The first women’s golf major of the year, The Chevron Championship, has a new home in 2026.
The tournament was held at the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course in The Woodlands from 2023, but this year it will be played at Memorial Park, home of the Houston Open on the PGA Tour.
This is the second break from tradition in just a few years for this historic tournament. From its inception in 1972, this event was played at Mission Hills Country Club, with the winner jumping into “Poppie’s Pond” after claiming the trophy.
But after over 50 years at Mission Hills, the Chevron Championship has twice been relocated. 2024 champion Nelly Korda gave her honest thoughts on Memorial Park before the event.
Korda, a former world number one and a two-time major winner, predicted how she thinks Memorial Park is going to play this week for the year’s first major.
The American said, “I saw the weather for the week and I played 18 yesterday. It’s definitely a second-shot golf course. Greens are pretty tricked out. Just depends on how it’s going to play with all the rain that they got. It can play really long where it’s not go to go run out or play really soft. Just depends on kind of what we’re going to get weather-wise.
“But from what I’ve seen, the par-threess are really long. I’ve had like two hybrids, five irons in, so obviously you’re at the end of the tee box because they’re trying to preserve the tee box for the tournament, so you don’t know where they’re going to put it.
Par-threes are pretty long. Par-fives are -some of them are pretty gettable. Overall, I think the defense of this golf course is probably the contours of the green and being – it being very sectional.”
Korda continued, “Completely different golf course, and with it being a major championship, you’re definitely doing a lot more work around the greens, kind of assessing the risk factors of pin placements, where to hit it, where not to hit it.
“There are parts of the greens where there is no chance that you can get an up and down if you do hit it there in the bad part of the green. I mean, it’s all about at the end of the day your second shot in here, where if you do miss-hit it you’re hoping to miss-hit it in the safer area so you have a good opportunity to make an up and down.
“It’s also really about assessing the risk factor of going for it or just playing in the middle of the green. Some of par-5s are definitely gettable, so I think you’ll see a lot of girls trying to make up a lot of their shots or birdies on par-5s and playing very conservative on the par-3s, and having like making a par on these par-3s all four days in a row is going to really shoot you up the leaderboard.”
The Houston Open on the PGA Tour was played just a month before the Chevron Championship, and Korda was asked if she watched any of Gary Woodland’s emotional victory as preparation for this event.
She said, “No, I did not talk to any PGA Tour players. I didn’t watch too much of the event. We were playing that week so it was quite hard to watch and also compete.
“But I know that my caddie, Jason, did. For me, it’s hard to kind of — I like it suss out a golf course myself and make my decision myself rather than relying on someone else’s input.
“Then I have too much information in my mind, and I feel like then if I have their information versus what I scope out on the golf course, I start to doubt my information, and then I’m not 100% confident in what I’m doing.
“So that is kind of why I tend not to always ask for too much information about another golf course, especially from a male to a female, because they have different clubs coming in, the apex of the ball flight is a lot higher than ours.
“So, just from what I was told though, is that it is kind of like a bomber’s paradise. You’re trying to hit driver on every hole pretty much, get it as close to the green, because it is very sectional and it’s crucial to have probably shorter clubs in to these greens when it is firm.”
The rough was cut down at the Houston Open, allowing the bombers to let loose from the tee. If it’s set up the same this week, then expect the longer hitters to thrive.
READ MORE: Ian Woosnam suggests if Rory McIlroy is the greatest European golfer ever