Hazeltine National goes the distance for KPMG Women's PGA Championship

Little Lorena Ochoa was the big bopper of women's golf the last time the world sent its best female players to Minnesota.

It was 2008 and Ochoa was 26 years old with two major victories in less than one calendar year. She was No. 1 in the world and blasting prodigious tee balls at an average distance of 269.3 yards.

Sorry, Lorena, but in today's world that would rank 30th and trail by more than 15 yards the modern distance queen, Anne van Dam (285.1). Not to mention the 313-yard 3-wood that Ariya Jutanugarn roasted to within 96 yards of Hazeltine National Golf Club's 10th flag during Friday's second round of the KPMG Women's PGA Championship.

"The game has changed," said Stacy Lewis, whose first tournament as a professional was that 2008 U.S. Women's Open at Interlachen. "Everybody just kind of bombs it and goes and finds it. Like the men do."

Bring it on, Hazeltine is telling the women this week.

According to the LPGA Tour, citing an ongoing research project that goes back to 1991, the pretournament listing of 6,807 yards ranks Chaska's par-72 brute as the longest for a women's PGA Championship and the fifth longest among all five women's majors. No. 6 is now Interlachen, which played 6,789 but was a par 73.

Throw in Thursday's downpour and Friday's swirling, confounding wind, and we have one mighty struggle for length taking place between player and property.

The kind of struggle that made Jutanugarn put a driver in her bag for the first time all season on Thursday. Playing partner Lexi Thompson was unaware of Jutanugarn's first competitive driver swing of 2019 until, she says, "I heard it."

Fighting back, the PGA of America stretched the course 24 yards to 6,831 for the opening round. Heck, all four par 5s were as long or longer than two of the three par 5s the men played in this month's U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

"Yeah," Thompson said. "They're tipped out."

Friday's second round played 6,760 yards. The par 5 7th and 15th were shortened 29 and 12 yards, respectively, and played downwind, although the winds at 15 were quite fickle. The other par 5s — Nos. 3 and 11 — played into the wind and over par.

"[Thursday] was tough because I don't think I've played in that much rain in a long time," Nelly Korda said Friday. "But it was not as windy as today. I had to think about shots a bit more because of the wind."

If the wind continues, Hazeltine might go bald from all the players and caddies throwing grass into the air to guess the wind direction. Friday, wind direction and strength were consistently inconsistent with gusts strong enough to fell a large limb between the fourth green and fifth tee box.

Fickle wind knocked rookie Lauren Stephenson out of the tournament. She had just birdied the short par-4 14th to move into second place at 3 under. She had a short wedge into the par-15th. But the wind that was just behind her on the tee had now shifted and was strong into her face.

She adjusted. But by the time she swung, the wind laid down, leaving her chip short. She flubbed her fourth shot into the bunker, stumbled to a double bogey and disappeared en route to a 1-over 73.

Of course, a peek at the first page of the 36-hole leaderboard shows there is room at the top for shorter hitters who can play target golf and putt.

While big-hitters Jutanugarn, defending champion Sung Hyun Park and Angel Yin were top 11 in driving distance for the week, the leader, Hannah Green and her 7 under weighed in at 73rd in driving distance for the week (246) and 95th for the season (257.3). And she's 3 under on the par 5s with seven putts and a chip in.

"I don't think Hazeltine necessarily suits a longer hitter or shorter hitters," said Lydia Ko, another halfway contender who's 95th in driving distance this week (242). "There's bunkers and rough at whatever distance you're going to hit."

Yes. But long doesn't hurt when playing the longest course the Women's PGA Championship has seen in at least 28 years.

Mark Craig is a reporter for the Star Tribune. Twitter: @markcraigNFL

E-mail: mcraig@statribune.com