Before she could fully dry off and savor becoming the first American female swimmer to earn nine Olympic gold medals, Katie Ledecky was asked to turn her attention to 2028 and whether she would seek to compete in a fifth consecutive Games.

Ledecky will be 31 then, an age that’s considered advanced by most swimming metrics, but it’s hard not to wonder if accepted norms really apply to someone whose 14 Olympic medals are tied for fifth-most all-time and who is only the second swimmer and sixth athlete to earn gold in the same event in four consecutive Games, as Ledecky has in the 800-meter freestyle.

“I don’t feel like I’m close to being finished in the sport yet,” Ledecky said after setting an Olympic record in the 1,500 free last Wednesday in Paris. “I’d love to continue on, and just seeing the kind of support that the French athletes are getting here, I think all the U.S. athletes are thinking about how cool that could be in Los Angeles (site of the 2028 Games) having the home crowd. So, it would be amazing to be able to compete there.”

GO DEEPER

Katie Ledecky, her Olympic legacy secure, seems to have so much left in the tank

Such an occasion could make for a Disney-like ending to what has been a sublime career, with deafening cheers and swaying flags serving as…

TROON, Scotland — The questions came every single day, one after the other, pressing Scottie Scheffler about whether he’d leave the Masters if his wife went into labor with their first child. The entire week was framed around this emotional crossroads in his life. People and Us Weekly tracked it like celebrity gossip. Here at The Athletic, we even wrote a story about Scheffler taking the lead into Saturday night without his wife, Meredith, there alongside him.

The baby was not due for another month.

When Bennett was eventually born in May, an ESPN reporter ambiguously broke the news with the hashtag #babyborn. The PGA Tour announced it on the tour website. Scheffler’s arrival that week at the PGA Championship in Louisville, Ky., was like an appearance from the royal family.

Life is suddenly very different for Scottie Scheffler. A golfer once deemed as boring, unexciting and ho-hum has somehow gone from really good golfer to comically famous human being. A player who spoke more than anyone on tour about how important it was to keep golf and life separate — about the essential nature of staying grounded in spite of success and generational wealth — is now in another class of attention. His injuries and equipment changes are headline news. His family is tabloid fodder. A…

Joost Luiten hung up his phone the morning of June 24 disappointed but not surprised after finding out that, despite qualifying, he would not be going to the 2024 Olympic Games.

Luiten, 38, was one of four Dutch golfers — alongside Darius van Driel, Anne van Dam and Dewi Weber — who earned a spot in Paris after meeting the International Olympic Committee’s requirements. All four qualified for their respective men’s and women’s competitions via the International Golf Federation’s rankings. Both fields have 60 players.

But the Dutch Olympic Committee*Dutch Sports Federation has its own criteria and said it would only send van Dam to Paris. The NOC*NSF said Luiten, van Driel and Weber did not have a reasonable chance to place in the top eight at the Olympics, and had therefore decided not to allow them to compete.

“They basically said, ‘No we’re not sending you, we don’t think you’re good enough,’” Luiten told The Athletic. “That’s basically all I got back from them.”

The Dutch committee requires its men’s golfers to place in the top 27 of the IGF’s rankings and women’s golfers to be ranked in the top 24. Competitors — like van Dam — can also qualify if they finish in the top eight in at least one strong field. Van Dam qualified in November…

The third men’s major championship of the year sees the U.S. Open return to a Donald Ross North Carolina masterpiece, Pinehurst No. 2.

Brutal wiregrass awaits those who miss wildly with driver. Lightning-fast, crown-shaped putting surfaces make for a uniquely torturous test. The native areas at No. 2 have visibly matured in the decade since the world’s best convened here for back-to-back weeks at the 2014 U.S. Open and Women’s Open. Maybe the only star guaranteed to outshine Scottie Scheffler this week is the golf course.

Here are the top numbers and notes to know ahead of the 1,000th USGA championship ever played – the 2024 United States Open.

1. This is the fourth U.S. Open contested at Pinehurst No. 2, and the second since an extensive restoration by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw took place early last decade. In 2014, Martin Kaymer spent the first two rounds in a full sprint ahead of the field, setting the Open’s 36-hole record for scoring (130) and tying the largest ever second-round lead (6 shots). While Kaymer won by eight, 10 players finished the week between 1-under and 2-over, including Rickie Fowler (T2), Brooks Koepka (T4), Dustin Johnson (T4), Jason Day (T4), Henrik Stenson (T4) and Adam Scott (T9).

While fairways are accessible (the field hit them 70 percent…

Rory McIlroy and his wife, Erica Stoll, have resolved their differences and dismissed the divorce petition he filed last month.

McIlroy, 35, initiated divorce proceedings on May 13, a day after winning a PGA Tour event and just three days before the U.S. PGA Championship, where he finished tied 12th on four-under-par.

Court records from Palm Beach County, Florida, show that a “notice of voluntary dismissal” was filed by the attorney Thomas Sasser on Tuesday, officially closing the case.

In a statement to The Guardian, McIlroy added: “There have been rumours about my personal life recently, which is unfortunate. Responding to each rumour is a fool’s game.

“Over the past weeks, Erica and I have realised that our best future was as a family together. Thankfully, we have resolved our differences and look forward to a new beginning.”

McIlroy and Stoll met in 2012 during the Ryder Cup at Medinah and married in 2017. They have one child together, who was born in 2020.

The reconciliation comes as McIlroy prepares for the U.S. Open at Pinehurst, North Carolina. The four-time major winner has not secured a major title since his victory at the PGA Championship in 2014.

McIlroy finds himself grouped with world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele, both ranked above him, for…

LANCASTER, Pa. — Lancaster Country Club’s treacherously steep 18th green stared at Yuka Saso on Sunday evening from an all too familiar angle.

A chip from just short of the putting surface on one of the most severe back-to-front greens on the property stood before her as the shot that could seal her second U.S. Women’s Open victory at 22 years old. As she was leading by two shots, a memory flashed into Saso’s mind. It wasn’t a good one. For many players, even the semblance of such a thought would trigger their downfall. Saso seized the information instead and used it to her advantage.

“I chipped from the front yesterday, too, and I left it more than 10 feet (short),” Saso said, recalling her bogey on Saturday’s closing hole. “I just told myself to be aggressive, and not to be short by 10 feet. I’m glad that I was able to do it.”

She clipped the ball off Lancaster’s tight fairway grass, causing it to hop, skip and roll out to 21 inches, leaving a tap in for par. Saso learned from her Saturday blunder, envisioned her intended result and executed it. That’s exactly how she prevailed while her competitors crumbled.

Saso didn’t peek at leaderboards Sunday afternoon. She didn’t need to. She found the will within herself, just as in 2021 when she won her…

LANCASTER, Pa. — The creek in front of the 12th green at Lancaster Country Club now owns more than 83 new golf balls, including three that once belonged to the world No. 1. It’s only Friday.

Welcome to the U.S. Women’s Open: This is how it’s supposed to feel.

The 8-over-par cut line at Lancaster is the highest since Pinehurst in 2014. Only four players are under par for the championship through two rounds. There have been 1,438 bogeys, 240 double bogeys, and 41 “other,” uglier scores.

How are the biggest names in the women’s game handling the test? Most of them are leaving the state. Nelly Korda, Rose Zhang, Brooke Henderson, Lexi Thompson, Leona Maguire and Lydia Ko are among those who ejected themselves from the tournament and missed the cut by several shots.

Lancaster’s second time hosting the U.S. Women’s Open has been nothing short of a bloodbath.The carnage is far from over. Wichanee Meechai leads at 4 under par, one of only four players who are not over par through 36 holes.

“Pars and birdies feel like gold right now,” said former U.S. Women’s Open champion Minjee Lee, who is tied for third. “It’s tricky. The rough is up. The greens are fast. That’s what I expect for a U.S. Open.”

The course is firm, fast and borderline torturous if you let…

LANCASTER, Pa. — Standing on the fringe of Lancaster Country Club’s 9th green, moments after stroking her final putt of the day, Nelly Korda opened her purple scorecard holder, looked down, and sighed so deeply that the expansion of her ribcage was visible from steps away.

Her shoulders lifted. Then they sank. A big, fat first-round 80 at the U.S. Women’s Open stared back up at her, the sight of her septuple bogey 10 early in the round likely sending shivers up her spine once again.

The world No.1 did not look like herself Thursday. She’s won six tournaments in seven starts on the LPGA Tour this season, including the first major, the Chevron Championship. She managed to raise trophies with her B game. But Korda still crumbled in the face of this U.S. Open test. She didn’t have it. It’ll take an all-time second round on a tough setup to even think about making the cut.

“I’m human,” Korda said after signing for her 10-over-par score. “I’m going to have bad days. I played some really solid golf up to this point. Today was just a bad day. That’s all I can say.”

There wasn’t much more to it than that. Korda’s game escaped her on a golf course that demands precision and control. It started after her third tee shot of the day, on the downhill 161-yard par-3…

LANCASTER, Pa. — It’s not often you see “age 29” and “retirement” appear in the same sentence. However, for Lexi Thompson, the unconventional conjunctions of these true statements have been forming for quite some time.

On Tuesday at the U.S. Women’s Open, the moment arrived. It was time for Thompson to let the looming decision — the one in which she finally accepted a harsh reality about her life and happiness—escape her inner circle’s confines. Thompson was transparent in revealing that this wasn’t an abrupt choice. She knew her fans wouldn’t buy that. It wasn’t injury-related. It didn’t have anything to do with the current state of her golf game. After nearly two decades in the spotlight, it was simply time for Thompson to step away from the sport that shaped her existence and identity.

“I’m not going to sit here and say it hasn’t crossed my mind in past years,” Thompson said at Lancaster Country Club, where she’ll play her 18th U.S. Women’s Open this week. “But I feel like I’m at a point in my life where it is time to step away from a full-time schedule.”

Thompson said she isn’t exactly sure what her next chapter will look like, but starting after the conclusion of the 2024 season, she will no longer be flying across the globe…

Lexi Thompson, who is set to compete in her 18th U.S. Women’s Open this week at 29 years old, will be retiring from full-time professional golf at the end of 2024, the U.S. Women’s Open announced Tuesday.

In 2007, Thompson became the youngest qualifier in U.S. Women’s Open history at age 12, a record since broken by Lucy Li, who qualified at 11 years old in 2014.

Lexi Thompson will retire from professional golf at the conclusion of the 2024 LPGA season.

She’ll be speaking to the media at 2:30 p.m. ET today at Lancaster, ahead of her 18th and final U.S. Women’s Open.

— Gabby Herzig (@GabbyHerzig) May 28, 2024

Thompson turned pro in 2010 at 15 years old and has won 11 LPGA Tour tournaments. She won one major, the Chevron Championship in 2014, in her career. Her latest victory on the LPGA Tour was in June 2019.

This will be updated.

(Photo: Orlando Ramirez / Getty Images)