Golf’s Majors represent the pinnacle of achievement in the sport, and while many players spend years striving to claim one, some incredible young women have defied expectations, seizing victory at astonishingly early ages and etching their names into the history books.
Lydia Ko holds the distinction of being the youngest player to win any of the five LPGA Majors, clinching the 2015 Evian Championship at just 18 years, 4 months, and 20 days old. She is part of an elite group of 18-year-olds who have achieved Major victories, alongside Brooke Henderson, who won the 2016 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at 18 years, 9 months, and 2 days, and Morgan Pressel, who secured the 2007 Kraft Nabisco Championship (now the Chevron Championship) at 18 years, 10 months, and 9 days. Lexi Thompson was also a teenager when she won the 2021 Kraft Nabisco Championship at 19 years, 1 month and 27 days.
Of women’s golf’s five Major championships, the AIG Women’s Open is the only one yet to see a teenage champion. Its youngest winner, Ji-yai Shin, was 20 years, 3 months, and 6 days old when she triumphed in 2008.
Yuka Saso etched her name in history at the 2021 US Women’s Open by sinking a birdie putt on the third playoff hole and tie with Inbee Park to become the tournament’s youngest champion. In an extraordinary coincidence, both players secured their victories at exactly 19 years, 11 months and 17 days old.
Before Park and Saso, Se Ri Pak held the record as the youngest US Women’s Open winner, claiming victory in 1998, at 20 years, 7 months, and 19 days. Just two months earlier, she had captured the first of her five Majors at the McDonald’s LPGA Championship.
