Allisen Corpuz poses with the winner’s trophy after the U.S. Women’s Open golf event on the Pebble Beach Golf Links, Sunday, July 9, 2023, in Pebble Beach, Calif.

Darron Cummings/AP

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Darron Cummings/AP

Allisen Corpuz poses with the winner’s trophy after the U.S. Women’s Open golf event on the Pebble Beach Golf Links, Sunday, July 9, 2023, in Pebble Beach, Calif.

Darron Cummings/AP

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Allisen Corpuz discovered herself on the most important and most stunning stage in ladies’s golf and made it seem like a stroll on the seashore.

Never thoughts that she had by no means gained on the LPGA Tour or that she had heard all week in regards to the historic event of the U.S. Women’s Open held at Pebble Beach for the primary time. Nothing might make her crack.

“Every few holes I kind of looked out and said, ‘I’m here at Pebble Beach. There’s not many places that are better than this,'” Corpuz mentioned.

There weren’t many higher performances, both. Corpuz turned a decent duel with Nasa Hataoka right into a runaway, closing with a 3-under 69 on Sunday for a three-shot victory to turn into the primary American in 20 years to make the U.S. Women’s Open her first LPGA title.

At Pebble Beach, no much less.

The 25-year-old from Hawaii was calm and funky, irrespective of the shot or the circumstances, till actuality set in as she took a three-shot lead down the 18th fairway. It’s a path taken through the years by the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Tiger Woods, all of them U.S. Open champions at Pebble Beach.

“Just knowing the history … Tiger just absolutely annihilated this place. Yeah, it’s really special,” Corpuz mentioned. “Twenty, 30 years from now, I think just the fact that it’s a U.S. Open means a lot to me. But know that it’s at Pebble makes it even sweeter.”

She gained by three photographs over Charley Hull (66) and Jiyai Shin (68) and claimed the $2 million prize, the richest ever for an LPGA main champion.

Corpuz could not include a large smile when she tapped in for par, solely to cowl it together with her hand because the tears started to movement. She wiped them together with her Aloha-print tower.

Former President Barack Obama was among the many first to congratulate her on Twitter. Both went to Punahou School in Honolulu.

“Unreal,” Corpuz mentioned. “This week has felt like a dream come true.”

Hilary Lunke in 2003 at Pumpkin Ridge was the final American to get her first win on the U.S. Women’s Open, that one in a three-way Monday playoff.

Corpuz, who completed at 9-under 279, was the one participant to interrupt par all 4 days.

Corpuz by no means gave anybody a lot of an opportunity. Hataoka misplaced her one-shot lead on the opening gap when Corpuz hit her method to five ft for birdie, and the 24-year-old from Japan dropped too many photographs down the house stretch.

They had been tied on the flip till Corpuz hit her method to simply inside 10 ft for birdie on the tenth. The key second was on the par-3 twelfth, when Corpuz got here up brief within the bunker and had 15 ft for par. Hataoka rolled her birdie putt from the perimeter 5 ft by the opening. Corpuz made her par, Hataoka missed her putt and the lead was at two.

It solely obtained bigger, Corpuz stretching it to 4 photographs with excellent wedges to eight ft on the par-5 14th and 4 ft on the fifteenth, each birdies that made the ultimate act a battle for second place.

Hull, who began the ultimate spherical seven photographs behind, closed to inside two photographs early on the again 9 and stayed within the sport with a 30-foot birdie putt on the sixteenth. Only later did she notice Corpuz was pulling away. Hull saved firing, hitting 3-wood from beneath the cypress tree in the course of the 18th fairway and almost pulling it off.

“Shy kids don’t get sweets,” she informed herself on the 18th earlier than lashing away and dropping to a knee to observe its flight.

Shin made a birdie on the 18th to hitch Hull as a runner-up. The two-time main champion from South Korea by no means had a critical probability to win, however she celebrated an enormous second for Corpuz and for girls’s golf.

“I’m only watching the TV to Pebble Beach and then finally we are here to play,” Shin mentioned. “This course has a great history, and then finally the women’s history is in.”

That historical past belonged to Corpuz. She joined Michelle Wie West as the one main champions from Hawaii — Wie West gained the Women’s Open at Pinehurst No. 2 in 2014 and performed her closing main this week at Pebble Beach.

They are linked by the Aloha State, their highschool (Punahou) and their emphasis on schooling — Wie West graduated from Stanford, Corpuz obtained a enterprise diploma and an MBA from USC — and their early begin in USGA occasions. Corpuz broke Wie West’s report because the youngest participant to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links as a 10-year-old.

“I never really thought I’d get this far. Just watching Michelle, she’s been such a huge role model to me, and it was really awesome to break her record for the Public Links,” Corpuz mentioned. “But I’ve never really compared myself to her. I’ve always wanted to make my own name. She’s just served as a really big inspiration.”

Corpuz was enjoying in her nineteenth USGA championship. She is aware of the USGA components of fairways and greens, and a great deal of persistence. She is constructed for this, particularly given her focus that not even a beautiful day on the Monterey Peninsula might crack.

Officiating behind the fifth inexperienced was Mary Bea Porter King, the pioneer of junior golf in Hawaii and some of the influential figures within the sport. Corpuz first got here into the Hawaii junior program at age 7.

“She’s always been calm, cool and … I won’t say serious, but she just plodded along. She was sort of a giant killer,” Porter King mentioned. “I don’t think she was fearful of anything.”

That a lot was apparent at Pebble Beach, which had sufficient wind to be difficult as ever. Only seven gamers completed beneath par.

Hataoka, whose 66 on Saturday was almost 9 photographs higher than the sphere, had a 40 on the again 9 and tied for fourth with Bailey Tardy, the 36-hole chief who went 75-73 on the weekend for her finest end in her LPGA rookie season.

Rose Zhang, who dominated the novice scene after which gained her first LPGA Tour begin as a professional, by no means obtained on monitor and closed with a 72 to tie for ninth. She now has prime 10s in each majors as a professional, although this time she was by no means within the combine.