Concacaf Womens World Cup qualifying 2023
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The U.S.
national women’s soccer team (USWNT) secured its spot in the 2023 Women’s World Cup on Thursday night at the 2022 Concacaf W Championship. The U.S., 2-0 in group play after a 5-0 win against Jamaica, mathematically clinched a World Cup berth after Haiti defeated Mexico 3-0. The U.S. has one remaining group play game
(Monday vs. Mexico, 10:00 pm ET on Paramount+ and Vix), but is guaranteed to move on the semifinal round of the tournament, and thus, earn one of the four World Cup berths awarded to Concacaf teams. Haiti and Jamaica will go head-to-head for the other guaranteed World Cup berth in group A on Monday night (also at 10pm ET). Haiti
will qualify with a draw or win, while Jamaica would need a win. Mexico, 0-2 in group A, currently appears unlikely to qualify for the 2023 Women’s World Cup. The team would need to defeat the U.S. to have a chance of finishing third in the group and qualifying for an inter-confederation playoff in February 2023. Meanwhile in group B, Canada currently leads the standings with a 1-0 record and +6 goal differential. Group B games continue tonight, with Canada vs. Panama and Trinidad and Tobago vs. Costa Rica
(full schedule here). While World Cup qualifying out of the way for the USWNT, there is still a lot on the line next week. The winner of the 2022 Concacaf W Championship will qualify for 2024 Paris Olympics, while the the runner-up and third-place teams will qualify for the Concacaf Olympic play-in. Follow Alex
Azzi on Twitter @AlexAzziNBC To say that Atthaya Thitikul has enjoyed a breakout rookie LPGA season is a bit of an understatement, but keeping things low-key is exactly how 19-year-old “Jeeno” likes it. As the 2022 season concludes this week at
the CME Group Tour Championship, Thitikul has already captured two LPGA titles, held the No. 1 spot in the world rankings and collected the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year honors. But the current world No. 2 displays a wise-beyond-her-years ethos when she says what she’s most proud of this season is her mindset. “[I’m]19 years old — I think I’m still young to handle all the things that I have now,” Thitikul told On Her Turf ahead of this week’s season finale in Naples, Fla. “I didn’t
say that I handled it well, but I’ve just said that I think I can handle it. I can do it. And yeah, it’s turned out to be pretty good this year.” To keep herself in check, the Thailand native keeps her philosophy posted on her Instagram profile, which reads, “Be you, be happy and everything will be fine.” Thitikul, who on Oct. 31 joined 18-time LPGA winner Lydia Ko as the only players in tour history to reach No. 1 before their 20th birthday, said she took stock of poor performances on the golf course and found they all had one thing in common: She wasn’t being herself. “I didn’t have fun,” she says of those unsatisfactory rounds. “I was expecting a lot of results on the golf course, not really talking, not really enjoying it. So I think being myself, have fun, keep smiling, keep laughing and talking with other players or talking with my caddie, joking around — I think it’s the best that I can do.” Golf has always been fun for Thitikul, who grew up in northeast Thailand and was introduced to the sport at age 6 through her father and grandfather, both of whom were not golfers themselves but recognized the opportunity that golf might provide. Thitikul teases that her grandfather was enamored with Tiger Woods, but after her first golf experience with a professional in Bangkok, she was hooked, too. “They asked me when I finished practicing, do I like it? And I say, ‘Yeah, I do.’ Because [there were] a lot of friends and when I practice, it seemed fun and it seemed not like other sports that I have been watching on TV,” she recalls. Thitikul’s ascent to the top of her sport was swift: In February 2017, just three days after her 14th birthday, she made her first LPGA tournament appearance at the Honda LPGA Thailand and finished 37th out of 66 players. Just five months later, Thitikul made headlines when she became the youngest person ever to win a professional golf tour event at age 14 years, 4 months and 19 days old, winning the Ladies European Thailand Championship on the Ladies European Tour (LET). RELATED: 2022 CME Group Tour Championship — How to watch, who’s playing in LPGA’s season finaleFor three more years, Thitikul resisted turning professional, racking up multiple international amateur victories and plenty of tour experience, notching her first LPGA top-10 finish in March 2018 at the HSBC Women’s World Championship (T-8) and earning low amateur honors that same year at two majors, the ANA Inspiration (T-30) and Women’s British Open (T-64). The following year, she won the Ladies European Thailand Championship for the second time in three years, earned low amateur honors at the British Open (finishing T-29) for the second straight year and was No. 1 on the women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking. In her first year as a pro, during the pandemic-impacted 2020 season, Thitikul broke through for her first professional win in July at the Thai LPGA Championship. She finished the season with five Thai LPGA wins and topped the money list. Thitikul moved to the LET in 2021, winning the Czech Ladies Open in June, and just a month later she moved into the top 100 on the world rankings for the first time at No. 89. She finished 2021 with two wins, three runner-ups and nine additional top-10 finishes, securing the LET Order of Merit and Rookie of the Year titles and becoming just the fourth player to win both awards in the same season. After finishing third at LPGA Qualifying School to earn her card for 2022, Thitikul didn’t miss a beat in her meteoric rise this season. She posted two top-10s in her first four starts before striking a staff deal with Callaway, which she followed up by winning her first LPGA title in March at the JTBC Classic. She carded an 8-under 64 in the final round to force a playoff and Nanna Koerstz Madsen on the second extra hole. She earned her second LPGA title in September at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship, tying the tournament record of 61 in the second round and beating Danielle Kang in a playoff. As for the pressure of being a teen phenom, Thitikul admits she can’t ignore it but has figured out how to turn it around to her advantage: “It’s still so hard because I think as players want to be on top and we put the pressure on ourselves, and there’s a lot of eyes on us. … But at the same time, it’s kind of like you couldn’t win every week, you couldn’t have a good day every day. It’s golf. I like to think of pressure as a challenge. I put a lot of pressure on myself, but I think of it as challenging.” Away from the golf course, Thitikul enjoys spending time with friends, watching Korean television dramas and indulging in Asian food (Chinese and Korean are favorites). Although she doesn’t have a pet, she says she’s a dog person, and prefers the mountains to the beach, as she loves to hike. But don’t expect too much lounging, hiking or other non-golf activities on Thitikul’s itinerary after this season wraps on Sunday. “This offseason, we have a lot of work to do,” she says.” There are a lot of things I still have to learn – not just for next year but for [beyond.] … But hopefully next year, it’s going to be nice and good for me as well. I really want to have a major win in my career. I don’t know if it’s going to happen next year, but hopefully.” The 2022 LPGA season culminates this week at the CME Group Tour Championship, where the top 60 players in the Race to the CME Globe will compete for the $7 million prize purse (with $2 million going to the winner) along with several coveted end-of-season awards at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Fla. While the Race to the CME Globe is a season-long points competition, there will be no points reset or any points at all involved this week. This is a 72-hole, no-cut competition, and the Tour Championship winner will be crowned “Race to the CME Globe Champion.” World No. 3 Lydia Ko currently leads the race, followed by Thailand’s Atthaya Thitikul, who recently won Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year honors. Also on the line in Naples is the LPGA Rolex Player of the Year award, as Ko (150 points) holds a one-point lead over Minjee Lee (149) in the standings entering this week. Brooke Henderson and Thitikul (130 points each) also are mathematically in the race for No. 1, as the winner gets 30 points in the POY standings. Additionally, Ko leads the tour in scoring average at 69.049 and looks to earn her second consecutive Vare Trophy. Lastly, the money title hangs in the balance, with Lee holding a $1.1 million lead over In Gee Chun, but the Tour Championship’s whopping prize purse means we may not know who wins it until the final putt drops. How to watch the CME Group Tour ChampionshipYou can watch the 2022 CME Group Tour Championship on Golf Channel, Peacock, NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app. Here’s the complete TV/streaming schedule:
Who’s playing in the CME Group Tour ChampionshipThe field for this year’s CME Group Tour Championship features the top 11 players in the Rolex Rankings and 58 players in the top 100. Leading the charge is Nelly Korda, who returned to No. 1 in the world rankings after a win last week at the Pelican Women’s Championship, where she successfully defended her 2021 title. Three players in the top 60 in the Race to the CME Globe withdrew ahead of the week (No. 33 Jessica Korda, No. 51 Inbee Park and No. 52 Linn Grant), and were replaced by Nos. 61, 62 and 63, respectively: Pornanong Phatlum, Stacy Lewis and Ariya Jutanugarn. Also in the field are six past champions (Charley Hull, Ariya Jutanugarn, Sei Young Kim, Jin Young Ko, Lydia Ko and Lexi Thompson) as well as all 26 LPGA Tour winners in 2022. Ten players will make their Tour Championship debut:
Past champions of the CME Group Tour Championship
Last year at the CME Group Tour ChampionshipFour players slept on the 54-hole co-lead, but it was Jin Young Ko who came out on top following a bogey-free, 9-under 63 on Sunday, winning the $1.5 million prize by one stroke over Nasa Hataoka. Ko battled through a wrist injury that kept her from practicing at the Tour Championship (an injury that has continued to interrupt her 2022 season), but she tied her career-best score for 18 holes on the final day and set the new tournament scoring record in the process, finishing at 23-under 265. More about Tiburon Golf Club’s Gold CourseTiburon Golf Club’s Gold Course is one of more than 30 golf courses in the United States designed by Greg Norman. The club originally opened in November 1998 with 27 holes, and nine additional holes were opened in October 2002 to form the Gold Course and the Black Course. Tiburon, which is the Spanish word for “shark,” will play as a par 72 with scorecard yardage for the tournament at 6,556 yards. The NBC Sports’ golf research team contributed to this report. ALSO FROM ON HER TURF: For NWSL players, there’s work, play, and the things not in the job descriptionWho has qualified for the Women's World Cup 2023?England and the Republic of Ireland are two of 29 teams to have qualified for the tournament so far:. Australia (co-hosts). New Zealand (co-hosts). China (AFC). Japan (AFC). Philippines (AFC). South Korea (AFC). Vietnam (AFC). Morocco (CAF). Who is hosting 2023 Women's World Cup?The tournament will be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand, the first time that the FIFA Women's World Cup will have two host nations and is scheduled to take place from 20 July to 20 August 2023. This will be the first senior World Cup of either gender to be held between two confederations.
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