Success, Interrupted, for Two Top Players
By DAVE ANDERSON
Sports of The Times
July 2, 2007
Southern Pines, N.C.
After the third round of the United States Women’s Open was suspended Saturday evening, Lorena Ochoa was returning to the Pine Needles clubhouse in a golf cart when a lightning bolt crashed nearby.
“It was about 100 yards away,” she said. “It was loud. I didn’t see where it hit. Just the noise.”
And out of a Carolina blue sky yesterday, two bolts of golf lightning disrupted an opportunity for Ochoa, the world’s No. 1-ranked female golfer, to win her first major title: a 20-foot birdie putt on the 14th green that lifted Cristie Kerr into a one-stroke lead that she never surrendered, and a slipped grip as Ochoa swung her 5-wood in a fairway bunker on the 440-yard 17th hole.
“I lost my grip with my hands,” she said later. “I didn’t like my transition. On my way down, I lost my grip a little. The 17th hole cost me.”
Ochoa topped the ball, sending it only about 70 yards instead of the 200 that she had planned. The resultant bogey dropped her two strokes behind Kerr, too much to make up. She had to be satisfied with a tie for second place with Angela Park, a Henderson, Nev., resident of Korean descent.
“I’ve been in worse places,” Ochoa said. “I tried very hard. Every day. Every shot. It just didn’t happen for me. I was very happy the way I managed myself.”
Asked if a three-putt bogey on her final hole Saturday had stayed with her, she said she shrugged it off, just as she shrugged off the real lightning bolt.
“We still had a few holes to go, and I was only one shot back,” she said, alluding to Kerr’s go-ahead birdie on the 14th green. “I was always positive and I was always with the hope and fate that things would turn my way and I could win the tournament. Unfortunately, that bogey on the 17th really changed everything. But there’s nothing I can do now.”
And so Ochoa, a 25-year-old Mexican, is now 0 for 23 in the majors, a streak that started when she was a renowned amateur at the University of Arizona. And she’s a serene 0 for 23.
“That is how I am,” she said in her sweet manner. “It really hurts not to win, but I can still have a good time with my family and my friends. I’m O.K. Sometimes people take it too seriously. I don’t have to be frustrated. I’m just happy to be in this position that I’m giving myself a chance to win my first major.”
Some golfers, male or female, would be growling at having missed another chance to win a first major, but when Kerr holed out on the 18th green to win by two strokes, Ochoa was the first to hug her. After the presentation ceremony, Ochoa took time to sign autographs for those in her gallery, including several Mexican fans.
As she entered the interview room in the media center, she heard a local columnist she didn’t know sneeze and took time to quietly say, “Bless you,” as she passed him. Bless her.
Just as Phil Mickelson, for all his success on the PGA Tour, couldn’t win a men’s major until he was 33, when he won the Masters in 2004, Ochoa hasn’t been able to add a major to her 12 L.P.G.A. victories. In majors, she also finished second in last year’s Kraft Nabisco Championship and third there in 2003.
Her next major will be the Women’s British Open next month on the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland.
“I know nothing about St. Andrews,” she said with a smile, “but my caddie, Dave Brooker, does. He’s an Englishman.”
This tournament will also be remembered for 17-year-old Michelle Wie’s withdrawal with a painful left wrist that, she said, “brought tears to my eyes,” after she hit her tee shot on her 10th hole of Saturday’s second round. Over her 27 holes, Wie was 17 over par, quite a comedown from her finish last year, when she tied for third place in a tournament Annika Sorenstam won at Newport (R.I.) Country Club.
Wie, who fractured her wrist in February in a fall while jogging, referred four times to her wrist injury, always a serious problem for a golfer, as a “work in progress.”
Instead of letting her wrist heal completely, she has had three disastrous tournaments — a withdrawal from the Ginn Tribute after being 14 over through 16 holes, a 21-over total in the L.P.G.A. Championship that included an 83-79 finish, and a withdrawal here after making only one birdie and hitting 4 of 21 fairways.
Wie spoke of returning to Florida, where her coach, David Leadbetter, is located, for a medical re-evaluation of her wrist. She also acknowledged the possibility of a long layoff before she enters Stanford University after what has been a lost season in a career that, more than ever, is really a work in progress. An interrupted work in progress.
Sports of The Times
July 2, 2007
Southern Pines, N.C.
After the third round of the United States Women’s Open was suspended Saturday evening, Lorena Ochoa was returning to the Pine Needles clubhouse in a golf cart when a lightning bolt crashed nearby.
“It was about 100 yards away,” she said. “It was loud. I didn’t see where it hit. Just the noise.”
And out of a Carolina blue sky yesterday, two bolts of golf lightning disrupted an opportunity for Ochoa, the world’s No. 1-ranked female golfer, to win her first major title: a 20-foot birdie putt on the 14th green that lifted Cristie Kerr into a one-stroke lead that she never surrendered, and a slipped grip as Ochoa swung her 5-wood in a fairway bunker on the 440-yard 17th hole.
“I lost my grip with my hands,” she said later. “I didn’t like my transition. On my way down, I lost my grip a little. The 17th hole cost me.”
Ochoa topped the ball, sending it only about 70 yards instead of the 200 that she had planned. The resultant bogey dropped her two strokes behind Kerr, too much to make up. She had to be satisfied with a tie for second place with Angela Park, a Henderson, Nev., resident of Korean descent.
“I’ve been in worse places,” Ochoa said. “I tried very hard. Every day. Every shot. It just didn’t happen for me. I was very happy the way I managed myself.”
Asked if a three-putt bogey on her final hole Saturday had stayed with her, she said she shrugged it off, just as she shrugged off the real lightning bolt.
“We still had a few holes to go, and I was only one shot back,” she said, alluding to Kerr’s go-ahead birdie on the 14th green. “I was always positive and I was always with the hope and fate that things would turn my way and I could win the tournament. Unfortunately, that bogey on the 17th really changed everything. But there’s nothing I can do now.”
And so Ochoa, a 25-year-old Mexican, is now 0 for 23 in the majors, a streak that started when she was a renowned amateur at the University of Arizona. And she’s a serene 0 for 23.
“That is how I am,” she said in her sweet manner. “It really hurts not to win, but I can still have a good time with my family and my friends. I’m O.K. Sometimes people take it too seriously. I don’t have to be frustrated. I’m just happy to be in this position that I’m giving myself a chance to win my first major.”
Some golfers, male or female, would be growling at having missed another chance to win a first major, but when Kerr holed out on the 18th green to win by two strokes, Ochoa was the first to hug her. After the presentation ceremony, Ochoa took time to sign autographs for those in her gallery, including several Mexican fans.
As she entered the interview room in the media center, she heard a local columnist she didn’t know sneeze and took time to quietly say, “Bless you,” as she passed him. Bless her.
Just as Phil Mickelson, for all his success on the PGA Tour, couldn’t win a men’s major until he was 33, when he won the Masters in 2004, Ochoa hasn’t been able to add a major to her 12 L.P.G.A. victories. In majors, she also finished second in last year’s Kraft Nabisco Championship and third there in 2003.
Her next major will be the Women’s British Open next month on the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland.
“I know nothing about St. Andrews,” she said with a smile, “but my caddie, Dave Brooker, does. He’s an Englishman.”
This tournament will also be remembered for 17-year-old Michelle Wie’s withdrawal with a painful left wrist that, she said, “brought tears to my eyes,” after she hit her tee shot on her 10th hole of Saturday’s second round. Over her 27 holes, Wie was 17 over par, quite a comedown from her finish last year, when she tied for third place in a tournament Annika Sorenstam won at Newport (R.I.) Country Club.
Wie, who fractured her wrist in February in a fall while jogging, referred four times to her wrist injury, always a serious problem for a golfer, as a “work in progress.”
Instead of letting her wrist heal completely, she has had three disastrous tournaments — a withdrawal from the Ginn Tribute after being 14 over through 16 holes, a 21-over total in the L.P.G.A. Championship that included an 83-79 finish, and a withdrawal here after making only one birdie and hitting 4 of 21 fairways.
Wie spoke of returning to Florida, where her coach, David Leadbetter, is located, for a medical re-evaluation of her wrist. She also acknowledged the possibility of a long layoff before she enters Stanford University after what has been a lost season in a career that, more than ever, is really a work in progress. An interrupted work in progress.
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