Riviera Finally Opens Its Arms to the U.S. Women's Open

There's a particular quality to the light at Riviera Country Club in the late afternoon—golden, cinematic, the kind that makes you understand why Hollywood claimed this canyon as its own. I've walked these fairways during Genesis Invitational weeks, marveled at the barranca that bisects the 10th, and stood in the bunker carved into the 6th green wondering what possessed George C. Thomas Jr. to do such a thing. But this week, standing beneath the Ben Hogan statue that overlooks the 18th green, I felt something different. Something historic.

A Long-Overdue Arrival

The U.S. Women's Open has finally come to Riviera Country Club. Let that sink in for a moment. In the club's centennial year, this marks the first women's tournament ever played on these grounds. The names etched at the base of Hogan's bronze bust—chronicling decades of champions at this storied venue—will soon include a woman for the first time.

"I believe very strongly about how important venues are," Morgan Pressel said Wednesday morning, walking along the 1st fairway. For Pressel, this has been something of a crusade—the notion that women's golf has long been denied access to the courses where men have built legends.

The Venue Problem

For years, the pattern was unmistakable. When the men played Pebble Beach, the women went to Cordevalle. When Merion hosted—where that famous photograph of Hogan's 1-iron still lives in our collective memory—the USWO traveled 70 miles west to Lancaster. When Shinnecock beckoned the men's Open in 2013, the women headed farther out on Long Island to Sebonack.

Good courses, certainly. But not the courses. Not the venues where golf history has been written and rewritten across generations.

The reasoning behind these decisions was never entirely clear, and perhaps that ambiguity was the point. But eight or nine years ago, according to John Bodenhamer, the USGA's chief championship officer, the governing body made a deliberate pivot.

"We put at the top of our pyramid going to America's greatest venues," Bodenhamer said Wednesday. "When we say that, we mean it, and we start with the golf course, and Riviera is one of America's greatest venues."

The New Era Takes Shape

Pressel remembers the emotional weight of watching Yuka Saso chase down Lexi Thompson at Olympic Club in 2021—a venue that had hosted five U.S. Opens but never welcomed the women until then. She recalls the announcement of Pebble Beach as the 2023 host with breathless excitement.

"To add our own history to the already storied history at Olympic Club—it was a really special week," Pressel reflected.

The implementation hasn't been perfectly linear; Lancaster hosted again in 2024, and Erin Hills last summer. But the trajectory is unmistakable now. After Riviera, the U.S. Women's Open heads to Inverness Club, the Donald Ross masterpiece in Toledo that has hosted six men's majors and zero women's championships. Then comes Oakmont, that fearsome Pennsylvania test that shows no mercy regardless of who's playing.

Why It Matters

Standing in Hogan's Alley this week, watching the world's best women players navigate the same contours that shaped Hogan's legend—the kikuyu rough, the compact routing, the 18th where so many dreams have been made and broken—I'm reminded why venues matter so deeply in golf.

These courses aren't just settings; they're characters in the stories we tell. When Jeeno Thitikul walks up the final fairway on Sunday, she'll be walking where Hogan walked. Where Nicklaus walked. Where Tiger walked. And finally, she'll be writing her own chapter.

The statue will get a new name on its plaque. And Riviera, in its centennial year, will be richer for it.

The Takeaway

• This is the first women's tournament ever played at Riviera Country Club, arriving in the venue's centennial year.
• The USGA has deliberately shifted strategy to bring the U.S. Women's Open to America's most iconic courses.
• Future stops include Inverness Club and Oakmont, continuing the push for venue equity in women's golf.
• A woman's name will finally be added to the champions plaque beneath the Ben Hogan statue.