Minjee Lee Wins The KPMG Women's PGA
Australian overcomes horrid pace of play and high heat to win by three. Plus, Bradley wins the Travelers and muddles the Ryder Cup picture. American Ethan Fang wins The Amateur.
It wasn’t easy, pretty, or acceptable for a major. But they finished on time!
Riding resurgent putting and extensive major championship experience, Minjee Lee captured the 2025 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship with a three-stroke win over Auston Kim and Chanettee Wannasaen. It’s Lee’s first Women’s PGA to go with the 2021 Evian and 2022 U.S. Women’s Open.
Lee salvaged a week marred by, well, climate-unfriendly scheduling, high heat, stiff winds, a stern setup, unprecedented slow play, and a course not yet looking ready for prime time. Oh, and don’t forget the occasional blasts of dust churned up by new home construction surrounding Fields Ranch East, the PGA of America’s new headquarters dubbed the “Silicon Valley of golf.”
Maybe it was a reference to the satirical television show?
While players were generally diplomatic about the experience as fans wisely turned out in light numbers given the conditions, it’s safe to assume the world’s best women will be running to next year’s host venue, Hazeltine National. You know it’s bleak when Hazeltine seems heavenly.
Fields Ranch East’s dystopian vibe featured half-finished homes and empty stands to go with the horrible heat. The entire affair was not helped by the occasional reminder from television coverage that Frisco’s water tower is the only iconic nearby structure.
The proceedings hit an all-time low by any major championship standard when third-round twosomes took over three hours to complete nine holes. This meant the championship blew by the scheduled sign-off with leaders still facing five holes and 90 minutes of golf to play. Coverage moved to Golf Channel.
As a result, Sunday’s final round went out in threesomes off split tees to fit NBC’s television window.
None of the silliness surrounding the week flustered Lee. The Australian entered Sunday’s finale with a four-stroke lead following a brilliant third-round 69 (despite hitting just 11 of 18 greens). Her bogey-free masterpiece in the heat, wind, and slow conditions turned out to be one of only three sub-par rounds.
Lee bogeyed three of her first six holes on Sunday to reduce the lead to only two strokes. A birdie at the ninth was immediately offset by a bogey a hole later. But a key par putt at the 13th was followed by birdies at the 14th and 15th to put Lee in control of the year’s third women’s major. Her final round 74 was good enough for a three-stroke margin.
“It's a battle against myself pretty much, especially with how tough the conditions were this whole week, not just today,” Lee said. “{That] just amplified because it's major Sunday.”
If she was battling herself, Lee didn’t show it.
“Minjee, you can't really read her,” said Webb during the broadcast. “You can't tell if she's playing well or badly, which I think is great. She's not showing any negative body language to her playing partners, which is probably making them feel like she feels in control even if in inside she's still very nervous.”
Armed with a long putter to go with quite possibly the best swing on the planet, Lee gained 10.145 strokes via putting. She led the field with 113 putts for the week and 328’2” made on tricky bermudagrass greens.
Lee was not particularly brilliant off the tee in hitting 38 of 56 fairways (35th SG), and just 45 of 72 greens (27th SG).
With her third major, the 29-year-old from Perth joins Jan Stephenson and Karrie Webb as the only Australian women with three or more major titles. The only active player with more is current comeback-trail star Yani Tseng (five). Lee has 10 career top 10s in 60 major starts, including five top 10 finishes in the AIG Women’s Open scheduled for next month in Wales. A win there would give Lee a career Grand Slam.
The final round moved a little better in groups of three, and the golf course received some overnight irrigation. But Saturday’s shocking pace appeared related to course setup difficulty, long walks between greens and tees, and severe traffic jams. The drivable seventh had as many as four groups stacked up at a few points.
“I just think with the weather, it’s just too firm,” Nelly Korda (T19) said of Saturday’s conditions. “The hole locations are kind of in almost impossible positions where not many people are hitting the greens, so obviously it’s going to take a lot more time. With it blowing 30 miles an hour, it’s just hard.”
England’s Charley Hull (T12) spoke in a tone of kind disbelief when interviewed by NBC’s Cara Banks after her third-round 73.
“It was pretty crazy,” Hull said. “We was playing two balls this morning and took us three hours and ten minutes to play nine holes, which is pretty crazy. We play a four-ball at home in like three hours, you know what I mean, with bogeys and stuff. It’s pretty crazy. At the end of the day, it’s a pretty tough golf course, it’s really windy, and the setup is kind of tricky.”
Saturday’s unfathomable twosomes’ pace started at the opening hole. The hot winds turned the par-5 first into a graveyard, with no player getting home in two on the 517-yarder. Just 37% of the field found the green in regulation. Florida semi-retiree Lexi Thompson (T12) opened her third round with a triple bogey.
The first averaged 5.603 in round three, the highest scoring average for a women’s major championship opening hole since detailed records have been kept.
Lee’s highlights:
Also…
The par 72, 6,604-yard Fields Ranch East averaged 75.596 for the week, including 76.065 for Saturday’s third round. The field finished +1673. The course is next scheduled to host the 2027 PGA Championship and the KPMG Women’s PGA in 2031.
Teaching professional Heather Angell of The Golf Club at Fiddler's Creek, Naples, Fla. qualified via the Corbridge Financial team of ten but incorrectly signed for a five instead of a six during her second round and was disqualified under Rule 3.3b for signing an incorrect scorecard with a lower score. In a Facebook post she said that heat-induced “brain fog” led to her mistake and that her playing partner also wrote down the wrong score. “I am focusing the rest of the summer to getting my health back,” Angell wrote, “and continuing to give award-winning instruction to my students and service to the PGA of America.”
The KPMG Women’s PGA matched the U.S. Women’s Open purse, with the accounting firm and sponsor since 2015 announcing a $1.6 million increase this year to reach a total purse of $12 million. Lee earned $1.8 million for her triumph.
Travelers: Bradley Wins For Second Time In Three Years
Keegan Bradley made his strongest statement yet in a late bid to make Captain Keegan Bradley’s Ryder Cup team.
Two strokes behind Tommy Fleetwood through 13 holes of the Travelers Championship—the 39-year-old New England native attacked a back left pin at the 14th with a sand wedge approach. The ball bounced into the left bunker and plugged. He left the 427-yard hole three strokes back of third-round leader Fleetwood, then drove into the short greenside bunker at the dramatic 15th. Bradly played a safe shot onto the green with water lurking behind the hole, but turned the final round upside down after sinking a 37-footer to the delight of the huge pro-Bradley crowds.
Bradley faced a 13-footer to tie at the watery par-3, leaving the attempt 1’3” short. But Fleetwood did not get up-and-down from the back chipping area, cutting the lead to one stroke. Both Bradley and Fleetwood parred the 17th, setting up a must-make birdie for Bradley.
Nursing a one-stroke lead in hopes of winning on the PGA Tour for the first time, Fleetwood hit a 148-yard approach onto the left-front fringe, 43 feet from the cup. Bradley answered with an approach to 5’8”. In between, the forgotten third member of the group, Russell Henley, holed out from off the green to reach 14-under-par and with slim hopes of reaching a playoff should Fleetwood three-putt. He did so after leaving his first effort 6’8” short and behind Bradley’s mark.
Bradley took the line given to him and sank the putt for a dramatic win. The 8-time PGA Tour winner and 2013 PGA Champion had entered the week 17th in Ryder Cup points. He will move into the top 12 when the next points update is released on Monday and to 7th in the world.
“It's insane,” Bradley said. “My whole life every year I was out here I wanted to play on the Ryder Cup team, and then this would be the first year where maybe I didn't want to. I just wanted to be the captain and, of course, you know, this is what happens. But we'll see.”
Bradley has already been on the record saying he doesn’t feel it’d be wise to be a playing captain in the days of various obligations and analytics-driven pairings.
“I'm going to do whatever I think is best for the team,” he said after winning the Travelers. “Whether that's me on the team -- this certainly changes a lot of things. I was never going to play on the team unless I had won a tournament and so that's changed, but we'll see.”
As for Fleetwood, he is all but a lock to make the European Team for September’s matches at Bethpage. After 158 starts, nearly $30 million in PGA Tour earnings, memorable Ryder Cup triumphs and some of the greatest major championship rounds ever posted, it was another painful miss.
“I haven't been in this situation for a while,” the 34-year-old Southport, England, native said. When it sort of calms down -- I'm upset now, I'm angry -- when it calms down, look at the things that I did well, look at the things that I can learn from.”
Henley called a rules infraction on himself in round 2 after believing he caused his ball to barely move, resulting in a one-stroke penalty. After the dramatic chip-in at the 18th, he moved to 14-under-par, one stroke behind Bradley.