Royal Lytham & St Annes had spent all week rewarding patience and punishing anyone who tried to force the issue, and the 50th AIG Women’s Open ended on brand. Shiho Kuwaki, five shots back at one stage on Sunday and playing in only the second major championship of her career, made par on the second extra hole to beat Esther Henseleit and claim the title. It is her first LPGA Tour victory of any kind, arriving in the sport’s biggest event rather than working up to it, and it came against a leaderboard that had spent three days insisting someone more experienced would eventually take control.
Kuwaki closed her regulation round with a one-under 70 to reach five-under 279, a number that looked safe until Henseleit, playing in the group behind, rolled in a putt from roughly forty feet at the last to match her and force sudden death. It was the kind of putt that turns a tidy leaderboard into chaos in the space of a few seconds, and by the time both players reached the 18th tee for the first time as a two-ball, neither had any real read on how the other would respond to the pressure of a playoff for a major.
Shiho Kuwaki is crowned a major champion 🏆
— LPGA (@LPGA) August 2, 2026
She earns her first LPGA Tour title in dramatic fashion @AIGWomensOpen 👏 pic.twitter.com/ZSpURCc6I3
Two Holes That Went Very Differently
The first playoff hole looked, briefly, like it belonged to Henseleit. Kuwaki found deep grass short of a bunker and had no choice but to lay up well short of the green, leaving Henseleit with the cleaner look at the flag and the obvious advantage. Kuwaki’s response was the shot of her tournament: a wedge from the layup spot to three feet, close enough to all but guarantee her par and put the pressure squarely back on her opponent. Henseleit’s fifteen-foot birdie putt to win it right there slid by, and the two players walked back to the 18th tee for a second time.
The second hole settled it in less dramatic fashion, though not for lack of trying. Henseleit’s tee shot went right, struck a marshal’s ankle, and finished in a bush, forcing a hack-out that led to a bogey. Kuwaki, needing only to avoid a similar disaster, found the green in two and two-putted for the par that won her the championship. There was no eagle putt or holed bunker shot to end it, which felt appropriate for a week at Lytham that had rewarded solid, unspectacular golf far more often than it rewarded heroics.
The Third-Round Leader Could Not Hold On
Yealimi Noh had carried a three-shot lead into Sunday off the back of a scorching third-round 69, and for a while it looked like this would be the day she converted seven majors of near-misses into a maiden title. It did not hold. A final-round 74 dropped her into a tie for third, a shot outside the playoff, the kind of finish that will sting more with each passing week than it did in the immediate aftermath. Haeran Ryu, still chasing what would have been a third consecutive major and a piece of history not managed since Inbee Park in 2013, never recovered from Saturday’s six-bogey collapse and finished at one-under, tied for sixth alongside home hopes Charley Hull and Lottie Woad. Nelly Korda and Jeeno Thitikul, the week’s two biggest names by world ranking, shared fourth at three-under, close enough to matter but never quite threatening the lead.
A Major Win From Nowhere Familiar
Kuwaki arrived at Lytham as the leading player on the LPGA of Japan Tour’s money list, with two wins at home this season and a growing reputation for the bright colours and the yellow golf ball that have earned her the nickname “Yellow Baller,” chosen, by her own account, because she can actually see it better in flight. She shares a home prefecture, Okayama, with Hinako Shibuno, the last Japanese player to win this championship, back in 2019, and her manner on the course this week, confident without tipping into showy, suggested she was entirely comfortable being mentioned in the same breath.
The win comes with a share of a record purse. This year’s AIG Women’s Open paid out ten million dollars in total, the largest in the tournament’s history, and Kuwaki’s cheque for one and a half million dollars is more than she has made in her career on the Japanese tour to date. More than the money, though, it hands her a major championship on just her second try at one, a statistic that will follow her onto every leaderboard she appears on from here, and a thoroughly deserved one after two holes of extra golf that she simply refused to lose.