Who’s Maja Stark? US Girls’s Open champion to ‘transfer house’ with $2.4m winnings | Golf Information

In addition to profitable 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.

“Perhaps transfer out of my studio house might be one factor,” 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 prefer it was so distant simply a few weeks in the past,” she mentioned within the aftermath of her win.

“Simply final week, my confidence was so low, after which I had a particular buddy inform me that it’s essential to be assured. It’s essential to belief your self, and that is what I attempt to do. I attempt to make myself and everybody on my group proud.”

Stark added: “I feel that I simply stopped making an attempt to manage all the things, and I simply form of let all the things occur the best way it occurred.

“Throughout the apply days, I realised that if I simply form of hovered the membership above the bottom just a little bit earlier than I hit, I launched some stress in my physique.

“I feel that simply doing my processes properly and giving myself little issues like that was the important thing this week as a result of I do not actually need to depend on my confidence for stuff.”

There have been no indicators of Stark’s struggles for confidence throughout 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.

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 simply form of mentioned, ‘deliver it house,'” Stark mentioned of the 2 former winners.

“That was already cool to simply get these texts. And simply taking a look at all of the names on the trophy, I like the US Opens, I am so pleased that it is mine now.”

Stark additionally credited her caddie Jeff Brighton for her success. A former standup comic, who helped preserve her unfastened by telling jokes on target, gave nod to his earlier career by sporting a ‘cheesehead’ – a foam hat formed like a wedge of cheese, worn by followers of Wisconsin’s beloved Inexperienced Bay Packers – throughout the celebrations.

And if the beginning of Stark’s skilled profession is to go by, this primary main victory may encourage a second and/or a number of extra sizzling on the heels.

Having represented Oklahoma State College on the school degree within the US, after Stark turned professional in August 2021 she received her second skilled begin on the Women European Tour Entry Collection, with a maiden LET title following a month later.

She was already a three-time winner by early October and had amassed six LET titles inside an 18-month span of her first.

Such scintillating type, 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 conquer the US in Spain.

Stark, together with fellow Swedish rookie Linn Grant, added an actual youthful spark to Europe’s squad. The pair have 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 similar to the remainder of the European group, 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 bound 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 residing house to match!

What’s subsequent?

The LPGA Tour heads to New Jersey for the ShopRite LPGA Basic, starting on Friday, whereas the subsequent girls’s main is the KPMG Girls’s PGA Championship – dwell from June 19-22 on Sky Sports activities Golf. Get Sky Sports activities or stream with NOW.