'Yellow Baller' Shiho Kuwaki Wins 2026 AIG Women's Open

At the midpoint of the final round of the 2026 AIG Women's Open I started to wonder if any of the contenders really wanted to win.

A toasty Royal Lytham & St. Annes was showing its typical penal teeth, with bunkers gobbling up golf balls more than the cups on the greens. Yealimi Noh’s three-shot lead was erased by the turn. In a final round that only allowed 12 rounds under par, the theme of the day became who could hang on and avoid the lurking disasters. The eccentric Shiho Kuwaki — nicknamed “Yellow Baller” on tour for her brightly colored golf ball — navigated her final 13 holes bogey-free and outlasted last-minute heroics from Esther Henseleit. The 27-year-old German made a lengthy birdie putt on the 72nd hole to force a playoff, only to be derailed by a wayward tee shot and an unfortunate bounce off a volunteer in a gorse bush on the second extra hole. Kuwaki, 23, claimed her first major championship with a pair of pars, making it a bad night to be a whisky soda in England. “I really love to drink alcohol and just drink and have fun, so I intend to drink a lot tonight,” she said after the round.

Major championships produce more stories of defeat than those of players rising to the moment. Yealimi Noh will be devastated after letting a three-shot lead slip in the final round of a major, but to say the young American was struggling leading up to this championship is an understatement. Noh hadn't broken par in an LPGA event since April and has missed four of her last six cuts, yet she still leaves Royal Lytham with more hope than despair thanks to a fresh outlook on the game.

“I came into the week feeling very unsure how my game was and disappointed in past results,” Noh said on Sunday. “This week has given me so much more confidence and I'm really thankful for that.” Part of that confidence stemmed from some words from her fiancé: Golf should be fun, it’s just a game. It’s amazing how being reminded of the simplest things helps reset your mind, and the best golfers in the world aren't immune from that. I hope this week is the catalyst that propels Yealimi to the Solheim Cup over the next few months.

Kuwaki might have taken home the trophy, but I think Royal Lytham proved to be the victor by week's end.

Royal Lytham continues to be a fabulous examination of the women’s game. It's not often the world’s best are truly tested off the tee, and we saw it time after time this week. The burnt-out grass and lack of strong winds shrunk the fairways, and the course’s 174 pot bunkers proved to be nearly a one-shot penalty for those who found them, as fans were treated to numerous funky lies and attempts to advance the ball from the tiny, riveted hazards. With its quirky par 3 opener and penal driving test, I hope to see more of the intimate venue as a future AIG Women's Open host. It will certainly be interesting to watch the men approach Royal Lytham in 2028, and I hope those same claustrophobic features apply to the Open Championship (but I won’t be holding my breath). Maybe Mackenzie and Ebert, the consulting architects for Open venues, can assist the club in acquiring some neighboring homes surrounding the course for new tees.

After four majors in just eight weeks, one thing became abundantly clear this year: the summer golf schedule is far too compressed. Sure, we saw a new star emerge as Haeran Ryu won both the KPMG Women’s PGA and Amundi Evian Championship for consecutive major titles — she nearly went three in a row this week but settled for a T-6 — but I think commissioner Craig Kessler and his LPGA team really need to sit down and work out a way to spread some of these major events out and give women's golf a real opportunity to shine.

For now, I will retire my coffee golf mug to the cabinet as links golf summer has concluded. With the Old Course at St. Andrews on the horizon for the men and Royal St. George’s for the women, next season can't come soon enough.