Was Fields Ranch East Too Hard? The Players Think So.

Earlier this month the word "carnage" became synonymous with Oakmont, and I think the same sentiment may need to be applied to Fields Ranch East. Between the wind and the scorching hot temperatures, the 2025 KPMG Women's PGA venue was challenging enough—but it seems like players are being more vocal about duration of play and just how difficult it was navigating the setup of the golf course.

RELATED: How Does Fields Ranch East Compare to Other Women's Major Venues? The Experts Weigh in.

Jeeno Thitikul's red hot start during Thursday's opening round sheltered the course difficulty a bit, but by the time Friday rolled around, and many were staring down a +7 cut line—the critique began. Former world No.1 Stacy Lewis was amongst those to call out the set up early on, saying, “We’re trying to get more people to watch women’s golf, and to watch us play golf, and setups like this, they don’t help us. And this is when we have our biggest stages, network TV and all of that, and we’re making very good players look silly."

Stacy Lewis of the United States and her caddie look on while playing the 10th hole during the first round of the KPMG Women's PGA Championship 2025.(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Lewis was among those who missed the cut, and plenty of other's chimed in to echo the same feelings of frustration. Major champion Sophia Popov took to Instagram to voice her thoughts on the set up of Fields Ranch East. Sharing, "I’ll start by saying a big thanks to @kpmg for continuing to support and elevate the women’s game. Increasing purses and making every event bigger than the last.

With that being said: The @pga managed to set the golf course up to make us look silly and incapable the majority of the time out there. 6 hour rounds in brutally windy conditions with pin placements that were mostly inaccessible. Playing 30-40 feet away from the pins all day is not enjoyable to us, nor to the spectators and viewers at home."

Popov didn't hold back and neither did Mel Reid, another LPGA player who took on the role of Golf Channel correspondent for the week at KPMG.

This video is a must-watch as it serves as the best possible breakdown of what went wrong this week. Reid goes on to explain average distances for both the LPGA and PGA TOUR and how that plays into average course distances—Fields Ranch was playing around 6,600 yards this week. Then throw in average apex height for men and women, and how men are able to flight their shots much higher to land much softer, but with winds whipping over 30mph the women were forced to hit lower shots into pins that players can't get their ball to hold.

In layman's terms, higher golf balls will be knocked down by the wind, players need to hit lower shots and lower shots require more room for rollout.

It seems like an easy solution but LPGA course setup has been a popular discourse for quite some time now. For Reid, she believes the solution is to narrow the fairways, move the players up to play in between 6,200-6,400 yards, all while beefing up rough to display the accuracy and other strengths of these athletes, rather than demand them to play for distance.

Saturday's round saw an overall scoring average of 76.065 (around 4-over par), the highest major championship round in a decade on the LPGA. Stats guru Justin Ray, called out that some holes were playing the hardest we've seen in decades.

It's apparent that KPMG, the LPGA, and certainly the PGA of America has their work cut out for them especially as the course at PGA Frisco looks to host a bunch more championships and majors in its future.

As for the champion, Minjee Lee looked like she was in the driver's seat for most of the day. She stumbled on the front nine with a few early bogeys but she settled the ship and got it done, carding a 2-over 74 to win by three shots over Chanettee Wannasaen and Auston Kim who each finished at 1-under for the tournament. This was Kim's career best finish at a major.

RELATED: Auston Kim, Players' Journal: Let's End The 'Scratch Golfer vs. LPGA Pro' Debate Once and For All

I can't scroll through my timeline without seeing something about the discourse surrounding the difficulty of the golf course which makes it feel like it's overshadowing Lee's play a bit.

Lee, without a doubt, won this golf tournament, marking her third major of the 2020s—the 29-year-old also won the 2021 The Amundi Evian Championship and the 2022 U.S. Women's Open at Pine Needles—and that deserves to be celebrated.

Lee shared her two cents on what the most challenging parts of the championship in her winning presser taking aim at the elements over the layout.

"It wasn't even like the golf course layout itself. I mean, I think it was fine," Lee said. "It was just the wind was so heavily influencing the ball that the pin placements, some of them just felt like you just couldn't get near it."

So where does this leave us? Fields Ranch is still in its maturation stage and a lot will be learned from this week. As for the other LPGA events on the rest of the schedule, especially the last two majors, take note of what we just witnessed and think about player experience and the viewership product.

Majors should be as competitive as possible, while also showcasing the remarkable shots these athletes can pull off. It's a huge deal that players are being this vocal about conditions—the best course of action is listening to what they have to say.