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Major challenge Win streak over, Webb focuses on Nabisco Championship
Posted: Wednesday March 22, 2000 08:48 PM
RANCHO MIRAGE, California (AP) -- The pressure is off Australia's Karrie Webb. After her bid to become the first golfer in 22 years to win four consecutive LPGA tournaments ended with a second-place finish last week, Webb can focus on the $1.25 million Nabisco Championship, the year's first LPGA major. "By not winning, the attention probably is a little bit less," Webb said Wednesday. But the challenge is huge. Last year, Dottie Pepper demolished the Mission Hills Country Club course with a tournament record 19-under-par total and six-stroke victory over Meg Mallon. So officials toughened up the 6,520-yard, par-72 course, narrowing fairways and moving tees back. "I don't think you're going to see those scores again this year," Webb said. "You're going to have to be very patient. You're going to have to try and hit a lot of fairways and hit a lot of greens, because the rough is a lot longer." Webb has played 13 of 15 rounds under par this year, tops on the tour. Her 69.33 scoring average is slightly behind Annika Sorenstam's leading 69.21. "I'm sure she's like me, the majors mean a lot and that's where you make the history," said Sorenstam, who won two weeks ago in Tucson, Arizona, and finished third last week in Phoenix, where her younger sister, Charlotta, won. Webb won her first, and only major, last year in the du Maurier Classic. Her best finish in the Nabisco was a third-place tie last year. "Hopefully, I can take a little bit of my experience with du Maurier and put it to this week, sort of the never-say-die attitude and know that I can put together low rounds on tough golf courses and just try and stay patient," Webb said. Sorenstam is in search of four solid rounds in the Nabisco. She tied for second in '96 after a double-bogey on the 18th in the third round "pretty much cost me the whole tournament." "This course demands everything," she said. "I see it as a big challenge." Motivating the Swede is her fall from first to fourth on the money list last year, when she struggled with her putting. Webb took over the top spot with earnings of more than $1.5 million, breaking Sorenstam's 1998 record. "That kind of got me fired up. I worked really hard this winter," Sorenstam said. "My goal is to try and beat Karrie and get back to No. 1." The 102-player field includes 13-year-old twin sisters Aree and Naree Song Wongluekiet, who'll be the second-youngest ever to play in an LPGA tournament. The amateurs from Thailand, who train in Bradenton, Florida, combined to win nine junior tournaments in the final six months of 1999. "They're not like any other 13-year-olds. They have a lot of game," Sorenstam said.
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