When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
It's 8:37 PM PST and no YouTube posting yet of Annika's final shot in U.S. Open play (until she's back in three years). So until then, we at least have Rob Matre's shot along with other images from Sunday of the all time great.
Steve Elling has the amazing Stacy Lewis story, which you might want to read if you are going to watch the final round of the U.S. Women's Open. Just don't read it over breakfast if medical details aren't your thing...
Craig Dolch (here) and Steve Elling (here) celebrate new media (that's lower case, as opposed to...) darling Minea Blomqvist who is currently tied for second place in the U.S. Women's Open.
Elling:
Have you driven a fjord lately? Putted on tundra bentgrass? Blomqvist has. For whatever reason, the Finnish development in the game has lagged behind the other Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden, which has produced two different U.S. Women's Open winners, while another Swede, veteran Helen Alfredsson, is among the leaders this week.
Blomqvist offered a theory on that front.
"I always tell a story about why the Swedes are so good in golf," she said, laughing. "Because in golf, you need an empty mind, and there's nothing going on in their heads, so that's why they play good."And...
That Blomqvist is among the leaders comes as a middling surprise, since she has never won an LPGA event and hasn't finished better than third this year. She wasn't expecting such scrutiny, either.
"I'm upset because I didn't put my makeup on today," she cracked as a phalanx of TV cameras zoomed tight. "I didn't think I was going to play that well. I should be looking nice for the media."Her entire interview can be viewed here.
Ron Sirak takes an interesting look at Michelle Wie's first round 9 and ESPN.com dresses it up with video.Wie made a series of mistakes on No. 9, the first being that she elected to hit driver off the elevated tee instead of 3-wood. Wie has struggled with the driver for nearly two years now -- missing shots low and left as well as high and right -- and she blocked this one into the right rough.
She compounded the mistake off the tee by being too aggressive with her second shot, trying to advance it too close to the green instead of opting to pitch out sideways. The second shot ran through the fairway and into the rough at the base of the steep hill leading up to the ninth green.
Playing from the rough, she hit a shot that came out low, skidded across the green and ended up in the rough about two yards over the green. That's not a good place to be. It's virtually impossible to keep the ball on the green from there, without some luck or trickiness.
Trying to barely nudge the ball onto the fringe, Wie moved it only about 30 inches and left it still in the rough right on the edge of the fringe, now laying 4. At this point it was Julieta Granada's turn to play from the rough also behind the green. It was also at this point that Wie's brain shut down and she stared at her feet waiting for her turn to hit again.
What she missed while looking at her toes was that Granada played her shot sideways and it trickled down onto the safe shelf. Wie then took her putter and played her fifth shot straight down the sliding board, across the shelf and off the false front.
Her first chip from below the false front was not hit hard enough and rolled back to her feet. Her second pitch ended five feet from the hole, from where she two-putted for a 9.
I missed Annika's round today in the U.S. Women's Open but caught her post round interview where she explained an apparently not-so-hot decision to use driver on No. 17 despite a tee being moved up. After the round, look what she had to say about the setup of Interlachen:
It's just, it's very, very fair, but you have to hit the ball well and there are a lot of tees out there where it's, there's so many different strategies. I mean, I've hit 4-irons off the tee, I hit 5-irons, I hit 5-woods, 4-wood, driver. I mean that's five different clubs off the tee other than par-3s. I can't think of any other golf course like that. And it's just strategy and it's just there's not a right way to play it, it's just depending how feel and how you want to approach the greens and with which clubs.
Smarting from that new 3-year contract extension, LPGA Commish Carolyn Bivens announced a de-branding of the LPGA Championship and a likely move to a summer date in the Northeast U.S. Naturally, she was quite humble in announcing the move, as reported by Ron Sirak.
"The LPGA has been surviving for 58 years," Bivens told Golf World. "Now is the time to move into the world of major sports." She said that while the tournament will have no title sponsor (other than the LPGA), it will seek presenting sponsors to help with the cost of running the event -- and hope to be part of a television package that will generate revenue.And she seems to have really mastered the rhetorical question.
"Could the proceeds from the LPGA Championship be the beginning of a real retirement fund?" Bivens asked rhetorically. "Could it grow into an LPGA version of the Masters? Could it contribute two, three, four, five million dollars a year to the pension fund? The business plan we have for 2010 can take this tour to a new level of financial stability."
From Ron Green Jr.'s weekly golf notes:
Sophie Gustafson's final-round meltdown Sunday at the Ginn Tribute hosted by Annika near Charleston couldn't have been fun. But after shooting a final-round 79 to waste a six-shot lead, Gustafson -- according to witnesses -- took the time to sign autographs for the crowd waiting for her.That's a touch of style.
Jon Show reports that the LPGA is pitching a new network TV package of events that might replace the ADT Championship series.
Plans call for a competition series that would exist within the LPGA’s seasonlong calendar of events. The series would consist of eight events, likely including at least one major and one event outside the United States. Players would qualify for a championship event based on their performance in the series.
That championship could be a new tournament scheduled during the first quarter of each year as a lead-in to the LPGA season. Sources said the weekend before the Super Bowl was being considered.
The LPGA-owned ADT Championship could be brought into the fold if the tour decides to scrap the current seasonlong qualifying system that culminates with the season-ending event. ADT’s title sponsorship expires after this year’s event.
NBC and CBS met with the LPGA two weeks ago to discuss the package, which could be split among the two networks. Both already air LPGA events.
Jon Miller, NBC Sports senior vice president of programming, called the package “intriguing.” CBS did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
The contract for this $1.5 million tour stop expires in 2009, and unofficial word is that an event that embraces the community as much as the community embraces it won't be renewed.And...
"I've had a feeling this was going to be coming soon," Sherri Turner, the 1988 Corning champion, said Tuesday as she choked back tears. "We all know things don't come easy here. You have to work for it, and I hate knowing that (the end) could happen."
The players who traditionally spend the week leading into Memorial Day at Corning Country Club are older ones who savor what the city did during the LPGA's lean years.
"It's just such a neat little town, and the community's so close," said 1987 winner Cindy Rarick, now 48, who has played here 23 times in her 24 years on tour. "It's just a lot of fun to go around and see things. ... It's kind of a peaceful place. You know the airport's small. There's not a lot of traffic. It's more quiet, a relaxing atmosphere, and it's more fun."
Fun doesn't seem to rank high on golf's list of priorities these days. It's business. Big business. On the men's side, Tiger Woods is a corporation unto himself. The LPGA has no one of that stature, but Ochoa and Sorenstam, who plans to retire at season's end, are marketable.
"The players today are in it for the money for the most part," Turner said. "There's some that are in it for the love of the game, but they're going to go where the money is. I hate seeing that happen because I know why this event is probably not going to continue."
Turner, merely speculating but carrying the wisdom of a 25-year tour veteran, believes the LPGA soon will elevate its minimum purse to $2 million. That's too deep for the pockets of this community, even with the backing of its loyal corporate sponsor, Corning Glass Works.
The LPGA adopted a rule in 2002 -- intended to help smaller tour stops such as Corning and Toledo -- requiring its players to appear in each stop at least once in a four-year period. That led to Sorenstam competing, and winning, in 2004.
John Hopkins reports on the slow play epidemic, and though he says the final pairing at The Players took only 4:15 (according to some readers it was 4:40), he offers this:
The answer lies partly in easing the set-up of some courses but more in harsh penalties for slow players. The LPGA Tour in the US recently introduced a policy of penalizing players who took more than 30 seconds a stroke and, furthermore, penalized Angela Park when she was only one stroke out of the lead. Compare this with the PGA Tour's policies under which a player has not bee fined for 15 years.
Tim Finchem, Commissioner of the PGA Tour in the US, said in an interview with The Times last week: "I have told the players we are going to make them play faster. I think we owe it the sport, to the players who play at this level and to the fans that we are doing everything we can to analyse and take steps on this issue."
Well, it's something. This isn't so hot:
Last Monday the World Golf Foundation, a body incorporating the United States Golf association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, the professional tours from around the world as well as Ladies Professional Golf Association (in the US), met in Jacksonville. I understand that slow play was on the agenda but nothing substantive was discussed even though slow play was an item on the agenda.Thankfully, there is great news. According to Doug Ferguson, the big execs in golf are working on the real priorities at the expense of their carbon footprints. What for? To grow the game with 72-holes of stroke play once every four years.
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem headed for London this week, stopping along the way to pick up USGA executive director David Fay and LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens.
They were to join R&A chief executive Peter Dawson and European Tour chief George O’Grady at a meeting with the International Olympic Committee, the first step toward bringing golf back to the Olympics.
It was not a formal meeting, but no less important to show the IOC a unified front in golf’s desire to be part of the games.
“This will be a protracted process,” Fay said. “But this is an important first step.”
Vital. Just vital.
Steve Elling notes the confirmation from George "Big Mouth" O'Grady, not from the PGA of America.
The Ryder Cup is the PGA of America's other signature event. A total of 24 players, featuring many of the top stars from around the globe, make up the two Ryder Cup teams.
"There's facilities in place for drug testing to take part," O'Grady said. "The PGA of America announced last week that they would be the first major to have drug testing; that they would be welcoming the PGA Tour's system and it will be in place for The Ryder Cup. Whether we choose to use it or not hasn't been decided yet. But the drug testing unit will be on site."
Meanwhile Ron Sirak notes that the LPGA is reportedly going to try again this week after their messy trial run earlier this year.
The Seattle Times business staff reports on Annika re-signing with Cutter and Buck, talking to Cutter's Ernie Johnson.
News this past week that the 37-year-old Sorenstam plans to retire when the season's LPGA Tour ends was not a shock to Johnson.
"We've known for sometime that starting a family was in her plans, so this didn't come as a surprise to us," he says. "We're very happy for her."
Under a multiyear contract signed in 2003, Sorenstam gets quarterly royalty checks based on sales of the Annika collection, Johnson says. In exchange, Cutter & Buck gets to use her name and image — and the exposure that goes with her appearances.
Sorenstam is "just as invested in seeing her brand succeed as we are," says Cutter & Buck spokeswoman Meghan Graves. Sales grew in double digits this past year, she says.
Isn't it touching to see a major brand putting someone else's brand above their own? Who says corporations don't have hearts?
Golfweek's Evan Rothman paints a picture for us of the press conference scene while his colleague Beth Ann Baldry talks to Suzann Pettersen about her disappointment in hearing the news. Meanwhile Brian Hewitt offers a few predictions about how this may play out.
Steve Elling catches up with Kathy Whitworth about Annika's decision to go out while she's at the top. Golf For Women's Dave Allen gets Lorena's "surprise" reaction to the news and also explains how the timing of the announcement came about.
Golf.com (here) and GolfDigest.com (here) offer career retrospectives while Ron Sirak learned of the news Sunday and therefore had a little more time to file this career obit.
Sorenstam's mastery of emotional balance was so complete she gave no hint of inner turmoil. In 2004 she won eight LPGA events and twice more overseas as her marriage to David Esch was crumbling. Divorce papers were filed the following February. She similarly kept her father Tom's prostate cancer battle the last few years private, never using that distraction as an excuse.
And, of course, there was the transformation she made in dealing with the attention that came with being so dominant. As a rookie Sorenstam was so shy she took a month off after winning her first U.S. Open because she wanted to avoid the media. In 2003, the year she played in the PGA Tour's Bank of America Colonial, she handled the nearly four-month buildup to her appearance with aplomb.
Dan Jenkins, the Golf Digest writer who has witnessed virtually every significant event in golf for nearly 60 years, has said Annika's opening tee shot at Colonial -- a 257-yard 4-wood off the 10th tee -- might have had more pressure on it than any single shot in the game's history. It was perhaps the most important shot in the history of women's golf and her superb execution in an opening-round 71, combined with the classy way she handled the attention, earned women's golf new fans and enhanced respect.
"Colonial was my mission," Sorenstam said Sunday as she looked back over her career. "It was my path, my journey and I felt like people accepted that, 'Hey she's an athlete, and she wants to get better.' I've always let my clubs do the talking. And I felt like people accepted me for that."
Here's Annika's press conference.
ANNIKA SORENSTAM: I wanted to let you all know that. I feel like I have a responsibility to the LPGA, to my fans, and I wanted to announce it as early as I could.
The reason for this decision is that I have other priorities in my life. I have a lot of dreams that I want to follow, I want to live, and I'm getting married in January. Mike and I want to start a family. I want to continue to build the ANNIKA brand of businesses, and this includes my academy, my foundation, my golf course design projects, all my corporate relationships, hosting golf tournaments, clothing lines, etc.
I am very, very proud of what I've achieved. Golf has been great to me. I think I've achieved more than I ever thought I could. I have given it all and it's been fun.
I have come back from an injury, and I feel strong, I feel healthy, and the season has started really well, and I'm leaving the game on my terms.
Thanks to reader LPGA Fan for noting my oversight in not highlighting Juli Inkster's summation of the bizarro new LPGA rule about overcrowding on the putting green. From Doug Ferguson's weekly AP notes:
A half-dozen players not eligible for the pro-am last week on the LPGA Tour were on the putting green, with their caddies standing on the fringe. That's courtesy of a daft new policy that bans caddies from being on the practice green between the hours of 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Turns out a couple of players were having a putting contest when a caddie was standing in their line. They asked him to move, he did, but that wasn't enough. They went to the commissioner to complain about crowded conditions on the green, and a new policy was enacted.
The fine for a caddie being on the green - to work with his player's mechanics or retrieve balls from the cup - is $500.
The policy even applies to the chipping area, and it's peculiar to see players hit three or four chips, then shag their own golf balls.
Count Juli Inkster among those who think the policy is bordering on ridiculous.
"You know what? It's women,'' she said when asked for a comment. "If you just put that down, everyone will know what you mean. Just capitalize 'women' and you don't need to explain anything else.''
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
