You think the women’s fields tend to be, gloriously, open during “peacetime”? Well, try surveying the battlefield when so many top performers are missing, no one has played a Major in eight months, and the fog of a pandemic still hasn’t entirely lifted. After the world’s top-two players have pulled, we have a top seed who's never won a Major, a second seed who’s struggled mightily of late, and a third seed who turns 39 in a few weeks. All of this will infuse this unprecedented Major with extra uncertainty.
But who cares? Possibility and improbability lie at the root of why we like sports.