Drive 60 miles northwest of Congressional, and you’d occur upon the place the place Grier honed that quick sport: Yinglings Golf Middle, a par-3 course on the outskirts of Hagerstown with no gap longer than about 110 yards.

David and Judy Grier purchased Yinglings in 1990, when Ashley was 5. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than she was traversing the course together with her mom, her father or her grandfather — and it wasn’t lengthy earlier than her two youthful sisters have been sufficiently old to play, too.

Lexi Thompson tucks grief away, stays fan favourite at Girls’s PGA

“A playground,” David Grier referred to as it. A playground often at his daughters’ disposal — in the course of the days as David, a PGA skilled, was giving classes and within the evenings after the course was closed.

“The following factor you recognize, they weren’t unhealthy at it,” David stated.

That’s a understanding understatement by a father who would later watch his three daughters develop as much as forge one thing of a dynasty at Smithsburg Excessive. With no ladies’ golf workforce on the faculty, Ashley and her two youthful sisters performed on the boys’ workforce, incomes the nickname of the “{golfing} Grier ladies.”

Grier received a Maryland state championship in 2000 and went on to play on the College of Central Florida. Then, whereas her sisters cast their very own school golf careers, the eldest Grier sister turned skilled in 2006, making an look on the 2007 U.S. Girls’s Open. She spent 5 years as an assistant skilled at Columbia Nation Membership in Chevy Chase, just some miles from Congressional. After 5 years at Overbrook Golf Membership in Villanova, Pa., Grier got here residence to Yinglings.

She continued to show — and play, competing within the 2018, 2019 and 2021 Girls’s PGA Championships. She was named the 2020 Nationwide Girls’s PGA Participant of the 12 months and earned her means into this occasion with a top-eight end final summer season on the LPGA Professionals Nationwide Championship at Kingsmill in Williamsburg, Va.

However whereas Grier, 38, has competed in 4 main championships, returning to Congressional has a barely totally different really feel to it.

“It undoubtedly makes it really feel extra particular,” Grier stated. “It feels prefer it’s my hometown. I’m again in my space.”

Her profession has taken her to among the nation’s prime programs, however the short-game knowledge gleaned from Yinglings has grow to be an integral a part of her sport. Her father stated Ashley equates event conditions to these she would possibly encounter in Hagerstown.

Grier’s quick sport is her power, however Congressional’s distance doesn’t faze her.

“The older you get, the extra you determine the good play,” she stated. “You don’t should all the time assault the pins.”

Managing her workload turned more and more vital for Grier after a automotive accident on Tremendous Bowl Sunday 4 years in the past left her with lingering again ache. She performed the entrance 9 Tuesday and can apply the again 9 Wednesday earlier than her 7 a.m. tee time Thursday.

At Congressional to observe her spherical will likely be her mother and father and different assorted relations, in addition to associates from native programs, together with Columbia. David laughed when he pictured the swarm of individuals — about 75, by his estimation — that’s prone to watch his daughter on the first tee Thursday.

Teeing off after Grier would be the world’s finest: Nelly Korda, Jin Younger Ko, Minjee Lee, Lydia Ko and Lexi Thompson, amongst others. For Grier, this week requires a steadiness of confidence and measured expectations. Her objective is to make the reduce, which she has but to perform at a serious championship.

“They’re the very best gamers on the earth,” Grier stated. “So that they do that all day, day by day for a dwelling, and I attempt to cram a few month out and prepare to go. However simply sticking to my sport and having fun with the expertise, that’s my final objective.”

Gamers taking part within the Girls’s PGA Championship obtained an surprising electronic mail Tuesday afternoon from LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan informing them the whole purse this week can be elevated to $9 million, doubling the whole payout from final yr’s occasion.

It’s the second-highest complete purse in LPGA Tour historical past behind the U.S. Girls’s Open earlier this month at Pine Needles in Southern Pines, N.C.

“I haven’t had an opportunity to undergo all my emails,” Marcoux Samaan stated. “However I’ve checked out just a few of them, and so they have been hysterical. They’ve been some, ‘Holy s—,’ you recognize, and, ‘Oh my God.’ ”

By far essentially the most adopted group at Tuesday’s pro-am included two acquainted faces within the D.C. sports activities scene. Ryan Zimmerman, the previous Washington Nationals star whose No. 11 was retired this previous weekend, and Washington Capitals defenseman John Carlson performed with Megan Khang.

Zimmerman’s brother, Shawn, rounded out the foursome.

“That is enjoyable,” stated Ryan Zimmerman, who performs to a 4 handicap. “I used to be telling Johnny I’ve by no means been ready to do that stuff in the summertime. An entire new world has opened as much as me.”