Michelle Wie West and Yani Tseng Should Be Riviera Extras, Not the Whole U.S. Women's Open Sales Pitch

Image: Birdie Report

The 2026 U.S. Women’s Open absolutely should use Michelle Wie West and Yani Tseng in the build-up.

It just should not need them.

That is the line golf still screws up all the time when it talks about women’s events. A couple of famous returning names show up, and suddenly the entire sales pitch becomes nostalgia with a tee time attached.

That would be underselling Riviera, underselling this field, and frankly underselling the current state of women’s golf.

This column is based on official LPGA and USGA materials checked on May 30, 2026, including Michelle Wie West’s March 31 return announcement, Yani Tseng’s April 20 special exemption, the USGA’s April 2 field release, and the May 29 broadcast plan for championship week. No pretending I got a candlelit catch-up dinner with former world No. 1s in the Pacific Palisades.

The Returns Are Real News, and It Is Fine to Say So

Let’s not do the fake-tough thing where we pretend these names do not matter.

They do.

The LPGA announced on March 31 that Michelle Wie West would return to play the U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera, the championship she won in 2014. Then on April 20, the USGA announced that Yani Tseng accepted a special exemption into the field, bringing back a former world No. 1 who once spent 109 consecutive weeks on top of the rankings and won five majors during one of the nastiest dominance runs the women’s game has ever seen.

That is good stuff.

That is useful texture.

That is exactly the kind of generational layering a major should have.

The Problem Starts When Golf Acts Like That Is the Entire Product

Because here is the other part of the same championship:

• the USGA accepted 1,897 entries
• all of the top 25 players in the world were in the accepted-entry release
• the championship is being played at Riviera for the first time
• the TV plan now includes nearly 100 hours of coverage

And the current-player layer is not exactly weak.

You have Jeeno Thitikul trying to hold onto the top of the season conversation. You have Nelly Korda still chasing the U.S. Women’s Open title missing from her major résumé. You have Rose Zhang and Leona Maguire joining the field via the late-May rankings route we covered here. You have Farah O’Keefe arriving from the NCAA title we broke down here.

That is a real present-tense championship.

If your promo strategy still sounds like “remember these famous names from a decade ago,” you are marketing the week like you do not trust the current tour enough.

Nostalgia Should Be Garnish, Not Infrastructure

That is my actual issue.

I like the nostalgia layer. I am not anti-nostalgia. Golf is built on memory, lineage, venue history, and old swings living rent free in your brain.

But nostalgia works best when it sits on top of a strong event, not when it gets asked to drag the whole thing uphill.

This week already has:

• a major at a course everybody recognizes
• a field with current stars and legit depth
• a governing body clearly treating the event like a centerpiece
• a broadcast plan that finally matches the size of the property

We just wrote in our full watch guide that the coverage footprint now looks like a proper main-event week. Good. That means the return stories can be what they should be: cool, additive, emotionally sticky, and absolutely not the only headline.

This Is Also a Better Way to Respect Wie and Tseng

Honestly, this matters for the returning players too.

The worst way to frame a comeback is to make it feel ceremonial before the first shot.

Wie West is not interesting just because she is familiar. She is interesting because her presence changes the emotional shape of the week at a venue that should feel big anyway. Tseng is not interesting because golf fans can say “wow, remember that stretch?” She is interesting because her return speaks to how much championship gravity the U.S. Women’s Open still has.

Those are not the same thing.

When golf leans too hard on reunion-tour energy, it turns accomplished players into memory props. That is lazy.

My Take

Use the returning stars. Of course use them.

But lead with the part that says something healthier about the sport in 2026:

• the field is loaded now
• the venue matters now
• the coverage is finally serious now
• women’s golf does not need retro framing to justify prime attention now

We already argued that women’s golf growth is starting to look structural, not just promotional. This is part of the same conversation. A strong event should not need borrowed importance from the past when the present product is this good.

Bottom Line

Michelle Wie West and Yani Tseng returning to the 2026 U.S. Women’s Open is a gift for Riviera week.

It should not be the entire marketing plan.

If golf sells this championship like a reunion special instead of a loaded major with current star power, that is not a field problem. That is a confidence problem.