on the U.S. Women’s Open.
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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Allisen Corpuz performs golf with all of the expressiveness of a yogi in meditation. Her emotion-free physique language on Sunday at a significant is indiscernible from how she appears in a Tuesday observe spherical. At instances, it’s truthful to marvel if she even has a pulse.
That demeanor was obvious on Sunday at Pebble Beach — from her first tee shot to her last putt.
When Corpuz lastly did gap out on the 18th inexperienced, cementing her three-shot victory on the 78th U.S. Women’s Open, her steely exterior lastly cracked. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she embraced her caddie and was doused with water by her fellow professionals. As Corpuz walked off the inexperienced, she grabbed a towel from her bag to dry her face.
“My mind is racing,” she stated. “This is really a dream come true.”
With her win at Pebble, Corpuz, who’s 25, turns into the primary American winner of the U.S. Women’s Open since 2016 and the primary U.S. participant in 20 years to make the U.S. Women’s Open her first LPGA title. The victory vaults her to the highest of the LPGA season-long factors race and in addition makes her the primary girl to win a significant at Pebble Beach.
Sitting within the press tent with the Harry S. Semple Trophy beside her, Corpuz provided a frank evaluation of the most important win of her younger profession:
“I never thought I would get this far.”
Corpuz could not have foreseen this victory, however she’d, in actual fact, been constructing towards a second like this for a lot of her life.
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When Corpuz started her golf journey twenty years in the past on the island of Oʻahu, in Hawaii, she couldn’t even get the ball to fly the apron on the entrance of the vary.
“Honestly, I sucked,” she stated. “I just wanted to get better.”
And with exhausting work, enhance she did. Once she might clear the apron, she took purpose on the first flag. And then subsequent one. And the subsequent one. She rapidly turned one of many brightest younger gamers in her state, after which the nation.
In 2008, on the age of 10, Corpuz turned the youngest qualifier within the historical past of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links, breaking the document of fellow Hawaiian Michelle Wie West.
“She’s been such a huge role model to me,” Corpuz stated of Wie West, who performed in her final U.S. Women’s Open this week. “It was really awesome to break her record for the Public Links. But I’ve never really compared myself to her. I’ve always wanted to make my own name. She’s just served as a really big inspiration.”
While Wie West turned skilled as a teen, Corpuz took an alternate route. She remained an novice till she was 22, after a five-year run on the University of Southern California. In 2021, she earned her LPGA Tour card at Q-Series, and the next 12 months loved a stable — if unremarkable — rookie season.
Corpuz’s sophomore marketing campaign has been a breakout 12 months. She held the 54-hole lead on the Chevron Championship earlier than ending T4, after which completed T15 on the KPMG Women’s PGA.
All that was lacking was a win.
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Corpuz arrived at Pebble Beach for the U.S. Women’s Open with out a lot buzz. Despite sitting at seventh on the U.S. Solheim Cup workforce standings, she was on few brief lists to have a breakout week. Stars like Nelly Korda, Jin Young Ko, Minjee Lee and Rose Zhang stole the headlines.
But it wasn’t lengthy earlier than Corpuz might not be ignored.
Her three-under 69 within the first spherical elevated her into the highest 10, and he or she remained there the remainder of the week. With scores of 70 and 71 in Rounds 2 and three, Corpuz was in solo second, one again of Nasa Hataoka of Japan, because the solar set over the Monterey Peninsula Saturday evening.
“I don’t think I ever really thought I’d be in this position,” Corpuz stated. “Just really, really grateful to be here.”
In the ultimate spherical, there was little doubt of who was the very best participant on the golf course. Corpuz started her day with birdies on two of her first three holes to take the outright lead, and he or she by no means relinquished it. She added circles to her card on Nos. 7, 10, 13 and 15, the ultimate of which featured an ever-so-slight fist pump.
“I think that was the moment when I kind of knew,” Corpuz stated. “Like, I just need to get home.”
Corpuz had little hassle in that mission. She dropped a shot on the par-3 seventeenth, however with pars on 16 and 18, she put the ending touches on her maiden main — and LPGA victory — and have become the one participant to register top-15 finishes within the first three majors of the season.
“The fact that it’s a U.S. Open means a lot to me,” she stated. “But knowing that it’s at Pebble makes it even sweeter.”
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Corpuz walked off the 18th inexperienced to applause. The grandstands have been stuffed to the brim, with the crowds alongside the ropes 5 and 6 rows deep. Fans additionally lined the railing of the staircase resulting in Pebble’s clubhouse.
Among these within the crowd have been Corpuz’s greatest supporters. Her mates. Her household. Her faculty teammates. All of them wore beaming, some choking again tears.
“It’s super-special that both of my parents are out here this week,” Corpuz stated. “It was just really awesome to know that we’re at Pebble, such a historic venue.”
Corpuz emerged from her winner’s press convention with a pack of officers, cameramen, reporters and brokers trailing her. This is likely one of the perks — and complications — of successful a significant championship.
As Corpuz neared the 18th inexperienced, somebody from her workforce known as out for Corpuz’s mom, May, who discovered her approach by way of the group to her daughter. As they posed collectively for photographs with the trophy — Stillwater Cove shimmering within the background — May sobbed.
“It was something I had dreamed of,” Corpuz stated of her week.
But certainly even her goals weren’t this good.
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