NEWS AND NOTES
Who's No. 1? Take Three Guesses
Posted: Wed December 3, 1997
Normally this time of year is used to weigh the merits of the
candidates for the player of the year awards. However, Hale
Irwin, Annika Sorenstam and Tiger Woods so thoroughly dominated
their respective tours that any discussion is superfluous. A
debate can be conducted, though, over which of the three players
of the year is the most dominant golfer.
Based solely on their performance in the majors this year,
Woods, who won the Masters by a record 12 strokes, and Irwin,
who won the PGA Seniors, would have an edge on the majorless
Sorenstam. Also, Woods's overall impact on the game, and Irwin's
nine victories, are impossible to ignore. Still, the argument
for Sorenstam is a compelling one.
For starters, Sorenstam marked her turf two weeks ago at the
LPGA Tour Championship in Las Vegas, where she won in a playoff
over Lorie Kane and Pat Hurst. Irwin and Woods failed to make
similar statements at their Tour Championships. Despite a
second-place finish at Myrtle Beach, Irwin ended up ceding the
spotlight to winner Gil Morgan (who finished ahead of Irwin in
four of the Senior tour's five biggest tournaments). Woods
failed to put an exclamation point on a year that went mostly
downhill after his Western Open victory in July, finishing 12th
in the season finale in Houston. "You have to beat the best to
be considered the best," Sorenstam correctly pointed out in Las
Vegas, "and the Tour Championship is the place to do it."
That's as much of a boast as you will hear from Sorenstam, whose
sustained excellence over the past three seasons (12 victories,
including back-to-back U.S. Open titles in '95 and '96, and 42
top 10 finishes) is the best reason to call her today's most
dominant player. This year she came within .04 of a stroke of
repeating a feat she pulled off in 1995, winning the LPGA's
triple crown: player of the year, money title and lowest scoring
average. (Karrie Webb, at 70.00, had the lowest.) "In '95
everything just kind of happened, and I went along with it,''
says Sorenstam. "This year I felt like I had mastered the game
so much more."
Sorenstam, at 27, figures to be at the center of plenty more
"who's best" debates in the future. "I'm not thinking about that
yet," she says. "I just want to enjoy [the Las Vegas win]. What
can I say? I guess it's been my year."
She was talking about the LPGA tour but could have just as
easily meant all of golf.
Issue date: December 8, 1997
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