2024 US Women’s Open: Exploring the Rose Logo in the Lancaster Edition

The US Women’s Open is just a week away. Some of the best golfers in the world will head to the Lancaster Country Golf Club, eyeing the most coveted title in women’s golf. From defending champion Allisen Corpuz to the first Major of 2024 champion, Nelly Korda, the field will be graced by some heavy hitters.

The USGA Championships, meanwhile, use their logos to not only demonstrate the club hosting them but also blend in some elements that will bring attention to the event. Although in most cases, the club still prominently portrays its logo, like Merion (wicker baskets), Pebble Beach (cypress tree), or Pinehurst (Putter Boy or Golf Lad), the Lancaster Country Club has, however, done things differently this year.

The course, hosting the US Women’s Open for the second time after 2015, instead of going for its normal logo, decided to honor the community and draw from the city’s English roots.

As stated by the unofficial club historian, Rory Connaughton, the heraldic rose has been associated with the house of Lancaster since the 14th century. In addition to that, there is also a white heraldic rose for the House of York. Connaughton’s sister Orla Duffy came up with some of the initial designs for the logo this year. The version was then shared with the USGA design team, which made the official logo a collaborative effort.

As the War of Roses came to an end after 32 long years in 1487, the Tudors combined the roses and made it into the Tudor rose, when both the houses united. Thus, the logo has a red rose with white on the inside. The rose is also a very significant part of the seal of the City of Lancaster.

This is nothing new for the Lancaster Country Golf Club. It emerged with a pretty much similar tradition back in 2015 as well.

The 2015 US Women’s Open had a hex sign as the logo

As revealed Rory Connaughton, who has also served on the Lancaster Country Club’s Executive Committee stated that every year, there has been a huge involvement of the community in the US Women’s Open. “The goal was to use something representative of the community as a whole and not Lancaster Country Club”, she said. This was why a hex sign was used in the 2015 logo when it was held in Lancashire for the first time.

Well, it is needless to say that the Club has indeed acted out to be a huge success for the event. Nine years ago, Lancaster acted as a home run, not just for the players, but for the club and the fans too. The Championship back then, won by Gee Chun, defeating Amy Yang by just one stroke, marked an attendance of 135000 spectators! This year, the stats suggest that there will be an 85% rise in the status! Nonetheless, whether it will be as big as a hit it was the last time, is yet to find out!