Women’s Majors Bookend Tumultuous Year

The women started golf’s major season, as they have for almost half a century. Next week they will end it.

In a competitive calendar that seems increasingly compressed – wasn’t the Masters just a few weeks ago? – the LPGA Tour, with its five major championships, has provided some sturdy bookends to an otherwise tumultuous year in the game. No mutinies overshadowed the women’s majors; no suspensions or emergency press conferences or backroom whispers about “who’s next.” For the women, this major season was all about the venues and the quality of play.

The 2022 season was historic on a number of fronts, not the least of which being that the first women’s major was something of a finale. And the finish will be the start of something new.

The Chevron Championship – formerly the ANA Inspiration, and before that the Kraft Nabisco, but commonly referred to by those who’ve been around more than a minute as the Dinah for tournament-founder Dinah Shore – long prided itself on being golf’s first major every year. The week before the Masters, ...