Nelly Korda charges into U.S. Women's Open at Riviera with hunger stoked by last year's setbacks

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nelly Korda fell just short of her first U.S. Women's Open title a year ago, coming up second to Maja Stark in a finish that was painfully appropriate for her inexplicably winless calendar year.

But that disappointment at Erin Hills is a primary reason Korda arrived at venerable Riviera this week as the world's No. 1 player and a favorite to raise the trophy at the 81st Open.

“I was just hungry for more,” Korda said of last year's Open experience. “Last year was just a weird year of kind of not necessarily playing my best, but also when I did, not getting the bounces or just missing by a centimeter here and there. But I also learned a lot about myself. It made me hungrier to be in those positions.”

Korda has been eating this year, all right.

A dominant major title at The Chevron Championship. Three victories overall. Three more second-place finishes, and an emphatic return to the top of the rankings.

Korda says she welcomes the pressure that accompanies her success, and she is thrilled to be under the spotlight and playing for the richest prize pool in women's golf at the first women's Open ever held at Riviera, the 100-year-old country club nestled in Pacific Palisades and patronized by decades of Hollywood royalty.

“I’m just motivated to put myself into that position, to grind on off weeks, to just play the game,” Korda said. "It’s really hard to explain, but there’s nothing better when you’re a very competitive person than being in the hunt on a back nine at a tournament. There’s a really big rush of emotions. Even if it doesn’t work out, you constantly want to put yourself back into that, because all that work that you’ve put in in your off weeks. That’s what makes it worth it."

Korda took the past two weeks off to make sure she was fully rested and prepared for the Open and for Riviera, a course she had played only once before this week. This tournament has never been held anywhere in Los Angeles County, easily the most populous in the U.S.

“It’s amazing out here,” Korda said. “I mean, the vibe of the place, knowing that so much history has been played out here, it’s a great place for us to play.”

Stark began the week by returning the trophy she won by holding off Korda last year at the Open, but she wasn't sad to comply with tradition.

“I did kind of want to let it go, because it’s weird — it’s like I had it sitting in my room, and I just saw it every day,” Stark said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, this is cool.' But I just want to move on. I want the challenge again. It was fun to have it, but it’s more fun to play for it than to have it, I guess.”

Stark had been on the fringes of the LPGA Tour field before her victory last year at Erin Hills — but after securing her tour status with a major win, the Swede promptly missed the cut in five of her next seven tournaments. She's now paying more attention to the mental side of her game, hiring a therapist and a sports psychologist.

The results are promising: Stark is up to 23rd in the world after making seven cuts in eight starts this season, finishing 16th in Cincinnati three weeks ago.

Megha Ganne is beginning her pro career at Riviera just one week after last year's U.S. Women's Amateur champion led Stanford to another NCAA title, making the winning putt to beat USC down the coast in Carlsbad, California. Trojans star and Irvine native Catherine Park is also making her pro debut at Riviera.

Ganne played in the final group of the 2021 Open as a 17-year-old high schooler at Olympic Club in San Francisco, eventually finishing as the top amateur. As her pro career approached, she has been leaning on her LPGA Tour friends, including three-time major champion Lydia Ko.

“Being a professional is about the little stuff, and the stuff you can’t really see, like invisible little details," Ganne said. “That stuff comes with experience, time, maturity and having a good team around you.”

No matter how her debut goes, Ganne is graduating from Stanford next week.

Michelle Wie West is coming out of retirement to play her first tournament since the 2023 U.S. Open. The former wunderkind’s only major victory was at the Open in 2014, and the 36-year-old mother of two used her final year of exemption for a spot in this field.

Her husband, Jonnie West, will caddy for her at Riviera, while daughter Makenna will be watching.

“Last time I retired at Pebble Beach, Makenna was 2 and doesn’t really have any memories,” she said. “Hopefully being 6 now, she’ll have a lot more memories of being here this week.”

AP golf: https://apnews.com/golf

Grace Kim, of Australia, hits from the second tee during a practice round ahead of the U.S. Women's Open golf tournament Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Lydia Ko, of New Zealand, reacts after hitting out of a bunker on the 14th hole during a practice round ahead of the U.S. Women's Open golf tournament Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Nelly Korda, wearing a U.S soccer jersey, hits from the third tee during a practice round ahead of the U.S. Women's Open golf tournament Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Hannah Green hits from the second tee during a practice round ahead of the U.S. Women's Open golf tournament Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Nelly Korda hits from the second tee during a practice round ahead of the U.S. Women's Open golf tournament Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

It's Kimi Antonelli's Formula 1 title “to lose”, or so his Mercedes teammate George Russell says. At the Monaco Grand Prix this week, for once they might both lose.

The 19-year-old Antonelli has won four races in a row for a vast 43-point lead and, between him and Russell, Mercedes has won every Grand Prix this year. Ferrari and hometown hero Charles Leclerc will aim to end that streak this week.

The Canadian Grand Prix spiced up the title race as Russell and Antonelli battled wheel-to-wheel for lap after lap, only for an engine failure on Russell's car to spoil the show.

“You’ve got such a buffer, it feels like you can only keep it, or you can lose it. And I think it’s his to lose," Russell said Thursday. “So, my mindset is to enjoy every single race, try and win every single race. I just need to continue being the guy who’s coming out on top, even if he’s the one at the moment who’s getting the results.”

Mercedes has had the car to beat all year but it might be Ferrari in front in Monaco. Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton's cars have a smaller turbocharger which might give them a quicker kick of power out of the many slow corners.

“If there’s one track I would bet on us, it’s probably Monaco,” said Leclerc, who's fresh off signing a new contract at Ferrari.

Monaco's tight and twisty streets create a race unlike any other. Three-time champion Nelson Piquet likened it to riding a bicycle around your living room.

This year, it feels almost like a different class of racing altogether.

For the first time, there's a de-facto speed limiter reducing electrical power when the car is going over 200 kmh (124 mph) on safety grounds, and the new-for-2026 moving aerodynamic parts for straight-line speed won't be used in Monaco. Essentially, the track is being treated like one big corner.

Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren have put miniature “winglets” on their cars for extra downforce instead of the components that would usually move the wings.

Monaco races tend to be processions, but qualifying is tense and often spectacular, all the more so because grid position is extra important when overtaking in Sunday's race is near-impossible.

With Cadillac on the grid for 2026, there will be two more cars on track for a total of 22. That could make qualifying more of a lottery, especially the extra-crowded first session.

Old-school glamor and modern glitz collided Thursday night as F1 used a swarm of 3,000 drones over Monaco's port to announce a 10-year contract extension for the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Monaco pioneered the mix of casinos, celebrity and street racing that fuel Las Vegas' F1 project. Since its 2023 debut following F1's boom in the United States, Las Vegas has become a contender to surpass Monaco as the standout social event on the calendar.

F1 president Stefano Domenicali called Las Vegas the “premier destination for great racing, world-class entertainment, global business leaders, A-list celebrities and influencers” on Thursday. It was a description that until recently only applied to Monaco.

Las Vegas was the first race F1 promoted in-house, in effect a big bet on the U.S. market and one that so far seems to be paying off.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Winner Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli, center, of Italy, smiles after being sprayed by his team following the F1 Canadian Grand Prix auto race in Montreal, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via AP)

Mercedes driver George Russell, of Britain, walks through the paddock at the F1 Canadian Grand Prix auto race in Montreal, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press via AP)