Brooke Henderson has been coming to Las Vegas for the T-Mobile Match Play for five years. Never has she seen conditions like the ones players faced Wednesday morning at Shadow Creek.
Temperatures in the high 40s and gusting winds turned one of the hardest courses players face all season into an even bigger monster.
“It just makes everything trickier,” Henderson said. “The greens are already running firm and fast, and then when you have to play 10 yards of wind left to right or right to left or more into or down, it just makes the release and trying to calculate all of that extra important and more challenging.”
But Henderson brought her A game to the opening round, rolling by 2024 runner-up Leona Maguire 6 and 5, giving her a leg up in her pod of four players and her quest to reach the weekend knockout rounds.
“I feel like my ball striking was really good today, which gives me a lot of confidence and something I’ve been struggling with a little bit over the last few months,” Henderson said. “To have such a good day with the ball striking does give me that little push of excitement.”
Player after player finished their morning matches with a sigh of relief. Wind and cold on an already tough course made for a mentally draining day, they said.
“I think it’s a lot about just daring to hit those shots that you actually need to hit,” said Maja Stark, a 3-and-2 winner over Nanna Koerstz Madsen.
“It’s a more mental (battle) because sometimes you’re going to have to send a 4-iron out like 15 yards into water just to bring it back in,” Stark said. “That’s all just the wind.”
Henderson and Stark weren’t alone in overcoming the conditions. Hyo Joo Kim, a winner Sunday outside of Phoenix, beat Bailey Tardy 8 and 7 in the day’s first match, the largest margin of victory in the history of the tournament. Yealimi Noh, Narin An and Grace Kim also posted dominant wins.
But that wasn’t the case for defending champion Nelly Korda, who battled to a tie with Brittany Altomare in a match where only eight holes were halved. Altomare, playing for just the third time since returning from a 16-month break after giving birth to her first child, was overjoyed with the result.
“To end up in a tie was a win for me,” she said. “I mean, Nelly is a great player. Obviously world No. 1 and a great person. It was a lot of fun out there.”
At least Korda escaped with a half point. That wasn’t the case for No. 3 Lydia Ko, who got blitzed by Hira Naveed 6 and 4.
World No. 2 Jeeno Thitikul had no issues in the afternoon when conditions drastically improved. Thitikul needed just 13 holes to take down Danielle Kang 6 and 5, making four birdies and an eagle.
Thitikul and the rest of the late wave played after the wind went away and the temperatures jumped 10 degrees.
Thitikul is a common presence on LPGA Tour leaderboards. She has 11 top-10 finishes in her last 12 starts and is constantly feeling the pressure of contending on the weekend.
“I think it’s definitely mentally draining to be on top of the leaderboard every week because, you know, it’s just not a skill set you’re going to have,” she said.
But Thitikul taking a different approach in Las Vegas.
“I talked to my caddie this week that I’m super chill this week,” she said. “I was like whatever’s happens, I’m really chill, no matter lose or win.”
Greg Robertson covers golf for the Review-Journal. Reach him at grobertson@reviewjournal.com.
