What's Staying With Me After a Week at the AIG Women's Open

LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England — The winner is always the headline, but after spending a week at the AIG Women's Open, I got to witness that the champion is rarely the only story that stays with you.

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Nearly a day after the final putt dropped, I'm still mulling over the conversations I overheard walking between holes, visualizing the packed grandstands surrounding Royal Lytham's iconic closing stage with the clubhouse looking down at another victorious moment, and I can still smell the champagne celebration that took place on the 18th green.

Shiho Kuwaki's breakthrough victory deserves every bit of the spotlight. On the championship's 50th anniversary, she earned her place alongside some of the greatest names ever to win the Women's Open, adding another chapter to one of golf's richest legacies. But as I left England's northwest coast, what lingered wasn't the feeling that the major season had come to an end, it was the sense that there's still so much left on the line for 2026.

The week at Royal Lytham didn't just crown a new champion, it sharpened the Solheim Cup picture, reinforced the LPGA's incredible depth and proved to me why this championship feels unlike any other on the calendar.

These are the observations I can't shake after a week at the AIG Women's Open.

Let me start off by saying that I absolutely love this diva! I haven't seen someone wear Loudmouth since my junior golf days well over a decade ago, and then she takes it to another level with her fabulous long nails (painted two different colors, btw) and lashes that stretch to the sky.

The cherry on top came in the form of her winning presser, when she delivered this beauty of a quote about how she planned on celebrating, "I really love to drink alcohol and just drink and have fun, so I intend to drink a lot tonight."

Her drink of choice? A whisky sour.

This isn't a Cinderella story though, it's actually far from it. Before this week, Kuwaki was already one of Japan's most promising stars. The 23-year-old from Okayama began playing golf at age 4, turned professional in 2021 and quickly built a resume on the JLPGA Tour where she has collected multiple victories, including three wins in 2024 and two additional titles this season.

She arrived at Royal Lytham & St Annes with experience, just not of the major championship variety, especially compared to those who were the heavy favorites heading into the week. Kuwaki had made just one previous AIG Women's Open appearance last year, and three starts at this year's U.S. Women's Open, KPMG Women's PGA Championship, and the Amundi Evian Championship.

And her breakout win comes with some new found territory. With a major championship title on her already accomplished resume, she has secured a place among the game's elite and opened the door to a much larger global stage. She's locked up her place in the majors next season, along with her LPGA membership eligibility, which she has opted to defer her acceptance to 2027.

Last season showed us that quite literally anyone is capable of winning, and I think because we've seen such strong and dominant performances from Nelly Korda and Haeran Ryu people have forgotten the sheer level of depth on this Tour. If there's one thing the LPGA continues to prove, it's that the list of players capable of winning keeps getting longer. The World No. 1 and No. 3 have understandably commanded much of the spotlight this season, but Royal Lytham was a timely reminder that the Tour's dispersion of talent has never been greater.

On paper, a leaderboard without many of the game's biggest names battling for the trophy can be easy to dismiss, but frankly what we just witnessed turned out to be one of the most compelling finishes of the season.

Shiho Kuwaki and Esther Henseleit traded blows down the stretch before Kuwaki prevailed in a playoff, while contenders shuffled seemingly every few holes as Sunday unfolded. The drama didn't come from one superstar chasing history—it came from the fact that so many players believed they had a chance to write their own.

Not to mention the strong display of the Tour's global reach as there were eight different countries represented in the top-10 alone.

The biggest subplot of the week was no doubt all the Solheim Cup implications. For Team Europe, this was the last push for a spot. The first eight automatic qualifiers were locked in once the final putt dropped, headlined by Charley Hull, Lottie Woad and Esther Henseleit.

Anna Nordqvist just delivered her captain's picks rounding out her team of 12.

The American picture still has a little more time to unfold. Team USA's automatic qualification window remains open through the end of August, at the conclusion of the CPKC Women's Open. But three players have already punched their tickets to the Netherlands: World No. 1 Nelly Korda, Angel Yin and Jennifer Kupcho.

With the remaining automatic spots and Angela Stanford's captain's picks still up for grabs, the race across the Atlantic is far from over.

Karen Stupples, the 2004 AIG Women's Open champion, told me before I decided upon Lytham that everything would be different. The golf sounds that I'm used to as an American would be squandered, and the echos and vibrations that only links golf provide will haunt me in the most beautiful way.

And she was right.

I've had the incredible pleasure of experiencing a lot of women's golf this year and the scenes that Sunday at AIG brought was unlike anything else. The chants, the cheers, even the most polite claps and reactions had a thunderous undertone—because the people show up.

Earlier this summer, I wanted to conduct a bit of a case study dissecting the fan engagement (i.e. the physical act of showing up) around the women's game. One of the most heavily attended LPGA events in the states is the Meijer LPGA Classic.

Though I didn't get to experience Grand Rapids in the flesh, the proof is in the pudding with what they have built at that event, and AIG seemed to very similar.

There were kids everywhere and they were offered so much more than the golf. There were games, face painting stations, simulator bays where they had teaching pros giving free lessons, ice cream trucks and carts with goodies lined parts of the course. It felt like a bit of a festival that also happened to be hosting one of the biggest events of the year.

The local community was proud to host, and some folks from across the UK made this their family trip for the summer! (To lovely family from Scotland that I met briefly, I think you all are the coolest for making this an annual thing.)

It was picture perfect hospitality at a world class venue, that delivered really entertaining golf. I don't think it gets much better than that.

Which leads me to my final point...the AIG Women's Open is becoming a banner event on the schedule alongside the U.S. Women's Open. Both are steeped in history, played at iconic venues and consistently ask the best players in the world to rise to the occasion. Outside of the Solheim Cup, there isn't another week on the calendar that carries quite the same weight.

What struck me most, though, was how often players talked about feeling genuinely cared for. Throughout the week, several shared that this is a championship where they feel spoiled in the best way—from transportation and recovery spaces to the countless behind-the-scenes details that allow them to focus solely on competing. Investing in the women's game extends well beyond the purse, the commitment must lie in the players, in the championship and in the product itself—exactly the kind of standard LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler has spoken about wanting to see more often across the Tour.

And perhaps that's why this championship really just delivered.

When players are given the resources to perform at their best, the golf follows. This year's finish had everything you'd want from a major: a breakthrough champion, a playoff, shifting momentum and a leaderboard that never stopped moving.

The AIG Women's Open may be the final major of the year, but it never feels like the end of the season. If anything, it feels like the event that sets the tone for everything that comes next.