
Meet the 8 amateurs invited to the LPGA's first major, the Chevron Championship
The Chevron Championship has announced the eight amateurs who received emptions into the LPGA's first major of the season. Recent Augusta National Women's Amateur champion Carla Bernat Escuder and runner-up Asterisk Talley are among those making their debut in the Texas event. Talley is teeing it up in this week's JM Eagle LA Championship. Bernat Escuder will make her first-ever LPGA start at the Chevron.
Talley, 16, replaces 2024 U.S. Women's Amateur champion Rianne Malixi, who withdrew due to a lingering back injury. 2024 ANWA champion Lottie Woad is in the field for a second year in a row. The No. 1 amateur in the world replaces Melanie Green, the 2024 British Amateur champion who turned professional. Woad finished in the top 25 at last year's Chevron, her LPGA debut.
Pepperdine's Jeneath Wong earned her spot by winning the 2025 Women's Amateur Asia-Pacific while Arkansas freshman Clarisa Temelo received an invitation after her 2025 Women's Amateur Latin America triumph.
Chayse Gomez, who now works as an assistant coach at Cal State Fullerton, received a spot as the highest-placing graduating senior from the 2024 Chevron Silverado Showdown, a collegiate event in Napa, California.
Rounding out the eight exemptions are USC's Jasmine Koo and junior player Gianna Clemente. Koo tied for 13th at the Chevron one year ago to earn low amateur honors. Clemente, the 2024 AJGA Girls Player of the Year, finished 30th in the Honda LPGA Thailand event earlier this season.
The 2025 Chevron takes place April 24-27 at The Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands. Kids ages 17 and under get in free with the purchase of an accompanying adult ticket.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


USA Today
5 hours ago
- USA Today
Karrie Webb to make U.S. Senior Women's Open debut, likens her game to a box of chocolates
Seven-time major winner Karrie Webb says her game is like a box of chocolates: 'You never know what you're going to get.' 'It can be really impressive some days,' explained Webb, 'and some days it looks like I haven't played for a year.' The legendary Aussie makes her debut in the U.S. Senior Women's Open this week, one of six World Golf Hall of Fame members in the field. The 41-time LPGA winner turned 50 last December and will be among the favorites this week, despite the rust. Webb teed it up last month in the inaugural Greater Toledo Classic hosted by Stacy Lewis, an event that combined the Epson Tour with the Legends of the LPGA. 'Unfortunately, we had one round rained out,' said Webb during a pre-tournament press conference, 'but it did feel good to be back out there competing, feeling a bit of adrenaline. 'I think the longer you're aware from the game, you don't realize the stress level that you lived with and at for an extended period of years, and so when you get that adrenaline rush now, it's so unusual for your body to handle. It was good to feel that for a couple rounds.' Fellow Hall of Famer Juli Inkster, 65, played in Toledo and last week on the LPGA in Portland, where she nearly broke JoAnne Carner's record of oldest to make the cut, missing out on the weekend by a single stroke. 'What's different is I have never been the best ball striker or putter or whatever, but I was always a grinder,' said Inkster. 'It's just hard grinding for 18 holes now. Mentally it's just hard to stay in it because you don't do it. 'But I thought, I really played well the first day. The second day I didn't play as well. But there's not a lot of times I'm up at 5:30 for a 7:30 tee time now. Your body is different. So I think that was good for me to have an early time like that to kind of figure out what I need to do.' The 7th U.S. Senior Women's Open, which gets underway Aug. 21, is being held at San Diego Country Club in Chula Vista, California, and it's a return home for 2024 champion Leta Lindley, who played junior golf tournaments at the club. 'I've been looking forward to this day for a long time,' said Lindley. The average age for the field of 120 is 57.06, and Lindley is among the five returning past champions, including Annika Sorenstam and Laura Davies. A post shared by United States Golf Association (@usga) This year marks the first time that 86-year-old Carner, an eight-time USGA champion who hit the first tee shot at the inaugural U.S. Senior Women's Open, won't be in the field. Carner told Golfweek earlier this week that her game had 'fallen apart' after the loss of about 30 yards off the tee. "I just got into some real bad habits," said Carner, a 43-time winner on the LPGA and two-time U.S. Women's Open champion. Trevor Marrs caddied for Carner at Brooklawn Country Club in 2021, and she brought him back each year. This week, Marrs is caddying for another LPGA and World Golf Hall of Famer – Hollis Stacy. This is the fourth USGA championship at San Diego Country Club San Diego native Mickey Wright won her fourth U.S. Women's Open title at home in 1964. Jill McGill, the 2022 U.S. Senior Women's Open champion, captured the 1993 U.S. Women's Amateur title at San Diego CC as well. McGill is one of nine players in the field this week who were in that 1993 Women's Amateur field, joined by Angela Buzminski, Eunice Cho, Stacy L. Slobodnik-Stoll, Abby Pearson, Wendy Ward, amateurs Brenda Corrie Kuehn and Ellen Port and defending champion Lindley. 'I definitely can see why Mickey Wright was classed as one of the best ball-strikers to ever play the game,' said Webb.'You're definitely going to have to be on tee to green all week, and then the greens are tricky, as well. Distance control, trying to leave it under the hole as best you can, is important.'


USA Today
7 hours ago
- USA Today
Lydia Ko talks about the moving TV commercial she voiced that brought her to tears
It wasn't a retirement video. That day will come eventually, of course, but Lydia Ko told her longest-running sponsor, Rolex, that it would be cool one day to have a collage of the highs and lows of her career. Rolex delivered, and the commercial debuted earlier this summer during the Amundi Evian Championship. Ko went to a recording studio to voice a script she said brought her to tears. "I was able to kind of fill in the gaps in between and the emotions I felt," said Ko of her involvement. "As much as sometimes you get caught up in what's going on right now, but when I see my career like that as a whole, it just -- I think I am the player I am today because of all those moments, and probably the lows ... are probably more significant than the highs." Ko met with the media on Wednesday ahead of this week's CPKC Women's Open in Ontario. Her first victory on the LPGA came at the age of 15 at the 2012 CN Canadian Women's Open, two weeks after she'd won the U.S. Women's Amateur. She'd win the Canadian Women's Open again the next year at 16. Now a member of the LPGA Hall of Fame with 23 LPGA titles, including three majors as well as an Olympic gold medal, Ko's remarkable career is a testament to her mental strength – overcoming the lows – as much as her talent. Rolex scripted the ad as a letter from Ko to her 15-year-old self. "Dear 15-year-old Lydia, so much is about to happen. Wonderful things and hard things. You will learn and grow as a person from all of them. You will lose track of all the firsts and the youngest evers you set. Never take a single day, a single moment for granted. "The truest axiom of golf is this ... no matter how you are playing, it will change. Just as quickly as the game can slip away, with hard work and self-belief, it can come back. "The decisions you make are yours – own them." Ko said that when recording, she repeated the same line anywhere from five to 10 times, trying to convey the right emotions. Some of what she experienced reading that letter, she said, are feelings she had yet to express to her own team. "It was definitely really cool seeing the 6, 7-year-old me skipping down the fairways in New Zealand to hoisting the AIG Women's Open trophy at St. Andrews," said Ko. "It's a pretty surreal career I've had so far. I think because all of those moments, I'm able to enjoy being on tour a little bit more these days." The sports world has watched Ko grow up on a global stage, winning LPGA events long before she could even drive. When asked about that kicker line of owning her decisions, Ko praised the evolving team she's had around her from the start to help guide her career, but insisted that she's always had a say. More: 5 things to know about Lydia Ko's record-breaking road to the LPGA Hall of Fame "If I decided to end my relationship with a caddie or with a coach or decided to play this event or that, I think I was still always the biggest influence," said Ko. "When you were so young, people think you're under the influence of your parents and that's true. I think to some extent like they're trying to do that because they think that's the best for you. "But I think even from a young age I was – I made most of the decisions myself. But I think now as I get older, I'm able to take more ownership of that. I believe that all of the decisions I made, whether it was good or bad, whether the results were good or bad, I've no regrets in making them. All of those little pieces make that final masterpiece. If one piece is different, then I don't know if I would be the same person or if my career would be the same."


USA Today
a day ago
- USA Today
With fresh mentality and new wedges, Brooke Henderson tries to end victory drought in Canada
At this time last year, Brooke Henderson had lost count of how many different putters she'd had in the bag. The number is down this year, though there have been changes of late. She put in a new putter two weeks ago, and noted during her pre-tournament press conference on Tuesday that she'd be changing again later that afternoon. Still a TaylorMade Spider X but with a different grip and weight. Also on Tuesday morning, she put brand new TaylorMade wedges in the bag and said they perform better than her old ones in wet conditions. Anything that can get her closer to victory, something she hasn't tasted in two and half years. "I feel like I've been saying it for a really long time," Henderson told the media at the CPKC Women's Open at Mississaugua Golf and Country Club in Ontario, Canada. "You're probably getting annoyed with it a little bit, but I am definitely trending in the right direction and it is super close to being really good again, which is really exciting." To help, Henderson dug up old clips of when she was 14 years old, playing in her first Canadian Open. She won the event in 2018, which felt like major. Even making the cut as a youngster in her home Open felt "super cool." "Yeah, just trying to like think back like what was going through my mind when I was answering those questions back then or out there playing," said Henderson. "It's been cool. I just did that yesterday afternoon. Maybe it was the red eye or the jet lag talking, but I really enjoyed it." She played more freely as a youngster, as do most, and had a hunger to learn. She's still that way, realizing that sometimes less is more. There was a time when she played in as many as 30 events a year. She's cut back now to around 25. Canada's most decorated golfer with 13 LPGA titles, Henderson has sprinkled in top-15 finishes throughout 2025 but has yet to truly contend. The two-time major winner ranks 53rd on the CME points list and is 58th in the Rolex Rankings. "For a while, the ball-striking was a bit of an issue," said Henderson, who works with her father Dave. "I feel like we worked diligently on that, and it's back to a better spot. "So just piecing everything together. Golf is hard, and I found that out more recently than I ever have. Just trying to take it day by day, figuring it out. I think mentality for me is the No. 1 thing, trying to get back to the mental strength I had previous years."