Evening Entertainment

From the western shores of England to the Pacific Coast of the United States, the LPGA must rack up a zillion frequent-flyer miles every season.

Portland, Oregon, is the next stop for the Standard Portland Classic.

Five of the top 10 players in the world are part of the 144-player field. The top 65 and ties will play the weekend for a $2 million purse, with $300,000 going to the winner.

This return to the United States officially marks the start of the second half of the season.

I’m not going to mention season-ending CME points—we’ll save that conversation for later—but only 10 events remain on the LPGA’s regular-season schedule.

Many in the media world claim the major championship season is a sprint. But once those elite events are over, there really isn’t much time left in the regular season.

We’ve had plenty of success over the years in Portland.

Who could forget hitting Andrea Lee at +4500 in 2022?

Another first-time winner, and RTL turned that Portland Classic into a nice profit.

The ladies are on West Coast time this week, a couple of hours behind the limited field in Memphis.

Enjoy the evening coverage, and let’s find our next women’s winner.

Hall Pass

The first Portland Classic took place in 1972.

More than 50 years later, we return to Columbia Edgewater Country Club for the 38th time.

A stereotypical Pacific Northwest parkland layout, CECC is defined by narrow fairways and small green complexes.

The scorecard has been lengthened slightly—63 yards—since Aki Iwai won here 12 months ago at 24-under par.

The average winning score at the Portland Classic over the last decade is 19.8-under par.

In other words, this is a shootout.

Many of these women have little trouble attacking the 6,541-yard, par-72 layout.

The par 5s remain the same, but the average par 3 has been lengthened by four yards and the average par 4 by seven.

Tournament officials have tried to add a little extra challenge to Columbia Edgewater, with the par-4 third, ninth and 15th holes showing the biggest differences.

The Portland region has also received very little rain.

CECC is five inches behind its normal rainfall total for the year, and the rain gauge reads 0.00 inches through the first 12 days of August.

Course Conditions, Weather and Wind

The forecast calls for beautiful weather in Portland.

Temperatures should begin each day in the low 60s before climbing into the 80s during each round.

No measurable rain is in the forecast, and a slight morning breeze should not cause much concern.

The wind is expected to pick up each afternoon, with gusts approaching 20 mph, but overall, the week ahead looks just about perfect for competitive golf.

Only 30 acres of fairway are spread across the 18 holes at Columbia Edgewater, making accuracy one of the course’s primary tests.

Evergreens create a hallway-like look to the fairway corridors. Seven holes bring water into play, and the course features 54 bunkers.

The green complexes are also small, averaging roughly 5,500 square feet.

West Coast Poa annua covers the putting surfaces, and CECC has historically been fairly predictable when it comes to the type of player who performs well here.

One other important course note: the routing has been flipped.

Players will start on the traditional 10th hole and finish their rounds on No. 9.

A scoring-length approach over water, the ninth green is well protected and should provide a reasonably entertaining finish.

There have been two repeat winners since 2002: Annika Sorenstam and Brooke Henderson.

Those two also give you an idea of the leaderboard diversity we’ve seen this century.

Since 2000, there have been five winners from the United States, four from South Korea, and champions representing seven other countries.

It’s not a major, and that’s a good thing.

The Portland Classic always seems to provide some great theater.

Enjoy the evening golf, and let’s get another outright across the finish line.

How Do You Win?

The conversation around selecting contenders at Columbia Edgewater has always started with one thing: accuracy.

Notice I said accuracy. I didn’t automatically add distance as the second qualifier.

That’s one of the unique aspects of Portland Classic week.

Players with length can win here. Players without it can win here, too.

If you keep the ball between the trees and bring a hot putter, you can climb the Portland leaderboard in a hurry.

Driving Accuracy

Let’s start off the tee and factor in the weather.

The recent dry conditions and this week’s forecast should favor a very specific type of player.

Considering the average winning score, these women are going to have to find ways to attack small, firm greens.

That starts with accuracy off the tee.

Driving accuracy is by far one of the most important statistics at CECC. We see it year after year—the players at the top of the leaderboard hit a ton of fairways.

If you can combine that accuracy with ball speed, even better.

But at the end of the day, contenders need to play their approaches from inside those evergreen corridors.

If you don’t remember this venue, CECC can feel almost claustrophobic from the tee.

The fairways are lined with thick pine trees. They are terrible places to miss—thick branches, low limbs and shallow root systems usually mean one thing: punch out and move on.

With firm conditions, these hallways will play even narrower.

Twelve of the 14 driving holes bend, meaning players need to find the center. Offline tee shots can easily run through the short grass and into trouble.

Approach Play

Why are the fairways so important?

For the same reason players will get extra bounce in the short grass, these firm green complexes will reject mediocre approaches.

CECC’s greens are compact, and getting that first bounce to grab will be vital.

Iron play is an advantage, but so is hitting a more lofted club into the putting surface.

Not only will the ball stop faster, but those shorter clubs should also produce better proximity numbers.

Approach play is my No. 1 skill this week, and for good reason.

With firm greens, spin control will separate the best approach players from the rest of the field.

Not many LPGA players launch towering approach shots from the fairway, so trajectory and spin control become paramount.

That’s another reason ball speed gives players an advantage.

Slower swing-speed players generally create lower ball flights.

I’m targeting strong ball strikers who are also trending in the right direction.

The average approach shot at CECC is not particularly long. Most of the field will hit a majority of their approaches from 120 to 160 yards.

Get closer to the green and stay in the fairway, and you’ll have the ability to attack from close range.

That makes a massive difference when you’re trying to stop the ball on firm surfaces.

And really, how else are you getting to 20-under par?

Go Low or Go Home

The top 12 players on the final leaderboard in 2025 finished at 15-under or better.

That means you can average nearly four-under par per round and barely crack the top 10.

The tournament record is 26-under, set in 2023, and since the event returned to CECC in 2013, seven of the 11 winners have reached at least 20-under par.

My cumulative scoring analysis does not include bogey avoidance or scrambling this week.

Make too many over-par scores, and you’ll be crossing the border into Canada on Saturday.

Instead, I started with Birdies or Better Percentage, par-4 scoring and par-5 scoring.

That gives us a strong baseline for identifying who can go low on a course like CECC.

Players likely need a birdie rate around 30% or better to win this week.

Very few players can consistently go that low.

Simply measuring scoring averages isn’t enough, either.

The secret sauce this week is rounds in the 60s.

Who goes low more often?

On tougher courses, some of these players struggle because they also make plenty of mistakes. But on a shootout venue, their ability to spike low rounds becomes extremely valuable.

When you need 25-plus sub-par scores over 72 holes, ceiling matters.

A Useful Comparison Course

Looking for interesting comp courses, I went back to the 2023 Canadian Open.

That event was played in Vancouver at Shaughnessy Golf & Country Club the week before the Portland Classic, and the leaderboards were surprisingly similar.

Another fairway-finder test with similar agronomy, I went through that final leaderboard looking for additional clues.

This pocket of events in the Pacific Northwest gives us a good idea of who tends to perform well in the region.

Not many pundits will make that connection, and I think it is a valuable comp.

Six players priced below +5000 this week finished inside the top 22 there and are firmly on my radar.

That was only three years ago, and their skill sets still apply.

Generally speaking, some of the LPGA’s best ball strikers aren’t elite with the putter.

So I also studied recent 2026 leaderboards looking for trending putters.

I found one or two of the better ball strikers on TOUR who are rolling it particularly well right now, and added them to the card.

Our LPGA eyes are locked in, and I’m going to be aggressive near the top of this betting board.

The field is extremely top-heavy from a talent perspective.

It will be a tight card, but one I think can give us another Sunday sweat—and hopefully a profitable Sunday evening.

LPGA Free Picks

Chizzy Iwai (+3900, DraftKings)

Chizzy Iwai finished third last year in Portland.

The terrific twin hits a ton of fairways while also possessing plenty of length.

That’s a huge advantage against a weaker LPGA field.

Iwai already has a win on her résumé, and it came at Mayakoba.

That’s an excellent comp for CECC—you cannot afford to miss fairways in Mexico.

I like Chizzy’s combination of accuracy and high-end scoring ability.

A couple of top-30 finishes in Europe also suggest her game is ready for this West Coast test.

Lauren Coughlin (+4000, DraftKings)

At some point in her career, Lauren Coughlin is going to win the Portland Classic.

Her game is a perfect fit for Columbia Edgewater Country Club.

Coughlin ranks inside the top eight on the LPGA in both Strokes Gained: Approach and fairway accuracy, which helps explain why she has back-to-back top-10 finishes in Portland.

Her first win came at the Canadian Open—and RTL had her.

Lauren clearly loves the agronomy in this part of the world, and after a T5 in Scotland followed by a T16 at the AIG Women’s Open, she looks ready to close this one out.