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Chasing Nancy Sorenstam aims for Lopez's five consecutive wins
Updated: Friday April 20, 2001 3:53 AM
NEW YORK (AP) -- When Annika Sorenstam tees it up Thursday in search of another LPGA record, she'll be using a special new ball with the number "59" to mark the record round she shot last month. There could have been more. But "Four wins in a row going for a record fifth to tie Nancy Lopez's record" just didn't fit. Already the holder of one of golf's most coveted records and one major championship this season, Sorenstam goes after a mark that has stood since Lopez broke onto the scene 23 years ago. A victory in the Longs Drugs Challenge this week would give her five in a row, tying the achievement of Lopez during her electrifying rookie year in 1978. It would add another stamp to the best year in golf by anyone not named Tiger Woods. "I know what's at stake and what I want to do," Sorenstam said Wednesday. "I'm excited I have this chance when I'm playing this well." Sorenstam, who made up a 10-shot final round deficit with a final-round 66 to win Saturday in Los Angeles, gets a chance at the record on a course she likes and where she has played well.
She's also playing with the supreme confidence of someone who knows she has to make mistakes to lose. "It just seems so easy when things go your way," Sorenstam said. "It's kind of like driving down the street and you have a green light all the time. It's fun." Lopez knows the feeling, though some of her recollections have faded through the years. Only 21 at the time, she gained some much needed attention for the LPGA Tour by winning five consecutive times in '78. "After a while it was very easy," Lopez said this week. "I just remember playing very well and being focused on just hitting fairways and greens. You just feel so confident." Sorenstam is not only confident, she has been dominating. The Swede, in her eighth year on tour, has played six events, finishing second in her first two and winning the next four. Included in that streak was the first 59 ever shot in competition by a woman, in the second round of the Standard Register Ping in Phoenix, and her first major title in five years when she won the Nabisco Championship. As good a frontrunner as she has been, Sorenstam showed she can also come from behind in overtaking Pat Hurst in The Office Depot to win her fourth in a row. "It was quite a comeback," Sorenstam acknowledged. "I was kind of shocked at the time. I didn't expect a playoff or a win, but I'll take it."
Sorenstam credits a renewed commitment to her short game for her most recent success. A look at statistics, though, shows her tee-to-green game may be what has carried her most. Sorenstam is first in greens hit in regulation at nearly 84 percent, a key part of her being under par in 18 of 21 competitive rounds this year. At the Nabisco, she was remarkable, hitting 35 of 36 greens in regulation in weekend play. Sorenstam faces a few different challenges this week on the Twelve Bridges Golf Club in the Sacramento, Calif., suburb of Lincoln, where she finished tied for sixth last year. Though it's a course she likes, it's also one Juli Inkster is quite fond of. Inkster has won the last two Longs Drugs Challenge tournaments here, and is trying to become the seventh player in LPGA history to win the same tournament three years in a row. If Inkster does, Sorenstam's streak of four consecutive victories won't be the only streak she breaks. No American has won on the LPGA Tour so far this year, a streak that Lopez would like to see end. "I'm definitely pulling for her [Sorenstam], but if there's an American coming up on the last hole to beat her I'm going to have to root for the American," Lopez said. "No U.S. player has won this year and that bothers me." Not much bothers Sorenstam, and Lopez said that has been the key to her remarkable run. "I don't see her concentration wavering," Lopez said. "She's very focused and having a great time. You look at Annika and see confidence."
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