Scheduling?

The LPGA threw their annual “Zurich Classic” style team event against the RBC Canadian Open last week. Back to a full field of 144 players in Belmont, Michigan for the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give, the top 65 and ties will play the weekend for $3.25 million.

We have 10 of the top 25, and 23 of the top 50 players in the Rolex World Rankings in the field. Not bad for a week before the next major championship.

Another reason why the schedule makes little sense. A sweet $487,500 for first place, why not run the less attended — and watched — Dow Championship against the men’s major championship? Not to mention the week of rest you can offer to the world’s best women before the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.

I fully realize schedule building is a complicated process involving global travel, sponsors, and venue ability. Similar to Brian Rolapp, Craig Kessler inherited this schedule. One can hope Kessler is an avid reader of RTL and changes are already in the works for 2027!

Enough is enough, we have Shinnecock on the calendar. Let’s jump to the course preview and card.

Back to Blythefield

Blythefield Country Club is one of the more unique layouts on the LPGA schedule. A par 72 scorecard, BCC has five par 3s, eight par 4s, and five par 5s.

A quick tangent, it always amazes me that more courses don’t design more creative scorecards. Do we need another par 72 with four 3s, four 5s, and ten par 4s? I love the creativity of this layout for a couple of reasons. The scorecard is one, but the terrain in combination with the five 3s and 5s really fits.

That same terrain allows for some very difficult green complexes. BCC’s greens are an average of 4,500 square feet. Those are some small targets across this hilly, tree-lined terrain near Grand Rapids, Michigan. Covered in a beautiful Bentgrass/Poa mix, those who can roll the rock have proven sub-par scores can be made.

The average winning score of this event over the first 11 years is 18.6 under par. Fun design and four out of 11 Meijers have ended in a playoff due to fun scoring.

Please LPGA, give this event a better home on the calendar!

Course Conditions, Weather, Wind

The Grand Rapids, Michigan region has received an ample amount of growing rain over the last few weeks in June. I’m not saying the course will play soft, just healthy, and that is worth noting.

Temperatures will be in the low to mid-70s for the tournament and a substantial breeze the first two days coming out of the Northwest, around 16–18 mph. There’s rain off and on all week, and that precipitation reaches a crescendo on Sunday with 0.75 inches in the forecast and a 45% chance of substantial rain all day.

Healthy rough, rain, and wind. If you are building a betting card for this event, it better include some serious ball strikers.

The course covers 6,611 yards; the eighth hole was lengthened in 2024. That sounds long, but Blythefield is the third-shortest course these women have seen on tour in 2026. Five of the eight par 4s measure over 400 yards, and the par-3 thirteenth is 234 on the card.

That being said, the remaining 12 holes are quite gettable for the best scorers in this field.

If you have played Blythefield, please note the LPGA uses a different routing for the tournament. The players start on holes eight and nine and then one through five, finishing the front nine with seventeen and eighteen. The back nine starts with 10 through 16 and completes the round with six and seven.

Seven is a reachable par 5, but also away from the clubhouse. I’m not sure why the LPGA switches it every year, but they have done it for some time.

How to Win?

A vast majority of weeks, par 4s dominate tournament scoring. A course with 12 par 4s accounts for two-thirds of the holes each competitor plays. Blythefield CC flips the script, and I absolutely love it.

Combine the 3s and 5s, and you now account for 56% of scoring, and the 4s get reduced to 32%. That’s a significant switch and one that allows for different players to climb the leaderboard.

The historical data tells us those par 5s take center stage for separating yourself from the field. The average winning score is nearly 19 under par, and with those long par 4s, this is the place to take advantage.

Par 5 scoring on the PGA TOUR means ball speed, but most women on the LPGA cannot reach par 5s in two. They need to hit the fairway off the tee to ensure they have a great chance to use a wedge for their third shot.

BCC is the perfect course for Total Driving leaders. The straight combination of length and accuracy.

Blythefield CC is built across a Michigan hillside. As the course weaves its way through the tree-lined fairways, players are constantly hitting golf shots from different angles and heights. The best T2G players have an advantage here.

Look at the past champions list! Lilia Vu was ranked second in the world last year when she won. Lexi Thompson was also in that playoff. Thompson is one of the best LPGA players of the last decade.

Inside the tree line, these fairways are framed by four-inch Kentucky Bluegrass rough. The same stuff we see at Muirfield Village Golf Club and so many other courses up north. We know from the weather forecast that it has been — and will get — watered.

Nine of the 11 Meijer winners are major champions. Approach will play a lead role with five par 3s. That’s five iron shots each day where you know the yardage ahead of time and you get a level lie! Over the course of 20 par 3s, that’s an advantage for the best proximity players.

With the great course conditions, there’s a good chance our winner will get to 20 under par. It has happened four times in the last seven Meijer tournaments.

When you must gain with sub-par scores, I always combine rounds in the 60s with Scoring Average. Blythefield can trip you up with the juicy rough, so a positive birdie-to-bogey ratio is another factor to consider along with Bogey Avoidance.

Not as much a factor as it will be for the men, our ladies in Michigan must be able to keep their rounds going. Around-the-green play from dense rough will be needed. The greens are small, the second-smallest these women will see all year.

The highest-ranked approach player in the field is Lauren Coughlin, seventh on tour. Even Lauren is going to miss a bunch of greens and her short game will be needed. The favorite, Jeeno Thitikul, is ranked 42nd on tour for approach. Imagine how many chips and pitches the second-ranked woman in the world will hit!

Those scoring stats are fueled by the flatstick. Good to very good putters can make putts on these greens. Heck, hit the green and you have a sub-25-foot birdie putt!

The surfaces are that northern Bentgrass-Poa mix, so they are rolling perfectly in the Michigan climate. Another factor that gives better putters an advantage is their ability to read greens correctly. With all of the terrain changes across this layout, reading greens is difficult in spots.

Of the four main strokes gained categories, putting was the second-most correlated to success after driving. When you look at the layout, you start to see these little edges develop. Take them into account and the outright card becomes very clear.

Riviera measured driving and putting quite well. Toss in above-average approach play and that leaderboard will give us some very good clues. The last factor I used as a baseline was SG: T2G. An excellent measure to confirm our initial leans.

The Meijer will be awesome. I know we all will be watching Shinnecock Hills, but if 100+ hours of Golf Channel, NBC, and USA Sports coverage is not enough, change the channel. The women in Michigan are set for another made-for-TV week at the Meijer in Michigan!

LPGA – Free Picks

Allisen Corpuz (+2250 DraftKings)

The Meijer rewards great ball strikers with tight fairways and small greens. Allisen Corpuz is one of the best in the business when it comes to T2G acumen.

Seventh in the field for SG: T2G, Corpuz is coming off a great stretch where she has a seventh-place finish at the Mizuho and an eighth-place finish at the U.S. Open. A fifth- and an eleventh-place finish in her last three starts at Blythefield CC only further validates this pick.

Minami Katsu (+4500 BetRivers)

Another fifth-place finisher at the Dow Championship, Minami Katsu continues to contend on the LPGA Tour. Six top-15 finishes on the LPGA this year alone, we are going to catch Katsu’s first win. We almost had it in Shanghai last year!

A seventh-place finish at the Meijer in 2023 means there is plenty of BCC experience on her resume. A great putter who can really score, this venue makes sense.

Why not a little revenge on Jeeno after she stole the Buick from us last fall? Par 3s and 5s, Katsu checks both of those boxes.