We're in the Thick of Major Season Now

Indeed, it seems as if there's a major every week, on some tour, for the next couple of months. This week, it's the US Women's Open. Ariya Jutanugarn is the defending champion.



This year's venue is the Country Club of Charleston SC, a Seth Raynor design. While Raynor may not be a familiar name for many fans, his work probably is -- he designed the Old White TPC Course at the Greenbrier Resort, where the PGA Tour plays. If you go by this LPGA page, the course will play as a par-72, a bit over 6700 yards. But other USGA pages I checked suggest that the Country Club will play as a par-71 course, a little over 6550 yards.

Why the difference? The Country Club is normally a par-71 from all tees. If the LPGA page is correct, they're using the regular blue tee yardage and bumping the par up to 72. The other pages quote the standard white tee yardage and par. Tony Jesselli's preview is listing the LPGA's figures. Either way, it's going to be a tough test.

The big news this week was that the USGA will bump the winner's check all the way up to $1mil, making it the second LPGA event to boast a 7-figure first prize. (The CME Group Tour Championship will pay $1.5mil.) The total purse will be $5.5mil, nearly $1.5mil above the next closest major, the Evian Championship.

Perhaps the biggest thing you need to remember is that FOX has the exclusive coverage of USGA events, with the first two rounds carried on FOXSports1 and the last two rounds on the regular FOX stations. Here are those times, from Tony's page:

• May 30 - FOXSports1 2:30 PM-7:30 PM ET
• May 31 - FOXSports1 2:30 PM-7:30 PM ET
• June 1 - FOX 2:00 PM-7:00 PM ET
• June 2 - FOX 2:00 PM-7:00 PM ET

Note that there will also be an hour-long Wednesday at the US Women's Open show from noon-1pm ET today on FOXSports1 as well.

And here are the streaming times on usga.org.

• May 30/Thursday
• 10:30am-12:30pm ET First Round: bonus coverage
• 2:30-7:30pm ET First Round: featured group
• May 31/Friday
• 10:30am-12:30pm ET Second Round: bonus coverage
• 2:30-7:30pm ET Second Round: featured group
• June 1/Saturday
• 2-7pm ET Third Round: featured group
• June 2/Sunday
• 2-7pm ET Fourth Round: featured group

If you want to get all this info the easy way, you can download the USGA's listing of all their championship broadcast times this year from this link.

I think that's everything I wanted to tell you. Now it's up to you!