Dan Hicks, Cara Banks, Morgan Pressel
May 27, 2026
THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon and welcome to today’s U.S. Women’s Open conference call. Live coverage will be presented next Thursday through Sunday on NBC, Peacock and USA Network.
U.S. Women’s Open Schedule (All Times ET)
| DAY | USA Network | Peacock | NBC/Peacock |
| Thursday 6/4 | 2-7 p.m. | 7-10 p.m. | |
| Friday 6/5 | 2-7 p.m. | 7-10 p.m. | |
| Saturday 6/6 | 5-7 p.m. | 7-10 p.m. | |
| Sunday 6/7 | 3-5 p.m. | 5-8 p.m. |
Joining us on today’s call, play-by-play voice Dan Hicks, play-by-play voice and reporter Cara Banks, and analyst Morgan Pressel. They will each make an opening comment and then we will take your questions.
DAN HICKS: Really, really excited for this latest U.S. Women’s Open. Every year I say the same thing; of all of events that I get to do for women’s golf, this is the one that is the best, the biggest and greatest championship they play. Just from that standpoint, it’s incredible to do another one.
But even more so this year with the venue being Riviera, first time ever for the women at this incredible, iconic golf course. And we just got off a call with the USGA, and they’re confirming it’s the first women’s major championship that’s ever been played in L.A. County.
Incredibly special. You’ve seen it on TV through the years with CBS’s L.A. Open coverage. We’ve dabbled at Riviera through the years. We did a U.S. Senior Open, one of the USGA championships. I think there have only been three USGA championships through the years, so this will mark just the fourth kind of USGA foray at Riviera.
Ben Hogan, of course, back in the day.
Cannot say how excited I am to do a U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera. That just goes together like it should.
CARA BANKS: Just a real treat to be doing this in the play-by-play role. I did a little bit last year at Erin Hills, too.
Just to echo Dan’s point, Riviera and the top women players in the game is hopefully going to be a match made in heaven. I’m just so excited to see how this course plays for all of these women golfers.
We see it every year obviously on the PGA TOUR. We’ve seen the men play Riviera countless times. The USGA have guided us through a couple of little tweaks that they’ve made and things that will be different to what we see week in and week out on the PGA TOUR.
Just excited to see how they handle it and all the little extra bits that come with the U.S. Women’s Open, you know, everything they try and do to grow the game. They’ve confirmed to us the age of 17 and under girls get in for free to come and spectate this event. They’ve also got a wonderful initiative with the community after of course the devastating fires that took place, the Hero’s Pavilion for the first responders and the kind of expanded military policies that they’ll have going on there.
So, it just feels like it’s going to be a really special week with lots of storylines and big names like Michelle Wie West coming back to compete.
MORGAN PRESSEL: The Women’s Open has truly always been my favorite week of the year, my favorite event on the schedule. It’s where I realized that I wanted to play professional golf when I first qualified for a Women’s Open in 2001, so it’s been a very big part of my own personal history in golf, and that makes it even more special.
I always grew up practicing putting 10-footers to win. Unfortunately, never hoisted the trophy myself, but it’s been a big part of my life for many, many years, and now to be calling it for the last -- the fifth or sixth time, just really excited.
I say this all the time, I think venues are the most important thing to elevate women’s golf, and a venue like Riviera really does that. We’re coming off Pebble Beach a few years ago. We saw all the excitement there.
And covering the LPGA so far this season, every week we talk, the Women’s Open is at Riviera, and everybody is just really, really excited about it, the players included.
The players want to play storied tests of golf. The fans want to watch a golf course that they know very well, and it just brings more eyes on to the U.S. Women’s Open.
I’m really excited to be a part of it. I’m excited to get to Riviera myself. I think I played Riviera once in an outing, maybe in my second year on Tour, so it’s been a long time since I myself have been out there, and I’m just really excited to see how the golf course is going to be set up and how it’s going to play.
One that certainly I’ve watched on TV many times, but to see it in person, it’s going to be a lot of fun.
Q. It’s been roughly a year since Craig Kessler took over as commissioner of the LPGA Tour. Was just kind of wondering what your impressions have been in this first year in the job that the LPGA have done under his leadership, and how you think he and his team can continue to elevate the Tour and possibly have its “Caitlin Clark” moment?
MORGAN PRESSEL: Happy to take that. It’s been a year, and anybody in their first year of taking over a position in such a public way definitely has a learning curve. But coming from a golf background, I think that he has tremendous energy. I think a big thing that is part of what he’s been working on is really developing a culture where everybody is working together to really elevate the tour as a whole.
I think that includes sponsors. We have some really incredible sponsors of championships that really continue to press venues, to press purses, to expand television coverage, all those things that help on that broader scale.
But also the players. The players, all heading down, believing in Craig’s mission and the way that he wants to go about it and really doing the job that the players need to do, not just on the golf course, but off the golf course, as well, bringing eyes.
We talk about Caitlin Clark and what she has done for women’s basketball is pretty incredible, and you look at -- I think what we see this season maybe a little bit more than last season when there were 30 different winners on the LPGA Tour, is you have some real standout stars that are taking a majority of the trophies.
And of course, Nelly Korda really in dominating fashion at Chevron, a multiple winner this year; Jeeno Thitikul, as well; Hannah Green; you have Hyo Joo Kim, who has also had a really stellar start to the year.
I think the fans want to see that competition amongst Nelly, Jeeno, the best of the best really fighting it out week in, week out. A lot of that comes down to course setup.
There’s so many different levels to the LPGA that Craig is really trying to manage; has done a little bit of restructuring, as well.
I used to be on the player board a long time ago, and the players that I’ve spoken to on the player board have been very positive on kind of the things that are going on more behind the scenes.
And as somebody watching from a little bit more of a removed position in the sense that as a viewer, I really think I like his energy and his excitement and the places he wants to take the Tour.
Now it’s just about putting all of those things in order and really getting it done.
DAN HICKS: I’ll just jump on the other half of that. I don’t do a ton of women’s golf but I’ll tell you what can really help Craig Kessler this week, it’s just the second time the U.S. Women’s Open is going to be in primetime on Saturday. Goes until 10:00 at night, goes until 8:00 on Sunday as we sign off on NBC.
And speaking to what Morgan was talking about, if the championship can get a Nelly Korda, a couple of the other stars that Morgan was talking about, maybe one of those interlopers that comes in, whether it’s an amateur or kind of the unexpected -- in other words, if he gets a great storyline this week in the biggest championship they play, the U.S. Women’s Open, and it gets some primetime coverage and it’s in LA at Riviera, that is exactly, I think, what the LPGA needs to just kind of give it a huge boost at its biggest championship they play.
A lot of it’s on the player competition, and it means exciting endings. If it gets a great one in the U.S. Women’s Open, that’s as good as it can get.
CARA BANKS: I can jump in. I think just to echo what Morgan was saying, the excitement of Craig Kessler being hired I think was huge for all of us in the industry. It seems like he was labeled a mini Mike Whan by many. His energy is palpable, his excitement to be in this role, bringing his whole family kind of into it with him.
I think he’s a great person having seen him a few times, a great leader and also quick to own up to any mistakes he and the LPGA have made. If you think back to the season opening event in Orlando that he’s learning as he goes, and he’s kind of as transparent as he can be in this whole process.
As Morgan says, looking forward to seeing some more things rolled out in due course.
Q. Cara, you mentioned that the USGA has taught you guys some things that may change up a little bit from what we’ve seen with the Genesis Invitational. Can you disclose any of those or is that stuff that we’ll first see next week?
CARA BANKS: There’s a few tweaks that Shannon Rouillard requested that the club make, and one of them was the teeing ground on the fourth hole. That was one of the favorite holes at Riviera for many, and Ben Hogan in particular.
But they’ve built new tees to the right of where the difficult tees were on that hole, which visually will look very different. I think everyone will see when they arrive.
Then the 8th hole, I suppose, how they expect it to play pretty differently. The PGA TOUR has the decision off the tee with the split fairways, the left- and the right-hand side. Particularly for the Genesis we see the PGA TOUR professionals take the left route, but they’ve widened the fairway on the right-hand side slightly to make that being the conservative option a little bit more appealing.
It was just 22 yards wide before; they’ve increased it slightly. So we expect to see the women playing more down the right-hand side of that hole compared to how we’re used to watching it in the years on the PGA TOUR side.
Q. Morgan, so many of the LPGA stars have friends who play on the PGA TOUR. Have you heard about the ladies talking to the men and trying to get some insight, because this is a venue they’ve never been to before?
MORGAN PRESSEL: I personally have not heard that, but it wouldn’t surprise me whatsoever. Some share similar coaches. I remember -- I believe it was Paula Creamer at Oakmont who got hole locations from Bubba Watson.
I would not be surprised if that happens. And on the contrary, I would actually encourage the players to do that, because it’s a new venue for pretty much everyone except maybe someone who grew up in LA or went to school in LA.
Otherwise, not many of these players will have ever seen it before. Any kind of insight that you can get into how the golf course plays, especially in tournament competition, it might be slightly different for the U.S. Women’s Open, but I think they’ll get a really good sense that way or which hole locations are tough and which ones -- just little nuanced ways to play the golf course.
Honestly, if it saves them one shot a day, two shots for the whole week, that’s a huge -- could be a potentially huge number.
I think it would be very helpful for the players to do that.
Q. You all sort of answered the question about having the Caitlin Clark moment, and I was just curious, short of that happening right now, where women’s golf is now, how do you guys feel just in general about the state of the LPGA, women’s golf in general, both in the U.S. but also globally, because there are differences in popularity there?
MORGAN PRESSEL: I think it’s kind of one of the biggest things about women’s golf in the sense of -- I guess we’ll talk specifically LPGA based -- is just the global nature of the Tour compared to maybe the PGA TOUR certainly doesn’t play nearly as much internationally as the LPGA does.
You’re seeing other sports, how important it is to have that international fan base. Look at where the NFL is taking games all over the world, really trying to grow the brand and to grow eyeballs on the sport. And women’s golf certainly has that in many, many corners of the world, of course all over Asia.
There’s plenty of events both in the spring and in the fall during both Asian swings. You have a stint through Europe. This year is a Solheim Cup year. The international flair is a big part of that.
What that does relative to, let’s say, a Caitlin Clark moment, we saw Jeeno Thitikul win in her home country of Thailand just a few months ago. What a moment that was for her, feeling that pressure, feeling that burden.
She is a true superstar in Thailand. She’s very popular here, as well, but it’s different when you have those international players with the real fan base from their home country.
I saw it with Ai Miyazato in Japan. Just an incredible level of superstardom that we haven’t even seen here for a player like Nelly Korda.
I think that’s a very special part of the nature of the LPGA, is the way that they do play all over the world, and the best players from all over the world come to play on the LPGA.
It’s how you really capitalize on that, I think that’s a big part of Craig Kessler’s job, as well, and how do you make the most of that to really be dynamic in each and every market.
Q. My question is about the setup of the course. In the men’s Open, the course is typically set up to, they will say, identify the best players, not to punish them, but they are indeed punished, to get the score as close to par as possible. What’s the course setup going to be like? Will the rough be up to protect par? And can you comment on the course setup and what you predict a winning score will be?
DAN HICKS: I had a meeting with the USGA, a few of the guys yesterday, just specifically talking about the U.S. Men’s Open coming up at Shinnecock, and I think there’s been a change of, kind of, a theme with the USGA in recent years.
I don’t think, especially with what’s happened at Shinnecock, for instance, in previous Opens that have been staged there. The USGA has been pretty open about maybe some things they could have done to prevent the golf course from getting away from them, even though Shinnecock is a very difficult venue to manage.
The grasses that get just totally dried out in a matter of just minutes there because of just the nature of where they are out on Long Island.
But it’s a long-winded way of saying I think they want to let Shinnecock be Shinnecock, and I think they want to let these great -- especially these iconic great classic courses just be themselves, not necessarily to trick them up, not necessary to grow the rough up because they want to make sure there’s not a score that’s 20-under or something like that. I don’t think that’s going to be the case because the U.S. Open is going to strategically be set up tough anyway.
But I think, and Morgan and Cara can speak to this, as well, but I think the USGA is now more on a path of let’s let the golf course be the golf course. Let’s let the golf course be the way that the architect, in this case classic designer such as George Thomas or whether it’s Flynn at Shinnecock, let their golf courses do exactly what they were intended to do years ago.
I don’t think the rough is going to be grown up at Riviera. I think it’ll be manageable. But I just think that it’s not so much the importance of the score as it used to be for the USGA these days.
CARA BANKS: I’ll follow on from that. I think John Bodenhamer explained similarly how he has maybe softened the narrative in the last few years that, yeah, the philosophy is more tough but fair and not as much to protect par, and that they just want to present a well-rounded test that gets all 15 clubs dirty, the 14 in the bag and the one between your ears.
I think as long as they set up a golf course that challenges every part of the game, they’re not as married to a winning score.
We haven’t learned too much about the rough yet. I think they’re going to see how it plays in the early part of the week, and they haven’t put too many plans in place for that. It’s hard to predict a winning score, to be honest, at this stage.
MORGAN PRESSEL: I definitely agree with what Dan said about how the USGA has kind of adapted their philosophy a little bit. I think the main thing is it’s the U.S. Women’s Open, and you know it’s going to be tough. The USGA really wants to identify the best player that week and allow the golf course really to shine.
I think that’s really been elevated with the venues of late, as well. I think that’s certainly helped.
But I do agree they don’t protect par in the same way, but as a player you mentally know it’s going to be a tough test of golf. It’s going to test every aspect of your game. In order to come out on top, you’re also going to need to be the mentally -- you’re going to have to be the toughest mentally.
I don’t want to really comment too much on course setup because I haven’t seen it in person, and I also don’t want to comment on the winning score. A lot of that’s conditions based. There’s so many different things that go into what the final score will be.
There’s no question it’ll be a tough test for these players, and I’m just really looking forward to seeing it.
Q. For all three of you, I’m curious what you guys’ thoughts are on the course itself. This venue is obviously a historic venue. What can this venue do for the promotion of the U.S. Women’s Open as a whole?
CARA BANKS: I’ve never been to Riviera, to be honest, so it’s going to be a quick learning process next week when we get into town.
I just think the fact that, as Dan alluded to at the beginning of the call, the fact that we’re in LA is obviously Tinsel Town, and it’s just really cool to have the best women golfers on display in primetime on NBC from Riviera.
I just think whatever -- hopefully the storylines write themselves, and as Dan said earlier, depending on the competition and who’s kind of in contention come the weekend and come Sunday will write the script itself.
Again, to echo what Morgan said, the venues matter, and the women want to play in major markets, which is why we’re back in LA, and the USGA have said to us we’ll never have a break this long from playing golf in LA County like it has been in terms of their championships.
So I just think we should expect to see the U.S. Women’s Open in these big markets, some exciting announcements to come about future venues that haven’t been released yet.
But yeah, I think Riviera will be the stage for hopefully some women to shine on the golf course next week.
DAN HICKS: I’ll just jump in quick and say that familiarity of a television audience with a golf course is a big deal. You look at The Masters every year. People know Augusta National. You look at THE PLAYERS Championship, also a part of men’s golf. People get to know the golf course. They know it.
I think there’s going to be a huge curiosity factor with a lot of golf enthusiastic fans know of through its LA Open history and all the great history from the men’s side that they’ve seen on TV. They’ve seen the vibe of the cool-looking trees and down in the valley after you tee up high up on 1, you come back on 18 to end the whole thing.
I think that the curiosity factor of, okay, I’ve seen this short par-4 10th. I’ve been told it’s one of the great short par-4s in the world and I’ve seen the men play it. How are the women going to deal with it? I’m just like a golf fan who’s asking the same question.
I can’t wait to see how it’s set up, whether they’re going to have the tees up a couple days, back a couple days, and they’re going to experiment as they go along.
But to see them play iconic holes like the 10th, like the 18th, the par-3 that Cara was talking about earlier, the 4th, it’s just really cool, I think, to see the women tackle the same kind of golf architecture and great holes that we’ve seen the men attack through the years.
I think that is going to elevate this championship just on its own by that.
MORGAN PRESSEL: I am a big believer that venues matter. Venues matter.
I think when the venue is on the West Coast, even say Pebble Beach a few years ago, then you have a historic venue plus primetime television. We have a tremendous amount of hours of television, and the last hour there’s a full hour each day commercial free. It’s the last hour on USA on Thursday and Friday and the last hour of the NBC show on Saturday and Sunday.
NBC is a big part of what we’re doing, showing as much golf as we can. We want people to see the action, see the golf course, see the incredible players, and just really follow all the drama. Because there is always drama at a U.S. Women’s Open, and you put it on just such a well-known stage, it brings in the casual fan and then the drama hooks them.
Q. Morgan and Cara, what are your thoughts or where do you see Nelly Korda and her popularity out there on the Tour right now and where it could possibly go if she continues to play the way she has thus far this season?
MORGAN PRESSEL: I think it’s been incredibly impressive what we’ve seen from Nelly so far this season. Certainly, a couple years ago having that seven-win season, really taking us all on that journey through the early part of the year, and then last year not getting a victory.
I feel like she’s just -- she rose in tremendous popularity in 2024 and then really fighting her way back to the very top of the game and winning the Chevron in real dominating fashion. I think that she certainly being an American star to an American audience really brings people in, and of course her incredible family history of athletes. It’s just a wonderful story that she and her entire family have.
You watch her hit a drive, and it’s one of the most impressive golf swings you’re ever going to see. To watch it on television or to see it in person, I think that the sky really is the limit for Nelly. She seems really committed, and I think we saw that in the way that she has battled back, so to speak.
She had a good season last year, but people are looking at her number of victories and I think that was weighing on her. To come out really strong this season, I think it’s brought a lot of attention to certainly her and to women’s golf as a whole. If she wins another major or two in really dramatic fashion, I think it would be pretty tremendous.
CARA BANKS: Yeah, I think Nelly is like the American superstar that the LPGA has needed, right, and now we have it. And where is it going to go? Like will she kind of break the ceiling and will she provide the Caitlin Clark moment? I think some of it is be decided, but obviously there is no doubt that she is the superstar that we’ve had.
I think what’s been difficult as Morgan alluded to when she had the seven-win season and she was like the LPGA star and Scottie Scheffler was PGA TOUR star and they both had these great season, and then she had the slump last year while Scottie kind of continued on his rampage of winning and really asserting himself.
Now it’s been incredible how Nelly has come back and has not done much outside of win or runner-up to start the year.
She has a formula for success which involves a team around her. Now, how successful can she be while still doing what makes her successful, I think that’s a tough question, perhaps, to someone that’s so talented.
But major championships talk, we all know that. The U.S. Women’s Open in primetime from LA would be huge, and it would be her third, obviously, in the leg for the Grand Slam, and probably the next notch that we all expect her to conquer, to be honest.
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