KOHLER, Wis. -- The fireworks that ignited the Fourth of July sky on the eve of the first round of the U.S. Women's Open were nowhere near as hot as the furnace that was Thursday at the U.S. Women's Open. The 6,954-yard Blackwolf Run course was a sweatbox of a torture test and few survived.

With the heat index at 105 degrees, par became a commendable score and among those who bettered that number was 17-year-old Lexi Thompson, the latest candidate to be the next great American on the LPGA. The long-hitter from South Florida handled the heat and birdied three of the final four holes for a two-under-par 70.

Thompson, who last year became the youngest ever to win an LPGA event and also picked up a victory on the Ladies European Tour, would become the youngest to win an LPGA major with a victory here. That honor is now held by Morgan Pressel, who was 18 years, 10 months and nine days when she won the 2007 Kraft Nabisco Championship.

"It would mean a lot, a pretty big achievement right there," Thompson said about the feat. "But there is still a lot of golf to play," she added, displaying the astonishingly well-grounded maturity that exceeds her years. That mental balance helped her not only survive but thrive in the opening round.

Related: Lexi Thompson's swing sequence

After making consecutive bogeys on Nos. 12 and 13, Lexi finished strong. "I got off track a little bit there but bounced back and made a couple of birdies," she said. "You have to place yourself in the right spot on these greens."

Thompson is trying to do something Pressel, Paula Creamer, Cristie Kerr and Michelle Wie have failed to do -- be the best player on tour. No American has been LPGA Player of the Year since Beth Daniel in 1994 and no Yank has topped the money list since Betsy King in 1993.

Thompson has two top-10 finishes this year, including second at the Mobile Bay LPGA Classic and T-5 at the ShopRite LPGA Classic. In the first two majors of the year, she was T-22 at the Kraft Nabisco Championship and T-30 in the Wegmans LPGA Championship.

Two years ago, at age 15, Thompson was T-10 in the U.S. Women's Open at Oakmont, won by Creamer, who opened with a 73 on Thursday. Thompson, who went out in 34, hit 10 of 14 fairways, 13 greens and averaged 274 yards off the tee, needing 30 putts on the baked Blackwolf Run greens, a part of her game she has been trying to shore up with the help of Dave Stockton.

"Putting is all about confidence," Thompson says. "You just got to pick the line and put a good stroke on it."

Related: Ten story lines from the 2012 U.S. Women's Open

Like everyone else, Thompson had to battle the weather. "It was extremely hot out there," she said about the brutal playing conditions. "I had my umbrella up and drank water on every hole. But being from South Florida, I'm used to the heat. I play every day no matter how hot it is."

Only two of the last seven U.S. Women's Opens have been won by Americans, Creamer in 2010 and Kerr in 2007. The only other time the Open was played at Blackwolf Run, Se Ri Pak won in a playoff against Jenny Chuasiriporn in 1998 after they tied at six-over-par 290 when it played as a par-71.

The way things unfolded on Thursday, it appeared as if par might be the winner again this year. "You have to be patient and take your pars on the hard holes," Thompson said. "And when you get to a birdie hole, you have to take advantage of it."

This was exactly the kind of start Thompson was looking for. This appears to be a golf course where no one is going to go low this week, even if the heat wave breaks on the weekend as it is supposed to.

Anything under par on any day is going to be a good score, and two-under par in the furnace of a first round is a great start for anyone, let alone a 17-year-old who is trying to make history.

And what would be a better place than the U.S. Women's Open for Thompson to take a step toward making a Yank the best in the world for the first time since before she was born.

-- Ron Sirak
Follow @ronsirak

PITTSFORD, N.Y. -- The buzz going into the 1999 U.S. Women's Open at Old Waverly in steamy Mississippi was about Beth Bauer, the Duke star who was expected to take the LPGA by storm. But early in the week, anyone hanging out on the practice ranged noticed the ball was jumping off the club of Grace Park with a very special sound.

"I have been thinking about it for awhile," Park said, fighting her emotions. "But after getting my health back and playing every event last year, I wanted to give it one last chance at becoming one of the top golfers again. I worked really hard, especially this last winter. But the truth was that my game just wasn't there. To be honest, it just wasn't fun. It was really painful and hard to deal with."

PITTSFORD, N.Y. -- Unlike the PGA Tour, the LPGA is in the enviable position of having a clear No. 1 player in Yani Tseng, who has a vintage Tiger Woods-like lead over the second-best player in women's golf. But what most fans don't realize is that No. 2 is Na Yeon Choi, a 24-year-old Korean who is as consistent as the ticking of a clock, with a repeating swing that is just as reliable.

Choi knows all about being second to Tseng. In 2008, she was runner-up to Yani for the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year Award. And with five LPGA wins since then, Na Yeon has the most triumphs on tour in that time period than any player other than Tseng.

Na Yeon, who was 10 years old when she watched on TV as Se Ri Pak won the 1998 U.S. Women's Open, the first LPGA major won by a player from their homeland, is looking for her first major. On Thursday, she got off to a good start, firing a two-under-par 69 at Locust Hill CC in the first round of the Wegmans LPGA Championship. 

Na Yeon has yet to win this year, but has been second twice and picks up a check every time out, currently sitting at No. 6 on the money list this year and having amassed $6 million in career earnings.

PHOENIX, Ariz. -- The only thing that could have made the start of this LPGA season better is if more people had noticed. The first three tournaments included a six-way playoff won by 18-year-old Jessica Korda and a four-way extra-hole session captured by Angela Stanford, with a victory by the best player in women's golf, Yani Tseng, sandwiched in between. Now that's entertainment.

But those events were played in Australia, Thailand and Singapore, and that whole time zone thing meant fans in the United States found out what happened a day late and a dollar short on delayed tape or by rumor. Now the 62-year-old tour -- the oldest and most successful women's professional sports organization in the world -- can kick it into high gear.

Korda imitates her dad, former tennis star Petr Korda, after winning.

Photo by Lucas Dawson/Getty Images

Beginning this week with the RR Donnelley Founders Cup on the Wildfire GC at the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort and Spa, the LPGA plays three weeks in a row, culminating with the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the first major of the year. And all three events, next week's Kia Classic included, will be live on Golf Channel.

The tour, which bounced back nicely under commissioner Mike Whan from an anemic 23-tournament schedule in 2011 to reach 27 this year (with another event expected to be added later in the year), could be on the verge of a breakout season attention-wise after swimming against the tide for several years. Safe to say, consumer confidence is on the rise.

There has never been any doubt that LPGA commissioner Mike Whan can work the front end of a deal. He is a born salesman with a quick wit and an agile mind fueled by a conga line of empty diet soda cans. He also believes passionately in his product. Whan thinks women's golf is under-valued by the marketplace with a lot of growth potential, and he is correct about that.

But Whan, who took over as commissioner in 2010 after the disastrous Carolyn Bivens regime mercifully came to end, has had trouble at the back end of deals. And that has probably been more a result of the worst economy in 80 years than either his selling skills or the quality of his product. Whan took over with the tour in a 20-foot hole and he was handed a 10-foot ladder.

Finally, however, all that hard work -- those meetings and social functions where endless words were exchanged -- have started to pay off. The 27-tournament schedule released Tuesday by the LPGA could very well be the most crucial corner turned in a seemingly endless series of twists and turns during the 62-year history of the tour. The edge of that hole is now within reach.

Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

Last year, Whan said the LPGA needed to have 30 events to function both financially and to get the media coverage it needs to grow. At the time, that seemed like a remote goal. After a season in which only 23 events were played -- the fewest since 1972 -- Whan's target date of 2013 for getting back to 30 seemed to be beyond reach. No more.

"At the end of last year, I felt like I was hitting a lot of good iron shots, but the putts weren't going in," Whan said about negotiating efforts that appeared at the time to go well and then failed to produce a title sponsor. "Now the putts are dropping," Whan said. Asked if 30 were now doable next year, he said: "I sure hope it's doable. If we don't get there, I'll feel like I'm under performing."

New to the 2012 schedule are the season-opening ISPS Handa Australian Women's Open Feb. 9-12, the LPGA LOTTE Championship at a yet-to-be-named course in Hawaii April 18-21, the Manulife Financial LPGA Classic in Waterloo, Ontario, June 21-24 and a return to the Kingsmill Resort in Virginia with the Kingsmill Championship Sept. 6-9. The Jamie Farr Toledo Classic in Ohio also returns Aug. 9-12 after a one-year hiatus.

There are way more positives than negatives in the new schedule. From the start in Australian until the conclusion at the CME Group Titleholders in Naples, Fla., Nov. 15-18, there are never more than two weeks without a tournament. Last year, there were two three-week droughts. Also, there are 15 domestic tournaments this year (plus two in Canada), up from 13 in 2011, which is good news for young North Americans trying to work their way on tour.

There is no question that the schedule does leave plenty of work for Whan to do. From when the first major of the year -- the Kraft Nabisco Champions -- ends April 3 until the Jamie Farr Toledo Class begins Aug. 9, there are nine off weeks. That's missing a lot of marketing opportunities during the heart of the golf season.

The limited field and unofficial money HSBC Brazil Cup fills one of those off-weeks May 5-6 and the LPGA does use its off weeks wisely. The tour skips the weeks the men play the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the Ryder Cup. In addition to the 15 events the tour has in the United States, the two in Canada and one in Australia, there are six in Asia, two in Europe and one in Mexico.

"It feels like we got all the basics right," Whan said about the success of the scheduling effort, which also managed to bring back nine of the 10 existing tournaments whose contracts were expiring, losing only the State Farm Classic after a 35-year-run. "It's about servicing your clients. We knew if we did that right, success would follow -- and it did."

Certainly, players are a big part of the formula for success. LPGA pro-ams consistently rank among the top customer experiences in the world of sports marketing and entertainment. Potential sponsors who visited LPGA events were also impressed with how well LPGA players interacted with corporate partners, Whan said.

Whan also got two other boosts form players last year. Yani Tseng emerged at the age of 22 as a superstar, winning seven LPGA events, including two majors, as well as five times overseas. And Lexi Thompson, still only 16, became the youngest winner on both the LPGA (Navistar LPGA Classic) and the Ladies European Tour (Dubai Ladies Masters), creating a lot of headlines for attention-starved women's golf.

Related: She how Lexi gets her power off the tee

Two events on the 2012 schedule -- the Mobile Bay LPGA Classic and the Kingsmill Championship -- don't have true title sponsors and will cobble together secondary sponsors to help with the costs while they search to someone to put their name on the event and pick up more of the tab. "If we weren't treating our customers right, people wouldn't say: 'Put us on the schedule and we'll figure it out,'" Whan said.

The rumored team event that would bring Asia and Australia into something resembling the Solheim Cup does not appear on this schedule and won't happen this year, but is still being worked on. It will happen, and with a unique format. It is not a question of if, but when -- and where. And that means another playing date down the road, albeit for a limited field.

Meanwhile, it would not be surprising if Whan were able to add one more full-field event to this year's schedule. "I still know there is at least one out there we could put on the table, but we haven't," Whan said about another potential title sponsor. "And I want to get them all." At the rate he is going, there is no reason to doubt he will get that one -- and many more.

-- Ron Sirak
Follow @ronsirak

Below is the full 2012 LPGA schedule:

1. ISPS HANDA AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S OPEN FEB. 9-12

2. HONDA THAILAND FEB. 16-19

3. HSBC CHAMPIONS FEB. 23-26

OFF MARCH 1-4

OFF MARCH 8-11

4. RR DONNELLY FOUNDERS CUP MARCH 15-18

5. KIA CLASSIC MARCH 22-25

6. KRAFT NABISCO CHAMPIONSHIP MARCH 29-APRIL 1

OFF APRIL 5-8

OFF APRIL 12-15

7. LPGA LOTTE CHAMPIONSHIP APRIL 18-21

8. MOBILE BAY LPGA CLASSIC APRIL 26-29

OFF (HSBC LPGA BRAZIL CUP - UNOFFICIAL) MAY 3-6

OFF MAY 10-13

9. SYBASE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP MAY 17-20

OFF MAY 24-27

10. SHOPRITE LPGA CLASSIC JUNE 1-3

11. WEGMANS LPGA CHAMPIONSHIP JUNE 7-10

OFF JUNE 14-17

12. MANULIFE FINANCIAL LPGA CLASSIC JUNE 21-24

13. WALMART NW ARKANSAS JUNE 28-JULY 1

14. U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN JULY 5-8

OFF JULY 12-15

OFF JULY 19-22

15. EVIAN MASTERS JULY 26-29

OFF AUG. 2-5

16. JAMIE FARR TOLEDO CLASSIC AUG. 9-12

17. SAFEWAY CLASSIC AUG. 17-19

18. CN CANADIAN WOMEN'S OPEN AUG. 23-26

OFF AUG. 30-SEPT. 2

19. KINGSMILL CHAMPIONSHIP SEPT. 6-9

20. RICOH WOMEN'S BRITISH OPEN SEPT. 13-16

21. NAVISTAR LPGA CLASSIC SEPT. 20-23

OFF SEPT. 27-30

OFF OCT. 4-7

22. SIME DARBY LPGA MALAYSIA OCT. 11-14

23. LPGA HANABANK CHAMPIONSHIP OCT. 18-21

24. SUNRISE LPGA TAIWAN CHAMPIONSHIP OCT. 25-28

25. MIZUNO CLASSIC NOV. 2-4

26. LORENA OCHOA INVITATIONAL NOV. 8-11

27. CME TITLEHOLDERS NOV. 15-18

Is the LPGA heading in the right direction? How excited are you for 2012? Sound off on our partner site, GolfWRX.com.

DUNSANY, Ireland -- This Solheim Cup feels like one of those baseball games where a team leads the entire way, leaves a lot of runners on base, and then loses in the last inning and regrets squandered opportunities. That the United States is tied 8-8 going into Sunday's singles play has to be an enormous emotional lift for a team that has played from behind all week.

That is not to say Europe doesn't have a chance to win Sunday at Killeen Castle and end a three-match winning streak by the Americans in the Solheim Cup. In fact, more Europeans are playing better than more Americans. They stand a very good chance. But so many opportunities have been wasted, you can't help but think they will be regretted.

When Laura Davies and Melissa Reid closed out Brittany Lang and Michelle Wie in the Saturday afternoon four-ball match 4 and 3 -- making Davies the all-time Solheim Cup points leader -- Europe had an 8-5 lead. But the Americans won the next three matches, the last of which -- Paula Creamer and Brittany Lincicome over Maria Hjorth and Azahara Munoz -- mirroring the late-round futility that has haunted Europe this week.

DUNSANY, Ireland -- At one point deep into the back nine of Friday morning's foursomes session, it appeared as if Europe would go into afternoon four-ball matches leading the United States 3-1 in the Solheim Cup. But when Suzann Pettersen rolled in a birdie putt on No. 18 to give her and partner Sophie Gustafson a 1-up win over Juli Inkster and Brittany Lang, it felt fortunate that Europe managed to eke out a 2-2 tie.

Karen Stupples and Melissa Reid were 2 up against Paula Creamer and Brittany Lincicome with four holes to play, but lost three of them despite the fact the Americans made only one birdie in that stretch. The Europeans, in fact, shot 41 on the back nine -- and a newspaper 41 at that with a couple of generous concessions -- as the Yanks took Nos. 17 and 18 with pars to win 1 up.

In the other matches, Cristie Kerr, who played near flawless golf, and Michelle Wie, who made several keys putts, won Nos. 16 and 17 as they defeated Maria Hjorth and Anna Nordqvist 2 and 1. Catriona Matthew and Solheim Cup rookie Azahara Munoz never trailed as they handled Stacy Lewis and Angela Stanford 3 and 2.

DUNSANY, Ireland -- Team Europe captain Alison Nicholas won her first showdown with American counterpart Rosie Jones when she placed her power duo of Suzann Pettersen and Sophie Gustafson out last in the Friday morning foursomes session that kicks off the Solheim Cup. "You usually put them out early," Jones said Thursday with a smile as the pairings were announced. "Strike one."

Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images

The first alternate-shot match will have Michelle Wie and Cristie Kerr taking on Maria Hjorth and Anna Nordqvist at 7:40. They will be followed by Paula Creamer and Brittany Lincicome against Karen Stupples and Melissa Reid; then Stacy Lewis and Angela Stanford will take on Catriona Matthew and Azahara Munoz before the session concludes with Brittany Lang and Juli Inkster going against Pettersen and Gustafson.

Sitting out the morning session for the Americans are No. 10 qualifier Christina Kim, captain's picks Vicky Hurst and Ryann O'Toole and short-hitting Morgan Pressel on a wet and long Killeen Castle course.

DUNSANY, Ireland -- Even the bookmakers on the European side of the pond think the United States will win its fourth consecutive Solheim Cup this week at Killeen Castle. If you have a few extra euros, pounds, dollars or gold bullion to wager, jump on those odds. Based on recent form, the European side is coming into this competition playing better golf than the Americans.

Yes, the U.S. side has won the last three Solheim Cups. Yes, the Yanks have an 8-3 lead overall. And yes, the Americans have seven top-20 players in the Rolex Rankings compared to one for Europe. But here is why the Cup is coming back across the Atlantic to reside until the 2013 competition in at Colorado GC.

• It's a home game. All of Europe's victories have come on friendly soil, winning twice in Scotland and once in Sweden. While they are 0-6 on American soil, they are 3-2 in Europe. And they know the course. Suzann Pettersen won the Ladies Irish Open at Killeen Castle a few weeks ago with teammates Azahara Munoz and Melissa Reid tied for second. In fact, the entire European team finished in the top 20.