Kroger Queen City Championship

September 11-14, 2025

TPC Rivers Bend

Maineville, Ohio

After another break, we’re back for 2 weeks in middle America, first with Ohio and then next week in Arkansas. For those keeping track at home, we had another first time winner in Miranda Wang. In terms of unique winners, we’ve had 24 in 24 events. After a pretty rough summer, we are so close to the second Asia swing. Good fields and good coverage is something to look forward to.

TPC Rivers Bend is your pretty standard 4-10-4 par 72 Palmer design. It’s set to play pretty long at 6800 yards, but we all know the LPGA isn’t scared to move the tees up and shorten it from the scorecard yardage. The fairways have some slope and speed slots, but most notably they are some of the widest on tour. While there are some bunkers and trees, you need to miss pretty big to find them. While the fairways are really generous, the bent greens are quite small and tricky around the green. Having said that, I think the handicap is pretty straight forward: smoke the ball off the tee, hit the greens, and hope you get hot with the putter. 

Rivers Bend hosted the event for the first time last year, and we saw the crooked driver, elite iron play shine with Lydia winning in a birdie fest. Despite the course being lengthened this year, we should will still see a winning score at 20 under or lower. 

So that’s the profile: approach, spike putting, and BoB percentage. 

Despite the course itself being straightforward to handicap, it’s tough given that there’s been so much parity on the LPGA this year with no one player really establishing themselves as the top dog. Surely we won’t get 25 unique winners this week?

Player Thoughts: 

Jeeno +850: Remains the most consistent player on tour and is now the World Number 1. Jeeno Flowchart: course is easy, so play Jeeno. I swore myself off the single bullet after Evian, but this is a great spot for her. 

Minjee +1500: Still making too many bogeys, but she has won in Ohio and the putter is all the way back. 

Lottie Woad +1600: Remember when she was +600 at the Women’s Open? A few middling outings have her priced back in reality. I think it’s still a bit short. 

Hae Ran Ryu +2200: 3rd last year, elite flusher. Still think she got her one win of the year. 

Sei Young Kim +2500: the putter is officially back! Mixed hard at the Women’s Open. Was top 10 in Canada and really should’ve won in Boston before she stalled out over the weekend. This number is a bit tough to swallow, but it will hurt to miss out on her if she gets it over the line. 

Akie Iwai +2500: makes a ton of birdies, long hitter, has a win in Portland on bent, and two other runner up finishes in her rookie year. Unfortunately has won this year, so I’ll go elsewhere. 

A Lim Kim +4500: The meme of the FRL merchant actually plays this week. Long hitting and fearless, 65 on Thursday is a lock.

Jennifer Kupcho +7000: loves bent, loves to flush her irons and make birdies on easy courses. Tons of dog and win equity, but she has her win for the year. 

Outright card:

Nelly +1700: It’s been 10 months since Nelly had her last year, and in doing so, she’s lost her crown as World Number 1. Her irons have been off this year, which probably doesn’t make this the ideal spot for her, but she was 5th here last year. I’ve said that I would wait until Florida to bet her again, but she is really motivated to win before the Asia swing, which she historically skips. More importantly, anytime I see Nelly at 16 or higher in a non-major, I will hold my nose and bet it. It’s kin.

Julia Lopez Ramirez +15000: Big hitting bomber, mixed hard at the USWO and was 3rd at the Scottish. She’ll be able to go driver flip wedge into every par 4. This is a nice spot for a young gun to get their first win. 

Maja Stark +40000: Yes, she’s been terrible since her win, but 400-1 for the current USWO champ? come on.