U.S. Women’s Open week at Erin Hills — A chat with Ally’s Stephanie Marciano
The IX: Golf Thursday with Marin Dremock, May 29, 2025
Golf fans around the country are gearing up for the 80th U.S. Women’s Open presented by Ally at Erin Hills.
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Happy U.S. Women’s Open week, and welcome back to Golf Thursday.
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Erin Hills, located in the hills northwest of Milwaukee, Wis., is a beast. It’s always been a beast. The last professional major championship to take place there, men or women, was the 2017 U.S. Open. Brooks Koepka won his first major championship, and notables Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson and Jason Day all missed the cut. (It was the first time the top three players missed the cut in a major since the Official World Golf Ranking was established in 1985.)
The feisty fescue, tempting fairways and 132 bunkers are back this week, this time for the women’s test. The par-72, 6,829-yard Erin Hills, dubbed golf’s “Field of Dreams” by United States Golf Association (USGA) CEO Mike Whan, will host its first U.S. Women’s Open this year from May 29 to June 1.
Forecasts are looking grim for the start of the week. It’s been raining pretty steadily during practice and is expected to continue into the first and second rounds. Friday may see wind gusts up to 30 mph. Temperatures may reach the mid 70s, but don’t expect anything consistent. The field will have to battle the weather along with the course this week.
World No. 1 Nelly Korda called Erin Hills “an overall good test of your entire game” during a pre-tournament press conference on Tuesday. She called the tee shots “demanding” because of the, dare I say it again, 132 bunkers.
“The bunkers are not easy. Sometimes you just don’t even have a stance in them because they’re so small,” Korda said after her Tuesday prep work.
The par-3 9th at Erin Hills is just one of the holes that is notorious for giving players trouble. The locals call it the shortest par 5 in Wisconsin.
“If you look at it just from the tee box, you see it’s kind of like a shorter par-3, but it’s very, very demanding in every aspect,” Korda said.
The elevated tee box makes the hole look quite short, as Korda said, and obscures the true nature of the very undulated green. With the grandstand of spectators behind it, the depth perception will be just that much harder to judge.
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It doesn’t seem that the players have been tested on a course with such elevation changes. It’s called Erin Hills for a reason. Since the course has no out of bounds, no forced carries and no water penalty areas, the slope of the former cow farm must be the compensating element that challenges the field at the championship level.
“Have you walked the golf course yet? There’s a big slope. I wasn’t expecting that. It’s in the yardage book, but I wasn’t expecting it to be almost 100 yards of dip,” defending champion Yuka Saso said during a pre-tournament press conference on Monday.
Saso is coming into the 2025 championship with quite a weight on her shoulders. Her win at Lancaster Country Club last year was the second USWO trophy, and win, of her career. Saso is also the youngest player to win multiple titles. Carrying the trophy onto the grounds at Erin Hills is probably a realization that she wants to have it back when she leaves.
It’s a given that Korda is itching for her first USWO win. How could she not? After missing the cut last year in southeastern Pennsylvania, having a good week in Wisconsin can help her overcome a bit of a slow start to the season.
This type of golf course is so unique and so different to what these players experience on a daily basis. I don’t think the winner will be someone we expect. However, I do think that Erin Hills fits Allisen Corpuz, 2023 USWO champion, and her game quite well. Her 2023 win was at Pebble Beach, known for its coastal winds and drastic elevation changes as well. She has the resilience and experience to piece together four solid rounds of golf to win another trophy.
There’s a bit of a history between Erin Hills and Corpuz; she played the Women’s Amateur Public Links here in 2008 when she was just 10 years old. Now she’s returning to the course for the first time since then. A win from Corpuz is a story waiting to be written.
You can catch the 80th edition of the U.S. Women’s Open from May 29 to June 1 on USA Network, Peacock and NBC. Here are the broadcast and streaming schedules for the week.
Buckle up, golf fans. It’s going to be a rollercoaster.
This week in women’s golf
LPGA News
LPGA Board of Directors elects Craig Kessler as commissioner
By the numbers in professional golf: 80th U.S. Women’s Open
Lydia Ko looking to make all sorts of history at the U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills
Field breakdown: 2025 U.S. Women’s Open presented by Ally
U.S. Women’s Open a historic tournament for first-ever winners
Five things to know about the 2025 U.S. Women’s Open presented by Ally
Chisato Iwai wins MEXICO Riviera Maya Open by 6 shots for first LPGA title
Cristie Kerr finds winner’s circle for first time since 2017 at LPGA Legends Championship
LET News
Rhodes still number one on LET Order of Merit
Davidson Spilkova excited for second appearance at U.S. Women’s Open
Countdown begins: 2025 KPMG Women’s Irish Open set to shine at Carton House
Kouskova clinches maiden LET title with Jabra Ladies Open victory
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Epson Tour News
Get to know the 15 Epson Tour athletes competing at the 2025 U.S. Women’s Open
Epson Tour graduate Jenny Bae battles for career-best LPGA finish in Mexico
Epson Tour announces renewed partnership with City of Indian Wells for 2025 season finale
Amateur/NCAA News
Meet the 26 amateurs playing in the U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills
A great piece on the development and sustaining of young female golf phenoms
Five at The IX: Stephanie Marciano and Ally are taking women’s golf up a notch
Last week, I had the chance to chat with Stephanie Marciano, head of sports and entertainment for Ally, the sponsor of the U.S. Women’s Open. Marciano, a former collegiate and professional basketball player and coach, has been with Ally for almost four years. She’s worn many hats in the women’s sports industry, from player and coach to manager and consultant.
I talked with Stephanie about the ways Ally’s partnership with the United States Golf Association (USGA) continues to create an environment where anyone feels welcome in golf. Given Ally’s initiative to raise the purse of the U.S. Women’s Open to the highest in women’s golf, I wanted to hear how the brand was making waves in the women’s golf space, both financially and socially.
Through its engagement with the U.S. National Development Team and budding involvement with the First Tee, Ally has helped bring resources, recognition and enjoyment for golf to folks who hadn’t had access to it before. The impact of what Stephanie and her team are doing extends far beyond raising a prize purse.
Here are some snippets from our chat.
Marin Dremock: This will obviously be Ally’s second year as a title sponsor for the U.S. Women’s Open, which is super exciting. In what specific ways will Ally try to support women’s golfers in ways maybe you didn’t have the capacity to last year or in your four years?
Stephanie Marciano: Yeah, it’s a great question. I mean, our biggest focus on entering our partnership with the USGA was ensuring that we could partner with the entire governing body, have a presence on the men’s side for sure, but have a leading presence on the women’s side and help elevate that purse.
So continuing to be the highest purse in all of golf is important to us. We want other tournaments to have some healthy competition, to continue to grow those purses because that’s just good for the game and that’s good for female golfers everywhere.
We maintained our partnership with Lillia Vu. She’s playing tremendous. Last year she was injured and wasn’t able to play in the U.S. Open. So we are thrilled to see her next week. She has done a tremendous amount of content for us. She’s an influential advisor for us. So we’re constantly in contact with her, talking to her about what the sport needs, what female golfers need, how we can make her talk about her money stories and share her money stories with fans. A lot of those stories happen to be relatable and that’s been tremendous for us.
We’ve got a collaboration as a founding partner of the U.S. National Development Team, which is the first of its kind in the U.S., which is all about youth golfers, boys and girls, and making sure regardless of their socioeconomic status, if they are good at golf and they can play golf, we’re going to pull down the financial barriers and make sure they have access to the great equipment, the courses. So that’s something that we’ve revved up even more this year because that’s in its second year. So there’s been some great enhancements there.
Our on-site experience, there’s a huge donation coming out of that, and that actually is now going to First Tee to a local Milwaukee chapter, which, again, is making golf more accessible to young girls and young boys. So that’s where we’ve kind of revved it up a little bit. There’s obviously more work to do. This is a long-term partnership, but those are some of the highlights.
MD: You said the First Tee you’re expanding to. What is that going to look like?
SM: The parties have a little bit of a strategic partnership there. So donating to First Tee just made a lot of sense. Last year, our on-site activation based on all the fan participation provided a great donation to USGA’s charity and their foundation. This year, we wanted to just make it a little bit more deliberate to young golfers. So we picked a chapter in the Milwaukee area, and it made a lot of sense. And USGA is incredibly supportive of that.
So I think, again, all parties just want to grow the game and make it accessible to the game. And also our grant to the U.S. National Development Program is quite large. So I think that everything is working there as well. And that grant is reaching a number of young golfers.
MD: What is Ally’s involvement in diversifying the game doing specifically? Can you speak a little bit more specifically about the [U.S. National Development] program and how that vision is driving the diversity in the game?
SM: Yeah, the U.S. National Development Program is a new program. And it’s absolutely ran by the USGA. They control selection of the athletes, and they control the distribution of, obviously, the funds. Our position as a brand is supporting from a funding and grant perspective,continuing to help advise on the purpose of the program, sharing the stories of those young golfers and sharing their journeys as they kind of come up through the game. And that’s working. It’s only in its second year, but it’s super important. It’s really important because golf participation and interest in golf is more diverse than ever, right? More women are participating than ever before. Younger golfers, the numbers are on a rise. The participation and the fandom of golf is more diverse than ever.
So the U.S. National Development Program, it allows you as a fan, and if you are a young golfer, to now know that the sport is accessible to you. And we continue to do that again with some of our collaborations with First Tee, with our content distribution and making sure that we’re talking and celebrating golfers of all backgrounds and fans of all backgrounds.
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MD: What are some other measurable ways of how you’ve been pursuing that mission of equity, in at least the pay grade, but some other ways in women’s golf?
Some other reasons where we wanted that leadership position on the women’s side being the presenting partner, because it allows us to collaborate with USGA and continue to, again, make sure that [golfers] play at the best courses like Lancaster and like Erin Hills. So you want the purse to be high. You want the courses to be the best. You want the resources to be high. You want the media distribution to be great. So that’s a piece as well.
But their partnership with NBC is best in class. And we talked a lot to NBC before getting into this relationship on what is their plan for the distribution of the women’s game. And they have the best cameras. They have the best production quality. They have the best around-the-game coverage. They have the most hours of coverage, particularly on the weekend.
And [this investment in coverage] obviously advances our 50-50 pledge. It’s basically our commitment to spend equally in men’s and women’s sports media, which is pretty hard to do. But we made that pledge a few years ago. We’re quite close to hitting it. And investing with NBC, skewing toward the women’s game helps us continue to advance that. So that’s really important to us.
MD: What’s been your most satisfying personal moment in your time as Ally’s head of sports and entertainment in the women’s golf area? In women’s sports as a whole?
SM: Oh man, I would say that when I joined Ally four years ago, I was tasked with optimizing the current partnerships we have and growing the portfolio. Where should we go next? And golf was a real interest level all the way from C-suite.
So I think finding the USGA, understanding that there was a vacancy, understanding that we could enter golf at both the men’s level and the women’s level, but have this leadership position on a national stage, driving the women’s game forward was really as good as it gets.
And it made so much sense for our brand. And it was such a moment for me to be able to announce this partnership. So last year, I was able to stand on stage with Mike Whan [CEO of the USGA] and announce this partnership and celebrate this partnership and sit on panels and some TV interviews with Lilia [Vu] and Mike Whan and talk about how special this partnership was.
So for me, that was a huge career moment because of how important it was, particularly driving the purse higher. Economic mobility is critical for all people, but to be able to do it in the women’s sports space where there [are] still challenges on pay equity and there [are] still challenges for young fans and young golfers to see that there is a career path.
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