Major season continues.

There are a ton of major championships on the professional golf calendar. Nine in the last 13 weeks, if you include the PGA TOUR Champions, PGA TOUR, and the LPGA.

So naturally, why not two more in the next two weeks?

The LPGA heads to beautiful Evian-les-Bains, France, for the Amundi Evian Championship. Golf purists will argue about whether the Evian should be considered a major. This is the 32nd year of the event and the 13th year with major championship status.

From a betting perspective, we don’t really care what you call it. A +5000 winner pays 50-1 whether it happens at the Evian, the ISCO, or the U.S. Open.

This week, 132 players will compete for $9.1 million and a major title. The top 65 and ties will play the weekend, with $1.365 million going to the winner.

Twenty-three of the top 25 players in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings are in the field, ready to take on the Champions Course at Evian Resort alongside Lake Léman.

Last Year At Evian

RTL readers will remember this one.

Grace Kim played her final six holes in seven under par, then beat Jeeno Thitikul in a playoff. Thitikul was our outright pick last year, and her number is basically the same this time around.

One of the worst beats of 2025 came when Kim chipped in on the first playoff hole after hitting her second shot into the water.

Kim won. We lost. And the LPGA is back for another year in the Alps.

The Course: Mountain Golf

For the second week in a row, we have a par-71 scorecard.

The Champions Course has four par 5s, nine par 4s, and five par 3s. The official tournament card reads 6,479 yards for the 2026 edition, which is about 48 yards shorter than the 2025 setup.

Calling all approach artists.

With five par 3s, 28% of iron shots will come from the tee box. Recent top-10 leaderboards show that scoring on the par 3s is a serious edge at Evian.

Over the past decade, the average winning score is 15 under par. Since the event became the LPGA’s fifth major in 2013, there has not been a repeat winner.

Sorry, Grace Kim.

The Champions Course sits on a hillside at about 1,575 feet above sea level, which means the course plays roughly 3% shorter than the scorecard yardage. The longer holes tend to play downhill, like the 205-yard par-3 14th, while the short 331-yard 17th plays uphill.

Course Conditions, Weather, And Wind

The forecast looks warm in the Alps region of eastern France.

Daily highs are expected to reach the low 90s for each round, with very little breeze blowing between 6 and 10 mph. The players will be looking for relief while walking at altitude in that kind of heat.

The weekend could bring a little precipitation, but unfortunately, the rain is not expected to do much to lower the temperature.

The high temps are roughly 10 to 12 degrees warmer than the seasonal average.

Seventy-eight bunkers across the scorecard are not enough to slow this field down. The bigger challenges are sidehill lies, major championship pressure, and the closing stretch.

The greens are a Bentgrass-Poa mix, and water comes into play on three holes. Two of those penalty areas are on 16 and 18, so the final stretch can create plenty of drama.

The closing par 5 is familiar, and it has already proven it can flip the leaderboard in a hurry.

How To Win At Evian

Quick starts matter here.

Eleven of the last 12 winners have gone low in the opening round. Nine of them opened with rounds of 66 or better, and the group’s Round 1 scoring average is 65.8.

That makes sense. Opening a major with a lead does two things. It gives the player confidence, and it forces the rest of the field to play catch-up on a course where the leaders tend to stay in front.

Recent form also matters.

In 2022, Brooke Henderson won just three starts before taking home the Evian title. In 2024, Ayaka Furue had four top-10 finishes in five individual starts before her Evian win. Celine Boutier won the Evian in 2023, then followed it up with another win in Scotland the next week.

Grace Kim was a little harder to see coming, with just one top 10 in 2025 before winning at Evian.

But in general, Evian winners tend to show real form before getting the trophy.

Course history matters on the Champions Course, but we also want players competing at a high level over the last month. Especially because that stretch included two majors.

The Key Stats

The Evian is one big accuracy test.

If you’re going to cut this field down to a small list of possible winners, your picks better be sharp.

  • Par-3 scoring is a huge separator. There are five par 3s on the card, and players are hitting those greens 71% of the time. The holes vary from 151 to 205 yards, and recent top-10 finishers have averaged 2.95 on the par 3s. That is why the outrights this week are all in the top 20% of the field in par-3 scoring.
  • Par-4 success comes down to greens in regulation. Recent top-10 finishers have hit 77% of their greens in regulation overall. Last year, that number jumped to 79%. On the par 4s, the field hits GIRs at just 63%, so accurate par-4 scorers should have an edge.
  • Par-5 scoring starts in the fairway. The field hits the fairway on the par 5s less than 60% of the time. The top contenders studied averaged 70% fairways hit across all 13 fairways. Length helps, but at Evian, being a bomber is not enough. Managing the par 5s from the short grass has proven to be more important.
  • The putter still has to travel. Strokes gained putting sits just behind strokes gained approach in terms of leaderboard impact. The greens are smaller than average, so players who hit the center of the green and convert their chances should have the best formula.

The Champions Course offers plenty of scoring chances for players who can hit their targets.

Tee-to-green leaders have an advantage, but the winning score over the last five years is 16 under par. Recent top-10 finishers have averaged 20 sub-par scores over 72 holes.

So yes, you need to avoid mistakes. But at Evian, bogey avoidance is not quite as important as it is at the other majors. You need to make birdies.

Few consider the Evian worthy of major championship status. But whatever you think of the category, winning on the Champions Course takes a major skill set.

Seven of the last 12 Evian winners are multiple major winners. Only one American has won this event since it became a major.

Can Nelly Korda take down her third major of the season? She has a couple of top-10 finishes here, but none in the last two years.

This week, we are leaning into accurate ball strikers who have been scoring well in recent weeks. Those “weeks” just happen to include the U.S. Open and PGA Championship.

LPGA Free Picks

Hyo Joo Kim (+2500 FanDuel)

What did Hyo Joo Kim do during her week off?

She went to Korea and won.

Kim played in her second KLPGA event of the season, and she has now won both events she traveled home for this year.

She also has a strong history at Evian. Kim ranks eighth on the LPGA in strokes gained tee-to-green and first in putts per GIR.

That is a pretty lethal combination when you are coming in with form.

Jennifer Kupcho (+6600 BetMGM)

Jennifer Kupcho is another major winner who has been climbing leaderboards in big events this season.

She finished 12th at the Chevron and eighth at the U.S. Open. That U.S. Open skill set should translate well to the Champions Course.

Kupcho’s dominance off the tee has helped her build a strong Evian record, with finishes of 31st, 14th, 22nd, and 11th in her last four starts here.

Need a player to pop from deeper on the odds board?

Kupcho can do it.