Darcey Harry has one simple target for this week's AIG Women's Open at Royal Lytham: avoid the bunkers. All 174 of them.

The 23-year-old Welsh golfer, whose home course is Royal Porthcawl on the south Wales coast, has already walked the Lytham layout this year to get a feel for its notorious sand traps. There are no fewer than 174 bunkers scattered across the Lancashire links, and Harry knows that finding them could turn a steady round into a long afternoon. "Just stay out of the bunkers" is her initial goal, according to BBC Sport.

Harry tees off in the first round at 06:52 BST on Thursday alongside Wei-ling Hsu of Chinese Taipei and Aditi Ashok of India. Hsu knows this event well — she finished tied-sixth at last year's AIG Women's Open at Royal Porthcawl.

That 2025 edition on Harry's home course was the tournament that put her on the map. She had set herself a single target at the start of that year: to play the Women's Open at Royal Porthcawl, the links where she grew up. She earned her spot by winning the Hulencourt Women tournament in June 2025, then made it through to the weekend — surviving the cut line, the score that decides who plays the final two rounds and who goes home — on her Women's Open debut. She finished tied 40th, closing with a 77 on a windswept final day.

She described the week as "so surreal."

It was not her first taste of major championship golf. Her strong form in 2025 had also earned her a place at the Evian Championship, one of women's golf's five majors. She missed the cut there on her major debut, failing to reach the weekend.

The contrast between that early disappointment and the steady progress since tells the story of a young player learning the jump in class. Major championships demand four days of precision under pressure that regular tour events cannot replicate. Links golf adds another layer entirely — wind, firm ground, and the constant threat of bunkers that swallow wayward shots whole.

Royal Lytham's bunkers are deep, penal, and everywhere. A player can hit a good shot that bounces sideways off a ridge and disappears into sand. Escaping them costs strokes; avoiding them costs nothing but course management and nerve.

Harry returned to the Hulencourt Women's Open earlier this month as defending champion, confirming her place among the exempt players for this year's AIG Women's Open at Royal Lytham AIG Women's Open. She is listed in the official field on the tournament website.

For a player who grew up on a windswept Welsh links, the test at Lytham will feel familiar. The wind off the Lancashire coast shapes every shot, and the bunkers wait for mistakes. Harry's plan is straightforward. Whether she can execute it over four days against the strongest field in women's golf is the question Thursday morning will begin to answer.