Runaway McBride: Two Major Titles in Two Weeks

Maria McBride had a plan.

Give herself two or three years to win a senior women’s major championship. Give herself four to win them both.

Turns out, she only needed two weeks.

McBride, 52, made history this summer by capturing the 2026 LPGA Legends Championship and 2026 U.S. Senior Women’s Open in back-to-back weeks, becoming just the third woman to win both senior majors in the same calendar year.

World Golf Hall of Famer Laura Davies and fellow Swede Helen Alfredsson accomplished the “senior slam” in 2018 and 2019, respectively. McBride is the first to do it since — and the first to win the two championships on consecutive weekends.

“Well, no one has actually had the opportunity to win them back-to-back before,” chuckles McBride. “So yes, it was absolutely amazing to do it.”

The scheduling may have worked in her favor.

“I think it helped to have them one after the other because I got in a rhythm,” says McBride, a five-time winner on the LPGA Tour who competed in five Solheim Cups. “Having these two so close together and playing a few competitive events before was definitely a benefit for me.”

That part wasn’t an accident. To prepare, she ramped up her competitive schedule, including teeing it up in a couple of Epson Tour events this summer.

Then she blew up her own timetable.

After winning the LPGA Legends Championship in Indiana, McBride arrived at the U.S. Senior Women’s Open in Michigan with another incentive beyond completing the senior slam: the champion earns a spot in the following year’s U.S. Women’s Open, where McBride last appeared in 2016.

“I really wanted to be able to play in a U.S. Women’s Open at least one more time,” she says. “And Inverness is a great course to play.”

Standing in her way at Barton Hills Country Club in Ann Arbor last weekend were some formidable names.

Annika Sörenstam was chasing. Karrie Webb was in the mix. Between them, the World Golf Hall of Famers own 17 major championships and five U.S. Women’s Open titles. Sörenstam also won the U.S. Senior Women’s Open in 2021.

Yet McBride remained remarkably calm, even after making a double bogey and two bogeys in the first eight holes of her final round to relinquish her overnight lead.

“When I was one behind, I thought, there is still a chance because there are some tough holes out there and the conditions were tough,” says McBride. “It was the windiest we’d had all week.”

“I didn’t get angry at myself if a shot was a little bit off or bounced the wrong way. I stayed in the moment and I was like, ‘OK, I can still do this.’”

Then McBride chipped in for eagle on the 9th, and suddenly she had reclaimed the lead – and the momentum. By the time McBride reached the par-3 16th, Sörenstam, playing one group ahead, had made bogey, and McBride stepped onto the tee with a three-shot lead.

That’s where she hit the shot of the championship.

“The shot came off absolutely perfect, an 8-iron, turning it up a little bit against the wind, the perfect yardage,” says McBride.

Her ball stopped two feet from the hole. She made the birdie and the lead was four.

That cushion proved important. Sörenstam birdied 17 and McBride bogeyed it, reducing the lead to two. After Sörenstam parred the 18th, McBride came through with a two-putt par to win by two.

The remarkable part is how little of that drama McBride allowed into her head.

“Looking back, I wasn’t stressed or worried about the shots,” says McBride. “I was in the zone — in the present — where I wasn’t thinking about, ‘What if you pull it a little bit or what if you block it?’ It wasn’t any of that.”

“It wasn’t anything I tried to do,” continues McBride. “I was just out there with this kind of calm, quiet air that I had around me. I was just present and focused on breathing. It was all very level.”

Perhaps that’s where nearly three decades as a professional golfer made the biggest difference.

McBride, then known as Maria Hjorth, was an LPGA Tour rookie in 1998 and won for the first time in 1999. Back then, she remembers herself as a talented, fearless young player who was “just coming out of nowhere and playing.”

Today, she approaches the game differently.

“After all these years, coming into these senior events, I have so much more experience and knowledge,” says McBride. “I treat myself better on the course.”

“Back then, I was a lot harder on myself, angrier and frustrated when things got bad. Today, my mindset is better. I don’t put so much pressure on myself. I’m enjoying it.”

There may be no better lesson from McBride’s historic two weeks.

She set an ambitious goal. She put in the work. She deliberately put herself back into competition so she would be ready when her opportunity came.

But when it did, McBride didn’t demand perfection.

She stayed present, kept breathing and simply treated herself better.

Then, with an 8-iron in her hands and history waiting, she hit it to two feet.

“I knew it was good. I just felt it.”

Well played, Maria!

Quick 9 with Maria McBride

Hole #1 – Favorite Club
Driver. I’ve been lucky to still have my distance. When you get older, your body doesn’t work as well and you can lose distance. Technology helps, but I don’t change my clubs much. My clubs are pretty old, but they’re working. I’ll keep them.

Hole #2 – Favorite Color
Light blue or purple.

Hole #3 – When did you start playing golf?
I started playing when I was five years old. I played my first tournament when I was six. Back in Sweden, we lived 50 yards from a golf course and one of my sisters worked in the pro shop. One of her jobs was picking up range balls in the evenings by hand with a shag bag, and I helped, chipping balls out of the rough and collecting them for her. It was 1978. I could go out on the golf course anytime because back then it wasn’t as busy as it is now with having to book a time. Summers were like, go out and play a few holes and then come back home.

Hole #4 – Favorite Golfer
Seve Ballesteros

Hole #5 – Favorite Golf Course
I went to university in Scotland on a golf scholarship. Over there, you see a sign that just says ‘golf course’ and you can just drive in and play. The courses are amazing. Gleneagles, St. Andrews. Here in America, I like Spyglass. The course we played in Virgina on the LPGA Tour – Kingsmill. I love that course. You have to hit so many different types of shots. And of course, Muirfield Village. I like that one, too.

Hole #6 – Do you have any pets?
We have two dogs – Cockapoos. Seve is 13.5 and Molly is seven. Seve is mommy’s boy. He follows me everywhere.

Hole #7 – Favorite Song
A Swedish song that I played every morning going to the golf course in Michigan last week. The title translates in English to “Who the Hell Are You?” It’s by Hooja with Miriam Bryant, a famous Swedish singer. I like it. It’s interesting. The band has become really popular in Sweden. They always wear masks when they sing. The song is about how they all meet in a grocery store and she’s like, who the hell are you? I don’t know your face because you are wearing masks. It’s all in Swedish. It’s hip hop. I had to play it every morning because it gave me good vibes.

Hole #8 – Career Aces
Six – four in tournaments. When I won two tournaments in 1999, I was in the Tour championship in Alabama. I made an ace in that Tour championship which was nice. But I’ve never won a prize for making a hole-in-one. It’s always on the hole with no insurance.

Hole #9 – Favorite Celebration Bevvy
Prosecco. Always Prosecco. I drank it out of the trophy on Sunday. And the members did as well, so they were very excited.