Around the world

The AIG Women’s Open prides itself on being golf’s most international major – and this sentiment is backed up by the fact the last nine Champions have hailed from nine different countries.

Lydia Ko triumphed at St Andrews in August to become the first New Zealander to win the prestigious Championship.

The previous eight respective victors were from the USA (Lilia Vu), South Africa (Ashleigh Buhai), Sweden (Anna Nordqvist), Germany (Sophia Popov), Japan (Hinako Shibuno), England (Georgia Hall), South Korea (I K Kim) and Thailand (Ariya Jutanugarn).

The 2025 AIG Women’s Open will be staged in Wales – in the picturesque surroundings of Royal Porthcawl – for the very first time.

Will next year’s Champion represent a different country for the tenth consecutive time? We take a closer look at eight players in the world’s top 50 that could help to continue the trend…

Australia

The Australian charge could be led by the resurgent Hannah Green [above]. The 27-year-old has climbed into the world’s top 10 after an impressive 2024.

She won the HSBC Women’s World Championship in March and followed this up by claiming victory in the JM Eagle LA Championship – for a second successive year – in April. Green was then runner-up to the red-hot Nelly Korda at the Mizuho Americas Open before finishing just outside the medal places at the Paris Olympics.

Green’s best finish in the AIG Women’s Open was T16 in 2019, the same year she collected the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, her first major title.

Minjee Lee is another golfing heavyweight who could ensure the AIG Women’s Open trophy stays in Australasia for another year.

A two-time major champion and a player of undoubted pedigree and class, Lee has finished in the top 10 four times, most recently at Muirfield in 2022, and has 10 LPGA Tour victories to her name.

Meanwhile, former tennis player Gabriela Ruffels [above] is finding her stride in the top echelons of golf, having featured in all five majors for the first time this year.

With three victories under her belt, she was the first Australian to win the Epson Tour Player of the Year Award in 2023.

Canada

Still only 27, Brooke Henderson [above right] remains one of the most successful players in the women’s game.

A major champion at just 18 – courtesy of victory in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship – the Ontario native doubled her tally at the Evian Championship in 2022.

The most successful Canadian golfer in history, Henderson has won 13 LPGA titles.

Henderson took a while to get to grips with the AIG Women’s Open – with finishes of T61, T50 and T49 – but made a giant leap when she finished T11 at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 2018. She then finished T13 in 2021 and T7 the following year, her best performance to date.

China

Already a major winner and a former world number one, Ruoning Yin [above] could very well add to her burgeoning CV by claiming victory in Porthcawl.

‘Ronnie’ became the second Chinese player to win a major title – after Shanshan Feng in 2012 – when she collected the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in 2023, her second success on the LPGA Tour.

Ruoning finished T61 on her first appearance at the AIG Women’s Open in 2023, but produced a marked improvement at St Andrews 12 months later, tied-second after round one and ultimately finishing in a four-way tie for second, just two shots behind Ko.

Olympic bronze medallist Xiyu Lin has far more AIG Women’s Open experience than her compatriot, with St Andrews being the site of her tenth appearance in the Championship. She finished T17 on debut in 2013 – also at the home of golf – but has failed to build on that in the intervening years, with a T21 finish at Walton Heath in 2023 her best showing since.

France

Celine Boutier [above] broke her major duck last year when she was victorious in the Amundi Evian Championship.

The 30-year-old – who has twice finished in the top 10 at the AIG Women’s Open, in 2019 and 2022 – does have experience of winning on British shores, having collected the Women’s Scottish Open at Dundonald Links in 2023.

Boutier poses a threat in any tournament and has been inside the world’s top ten throughout 2024.

Republic of Ireland

Leona Maguire’s [above] first LET victory came in the Aramco Team Series – London in July. It was the third year in a row in which she has picked up silverware, having won the LPGA Drive On Championship in 2022 and the Meijer LPGA Classic in 2023.

Widely regarded as one of the best players yet to win a major, Maguire has previously admitted to feeling more at home on parkland courses rather than a links, yet she still managed a best AIG Women’s Open finish of T4 at Muirfield in 2022 and cannot be discounted on any terrain.

Spain

Carlota Ciganda [above] finished T7 in the 2018 AIG Women’s Open and outright seventh the following year, two of 11 top-10 major finishes the Spaniard has managed since her first attempt, in 2005.

Ciganda has earned 10 professional victories across the LPGA and LET, with the most recent coming in the Aramco Team Series – Florida in May 2023.