[Photo: Getty Images]
Rachel Hetherington will tee it up at this week’s US Senior Women’s Open Championship at Barton Hills Country Club in Ann Arbor, Michigan, marking a full-circle moment for one of Australia’s greatest women’s golfers as she returns to major championship golf for the first time in years.
Hetherington sits level with Hannah Green with eight LPGA titles, behind only Karrie Webb (41) and Jan Stephenson (16) among Australians, and ahead of Minjee Lee (10) on the all-time wins list. She joins a 120-player field for the eighth playing of the championship, which begins this Thursday.
Hetherington’s playing career, which spanned an era dominated by the likes of Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb and Se Ri Pak, was defined as much by her grit in the clutch as by raw talent. Hetherington famously defeated Sorenstam in a playoff on three separate occasions during her LPGA career, including her breakthrough win at the 1998 First Union Betsy King Classic, the Swede’s first-ever playoff loss.
RELATED: Rachel Hetherington – Then and now
In a recent interview with Australian Golf Digest Women, Hetherington reflected on that era of women’s golf.
“It was great to be in the hunt and to play in that era with those players,” she said. “I think my mental game was something that helped me win so many times against Annika in the playoffs.”
Her career largely wound down in 2010 after a severe ankle injury and life since has taken Hetherington well beyond the golf course, motherhood, opening a driving range with husband and former Test cricketer Greg Ritchie, a law degree and now a role working for a federal MP. She made brief returns to tournament golf in 2015 and 2016 before stepping away again.
But arthritis and a body that’s “actually feeling a lot better” of late have Hetherington eyeing a return to competitive golf, telling Australian Golf Digest Women she’s hopeful of building back towards 18 holes and preparing for senior events, a hope realised this week at Barton Hills.
[Photo: Barton Hills Country Club]
Designed by World Golf Hall of Famer Donald Ross and opened in 1922, Barton Hills Country Club will play to a par of 72 across 6,237 yards for the championship. The field of 120 will be cut after 36 holes to the low 50 scorers and ties, with 18 holes of strokeplay scheduled each day from Thursday to Sunday.
The USGA accepted 388 entries for this year’s championship, drawn from players across 44 states and 15 countries. Defending champion Becky Morgan, who became the first golfer from Wales to win a USGA championship with a seven-shot victory at San Diego Country Club last year, headlines the field as she looks to defend her title.
The 2026 purse sits at $US1 million, with the winner set to earn $US180,000, along with a 10-year exemption into future Senior Women’s Opens and a place in next year’s US Women’s Open at Inverness Club.
[Photo: Hunter Martin/Getty Images]
Hetherington’s record in the majors remains outstanding. Between 2002 and 2006, she didn’t miss a single major-championship cut, twice finishing runner-up (the 2001 Kraft Nabisco Championship and 2004 Women’s Open) and reaching as high as No.6 in the unofficial world ranking in July 2003.
Whatever the result this week, her return to major championship golf is a welcome one for Australian golf fans who remember one of the country’s most tenacious competitors going toe-to-toe with the best players of her generation.
• For the full story of her career and the years since, read Karen Harding’s feature, “Rachel Hetherington: Then and now,” in the latest issue of AGDW.
