In addition to successful the primary main title of her profession, Maja Stark pocketed a cool $2.4 million in prize cash for her US Girls’s Open win – essentially the most profitable occasion of the yr – and has plans already.
“Maybe move out of my studio apartment can be one thing,” Stark quipped after her spectacular two-shot victory at Erin Hills on Sunday.
Stark’s success, although, got here as a shock, largely to herself, the Swede having struggled together with her sport for some time as she missed three of eight cuts to start out the yr and carded just one top-25 end – tied fifth on the T-Cellular Match Play – previous to her maiden main triumph.
“It feels so surreal, and it felt like it was so far away just a couple of weeks ago,” she mentioned within the aftermath of her win.
“Just last week, my confidence was so low, and then I had a special friend tell me that you need to be confident. You need to trust yourself, and that’s what I try to do. I try to make myself and everyone on my team proud.”
Stark added: “I feel that I simply stopped attempting to manage every little thing, and I simply form of let every little thing occur the way in which it occurred.
“In the course of the apply days, I realised that if I simply form of hovered the membership above the bottom a bit bit earlier than I hit, I launched some stress in my physique.
“I think that just doing my processes well and giving myself little things like that was the key this week because I don’t really want to rely on my confidence for stuff.”
There have been no indicators of Stark’s struggles for confidence in the course of the closing spherical of her triumph in Wisconsin on Sunday as, one shot again to start out the ultimate day, the 25-year-old managed to carry off world No 1 Nelly Korda for the title with a final-round 72.
Nelly Korda was difficult for a 3rd main victory and first LPGA Tour title of 2025
In doing so, Stark grew to become the sixth Swede to win a girls’s main, and the primary since Anna Nordqvist on the 2021 Girls’s British Open.
She can also be the primary Swede to win a US Girls’s Open since Annika Sorenstam earned her third title in 2006. The one different Swede to win this occasion was Liselotte Neumann in 1988
“They texted me yesterday and just kind of said, ‘bring it home,'” Stark mentioned of the 2 former winners.
“That was already cool to just get those texts. And just looking at all the names on the trophy, I love the US Opens, I’m so happy that it’s mine now.”
Stark additionally credited her caddie Jeff Brighton for her success. A former standup comic, who helped preserve her free by telling jokes on the right track, gave nod to his earlier occupation by carrying a ‘cheesehead’ – a foam hat formed like a wedge of cheese, worn by followers of Wisconsin’s beloved Inexperienced Bay Packers – in the course of the celebrations.
Jeff Brighton, Maja Stark’s caddie, celebrates her US Girls’s Open win by donning a cheesehead
And if the beginning of Stark’s skilled profession is to go by, this primary main victory might encourage a second and/or a number of extra sizzling on the heels.
Having represented Oklahoma State College on the faculty stage within the US, after Stark turned professional in August 2021 she gained her second skilled begin on the Girls European Tour Entry Sequence, with a maiden LET title following a month later.
She was already a three-time winner by early October and had collected six LET titles inside an 18-month span of her first.
Such scintillating kind, coupled with a primary LPGA Tour win on the ISPS Handa World Invitational in Northern Eire in 2022, earned her a Solheim Cup debut as a part of Europe’s 2023 overcome the US in Spain.
Maja Stark was a part of Europe’s victorious Solheim Cup squad in 2023
Stark, together with fellow Swedish rookie Linn Grant, added an actual youthful spark to Europe’s squad. The pair had been defeated within the opening foursomes however returned to beat Danielle Kang and Andrea Lee the next morning, whereas Stark additionally beat Allisen Corpuz 2&1 within the Sunday singles.
She, very like the remainder of the European staff, struggled to match these requirements final yr because the US regained the cup for the primary time since 2017.
Along with her first profession main honours now below her belt, Stark is certain to once more be a part of the 2026 squad out for revenge within the Netherlands.
Rookie no extra. This Swede is a US Girls’s Open winner – and one quickly to boast a brand new, luxurious dwelling area to match!
What’s subsequent?
The LPGA Tour heads to New Jersey for the ShopRite LPGA Traditional, starting on Friday, whereas the following girls’s main is the KPMG Girls’s PGA Championship – reside from June 19-22 on Sky Sports activities Golf. Get Sky Sports activities or stream with NOW.
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