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Chapter 1: What is the significance of Riviera hosting the US Women’s Open?
Be the right club today.
That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most.
Expect anything.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. Solly here. Apologies for the AirPods for this intro. We are ending our trip here in Scotland, headed out west to L.A. to Riviera for the United States Women's Open. That is what today's episode is all about. We're going to preview this. We recorded this a couple weeks ago before we left for Scotland.
We're going to be heading out there.
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Chapter 2: How will the course setup differ for the US Women’s Open compared to the PGA Tour?
Got a lot of fun stuff on tap. We'll have a live show on Friday night. We're going to be hanging out with our friends from Ally on Thursday night. If you're going to be around, come on out, hang out. Today's episode is going to be presented to you by our friends at Titleist and the new Titleist GTS drivers. Every week, the list of players switching to GTS drivers gets longer.
Last week's Charles Schwab Challenge on the PGA Tour, 43 of the 59 Titleist drivers in play were the new GTS 2, GTS 3, or GTS 4 models. GTS was also the choice of the NCAA Division I Women's Champion. Players continue to put their trust in Titleist driver performance and technology at the game's highest levels.
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Chapter 3: What storylines are emerging for this year’s US Women’s Open?
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Chapter 4: How does weather impact the course conditions for the tournament?
Let's get to the podcast.
ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the no laying up podcast solly here it is finally when they when they said that the us women's open was going to riviera in 2026 i remember that feeling like it was not a real year that we would ever reach but we have reached it uh and we are here to preview uh this week big randy is here hello mr big hello everybody very excited i'm like you solly i remember being so stoked and thinking oh my god it's so far in the future and here here we are tc is here hello tc
Buenos dias. Stoked to get out to LA. It's going to be awesome.
cody is here hello cody hello excited boys uh you know nothing nothing gets you going quite like the us women's open well randy you've always had this affinity for riv uh you know we always obviously talk about riv every year when it rolls around for the genesis you know every once in a blue moon you're gonna get the year like we got this past year in the winter and and we all say that yeah the genesis should move to a different time of year blah blah blah what is about riv that really captivates you and uh has you stoked for this week
I just, listen, some of it is silly and I think some of it is serious. I think Riv is just a really cool piece of land, kind of, well, in the Pacific Palisades, but near LA, Southern California, this very tony country club.
But the golf course, man, God, it just, every time growing up, it'd roll around in February, the weather where I was is so shitty, and it just looked marvelous all the time on television. And I think it yielded some of the more interesting golf we would see on, I'm speaking now of the PGA Tour, of the West Coast swing, always seemed to produce really good leaderboards, some iconic holes.
Like it's rare for me to be able to remember a lot of holes from just like,
annual tour stops right because the courses aren't really the star of the show and i i always thought riv kind of was the star of the show and uh the big cypress trees the kukuya grass the barrancas like it just felt very foreign to me growing up in the midwest and so there's this like mythology in my mind it's just like man it's california cool and
the women have never gotten there they've never played a us open and so i'm really excited as we've seen distances explode on the men's side i think one of the really cool things about this women's open is
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Chapter 5: What are the challenges of playing on Kukuya grass?
we know it's going to be a tough test it's it's a usga setup like i i just think i'm really excited for it i i just think riv is a great venue and it's going to produce a great test i hope so at least
We have an interview we're going to get to here shortly with Shannon Ruyard, who is the director of championships for the USGA on the women's side. And we're going to detail a lot of this as well. But TC, what about June excites you as the agronomist, the resident agronomist here on staff? What's going to be different specific to the June element of this tournament?
Yeah, hopefully no June gloom. Hopefully it's, you know, it's sunny and stuff. I feel like, I remember watching the 20, was that 2018 when the US AM there? Doug Gim and Dr. Redman.
I think it was 17. 17? Okay.
Yeah, 17. But granted, that was what, late July, early August for the AM? But yeah, just a different, much less moisture, right?
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Chapter 6: What strategies will players need to employ at Riviera?
Much less, like it was just faster and just balls on the ground. It was faster. uh so i'm stoked for that i'm stoked i don't know like like randy said anytime we get to see riviera really fun to watch
two very different styles of play as well like watching the ladies attack this place and i think it's gonna be a fascinating setup discussion as you said i've got the got the interview with shannon but from the like it's not really a place that you can really run the ball up because of the kukuya grass and so like i'll be fascinated to see how they set set stuff up like four i mean i think even like one do they tee off from the regular like one is
but by all accounts a par four for the men do they tee off from the regular tee box for the women and just
know send them out there and then they and then they they basically shorten the two par fives in the back i'm shocked or i'm fascinated to see like where they play 10 from uh where they play a whole like like four from that's you know just a brutish par four and like there's just such a wider range of outcomes sorry par three like there's such a wider range of outcomes for what these ladies are gonna be hitting in to you know i would imagine they probably have it up around 190 195 and
I'm really, really excited to see how the ladies attack this place versus what the men do.
got into some of that with with shannon as well but cody what do we miss you're always sitting on like a gold mine of information you don't you know you kind of you sneak up on us and just drop massive bombs on us with a lot of this stuff hopefully not massive bombs but uh venues matter boys and this is a prime example i i think they announced that we were going to riviera in 2022 we were at pine needles at the time a classic u.s women's open venue but there's always been this thing of
why not all these others and i shout out to the usga at the time they brought in pro medica rest in peace to pro medica but what they did is they they elevated the purse and they jumped from 5.5 to 10 million dollars and it was a huge jump and and to put women's professional athletics on the platform that's very similar to the men at the time
it's obviously inflated and now you know we're still back to like the 50 mark for major championships but it was a huge move and now you have ally that's come in behind prometica and has continued to invest in not only the venues the purses but overall the product and i think we're going to get to all of that too i'm really excited about this because you're right there's a ton
of history at riviera we this is the first time that we're going to be able to see it in june i'm really really excited because a huge shout out again the usga in two years time we're gonna see this end of july in august for the olympics both men's and women's and i can't wait to see is this a little taste of what we're gonna see then because i think we've always thought about prime time la
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Chapter 7: Who are the top contenders for the US Women’s Open this year?
And we'll react a little bit in the back half and give you our storylines for the week. So we see Riviera every winter on the PGA Tour in the wintertime. What's it going to look like in June and how will it look different for the United States Women's Open?
Well, you know, we're going to be on the back end of spring and as we approach summertime and we're anticipating the golf course is going to play a fair bit differently. Hopefully Mother Nature is going to cooperate and provide us a bit more of fast and firm conditions for the upcoming championship.
So we're recording this part a couple of weeks out from the championship. What's your weather app look like right now? Are you just refreshing every day as to what Southern California weather looks like?
Yeah, I mean, I call me a total golf nerd on my phone. I have all my sites in my weather app, so I can go on any given day and look to see what the weather's like in Pacific Palisades and all of my future sites. So I'm a bit of a... golf administrator, a weather nerd in, uh, in that regard.
But, um, you know, we're, we're certainly expecting a typical win, um, West Southwest that will, you know, have an impact on our setup plan and the way the best female players play, uh, throughout the week.
For those that aren't familiar with your background, how long have you been in charge of the setup for U.S. Women's Opens?
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Chapter 8: What are the future venues for the US Women’s Open?
You have a playing history with this championship as well and USGA championships as well, but for the listeners' sake, can you give us a little bit of background on that?
Yeah, so I started playing golf when I was 15, played college golf at the University of Oregon. I walked on and earned a full ride my junior year, had a short stint playing professional golf, then went on to become a college golf coach at the University of Oregon. Then I took a turn and came to the USGA, started golfing. in the rules department and moved over into championships in 2012.
I've played in eight or nine USGA championships, including a women's open back in 99. I was fortunate to play a practice round with Julie Inkster, Dottie Pepper, and Nancy Lopez. That was at Old Waverly. Some may recall Julie Inkster won that women's open with a record score, and it was certainly a highlight of my career. I'll say that.
How long have you been working with the USGA and involved with championships and kind of in this role?
So I've been in this role overseeing the Women's Open setup since 2017. So how many years was that? I stopped counting.
Is this 10 now, I guess that would be? It doesn't seem like it. It seems like it was three years ago, but I think time kind of started bending around the 2020 time period.
Exactly, with COVID in there.
Yeah. How would you describe or define, I guess, the test the USGA is trying to administer for the US Women's Open?
Well, let's face it. We are known for wanting to produce the toughest test that players see all year, but also a fair test of golf. We want to test their shot making, their mental and physical resolve, as well as their course management. We want to get all their clubs dirty, but yet...
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