Nelly Korda and Sei Young Kim Gave Riviera the Sunday Setup a U.S. Women's Open Deserves

Image: Birdie Report

The 2026 U.S. Women’s Open finally got the leaderboard it was threatening to build all week.

The LPGA’s live championship leaderboard, checked early on Sunday, June 7, 2026, shows Nelly Korda and Sei Young Kim tied for the lead at 6-under entering the final round at Riviera Country Club. In Gee Chun and Jennifer Kupcho sit one shot back at 5-under, while Nasa Hataoka, Gaby Lopez, and Ruoning Yin are still right there at 4-under.

That is not a fake major board assembled out of one runaway star and a couple polite names hanging around. That is a proper Sunday pileup.

This piece is based on official LPGA tournament pages checked on June 7, 2026, including the live leaderboard and event overview. No pretending I was standing behind the scoring trailer asking for a handwritten update.

Korda Is the Biggest Name, but Not the Whole Story

The easiest headline is still Korda.

That is obvious. She is the biggest American star in the field, the world No. 1, and the cleanest casual-fan hook the championship has. But the better part of this setup is that Riviera did not leave her alone at the top and call it drama.

Instead, it dragged in:

• Sei Young Kim at 6-under
• In Gee Chun at 5-under
• Jennifer Kupcho at 5-under
• Ruoning Yin at 4-under
• Nasa Hataoka at 4-under
• Gaby Lopez at 4-under

That is depth. That is what a national championship is supposed to look like on Sunday morning.

Riviera Backed Up All the Pre-Week Hype

The bigger point is that the course actually did its job.

We spent most of the lead-in to this week arguing that Riviera should feel like a real center-of-golf venue for the women’s game, whether in our loaded-field setup story, our amateur-depth piece, or our big-stage opinion column.

This is the payoff.

Riviera did not flatten the tournament into anonymous survival golf, and it did not get carved up into some stupid birdie parade either. It produced a Sunday leaderboard with major winners, current stars, and enough names within two shots that the whole thing still feels unstable.

Good. That is the point.

Kupcho and Chun Make the Chase Line Better

If Korda is the headline and Sei Young Kim is the co-headline, the two names that make the board more dangerous are probably Kupcho and Chun.

Both are sitting just one back, which matters because one-shot deficits at a U.S. Women’s Open are basically nothing if the course gets even slightly mean in the middle stretch.

And this is why Sunday’s setup feels stronger than the generic “star near the lead” version:

• there is no cushion
• there is no obvious favorite
• there are proven winners sitting directly underneath the leaders

That is a much healthier place for the championship to be than pretending one player owns the whole thing before lunch.

There Is Still Room for a Charge

The leaderboard also leaves enough space for a second-wave push.

Hataoka, Lopez, and Yin at 4-under are not hanging around for moral support. They are two good holes from forcing their way into the last-hour conversation, and the LPGA board still had Charley Hull, Hae Ran Yoo, and Alison Lee at 3-under when it was checked Sunday morning.

That is why this does not feel like a two-player match just because two names happen to be tied first.

It feels like a real major with a front line and a live second line.

Bottom Line

The official LPGA leaderboard checked on June 7 shows Nelly Korda and Sei Young Kim tied at 6-under entering the final round of the U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera, with In Gee Chun and Jennifer Kupcho one back and several more serious names close enough to matter.

That is the exact kind of Sunday this championship, this course, and this week needed.