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Notebook: Success, at Long Last No Goetze, No GloryBy Jaime Diaz
Vicki Goetze-Ackerman muscled up on the 18th tee at Mission Hills Country Club during last week's Nabisco Championship, hitting her drive as far as she could. The ball took off high with a draw and got a healthy bounce. After calculating that it had traveled all of 242 yards, she smiled and said, "Very large for me."
Goetze-Ackerman, 28, averages 222.8 yards a drive, which puts her 173rd on the LPGA tour in distance. Though four yards longer than last year, she's still 50 yards behind the tour leader, Akiko Fukushima, and that difference underscores what had been the rap against the two-time U.S. Women's Amateur champion: Goetze-Ackerman was too light a hitter to keep up with the big girls. In 1999, her sixth season as a pro, the slight, 5'5" Goetze-Ackerman finished with her highest-ever scoring average, 74.38. That's when she stopped worrying about length. Her game improved almost immediately. Last year she had a career-low stroke average (72.51), her best tour finish (a tie for second place in the Corning Classic) and her highest ranking on the money list (51st). This season she has continued her resurgence. Goetze-Ackerman, who had only eight top 10 finishes going into the year, already has four in seven starts in 2001, the last one coming two weeks ago when she closed with a career-low 65 at the Standard Register Ping. She is tied for second on the tour in putting (27.86 a round) and ranks 15th on the money list. "I had no idea this was going to happen," says Goetze-Ackerman, who shot a two-over 74 to finish 58th at the Nabisco, 19 strokes behind winner Annika Sorenstam. "I'm still not where I want to be, but I'm very happy with the progress." She's not even close to reaching her former stature. As Vicki Goetze, she was one of the great prodigies of women's golf. She played her first tournament at age five, dominated the junior ranks and won the 1989 Amateur when she was 16. As a freshman at Georgia she won the NCAA individual title. When Goetze defeated Sorenstam one up in the final of the '92 Amateur, it was Goetze, not her opponent, who looked like a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame. "I was mentally stronger at that time," Goetze-Ackerman says. In retrospect Goetze-Ackerman probably wasn't ready for life on the LPGA tour -- and the resentment that ballyhooed amateurs encounter from veterans -- when she turned pro at 20. "I had never encountered confrontation, and the tour can be a tough place," she says. "I had never been alone. I was lonely and unhappy and frustrated. I went a whole year without playing a practice round with someone else, without having dinner with someone." Marrying former club pro Jim Ackerman in 1997 increased her happiness. However, when her performance continued to fall short of expectations, Goetze-Ackerman began to listen to critics who insisted that she needed more distance. Soon her vaunted short game began to collapse under the strain of constantly trying to save par. Her confidence shot, she missed the cut in 27 of 39 starts in '98 and '99. "I lost track of the kind of golfer I am," she says. Instead of quitting, she took action. Before the 2000 season she began working with the New York Yankees' sports psychologist, Fran Pirozzolo. "Fran got me away from measuring my worth as a person by how I played," Goetze-Ackerman says. Her swing coach, Paul Marchand, who also tutors Fred Couples and Colin Montgomerie, wants Goetze-Ackerman to stop thinking about distance. "Vicki's game is accuracy and consistency," he says. "She doesn't need to be long if everything else is working right." Goetze-Ackerman carries six woods, all the way up to an eleven-wood, which she hits 150 yards. Her lowest iron is a six, which she hits 138 yards. That makes for a funny contrast when she plays with her best friend on tour, Caroline Blaylock, who last year led the LPGA in driving. "We're known as the Long and the Short of It," says Blaylock. "I remember Vicki as an absolute phenom, and it's so great to see her playing her game again."
Course Construction
Since the mid-'90s, the U.S. has experienced an unprecedented boom in golf-course construction. Last year a record 524 courses opened, and that was only the crest of a wave that has seen more than 2,800 facilities -- 87% of them public -- come on line in the last six years. Now, though, the people who build courses for a living are concerned that the boom is about to go bust. Three factors portend the slowdown: a worsening general economy, too many courses and exorbitant greens fees. National Golf Foundation studies show that the number of rounds played in the U.S. has remained about the same throughout the building boom. With more than 17,000 courses available, supply has surpassed demand in many parts of the country. As a result, lenders are less likely to finance new projects. "I don't know whether there's a glut yet," says course designer Robin Nelson, "but there are so many courses that I think people are seeing a shakeout, and that means a slowdown." It costs about $3 million to build a public course in most places. However, in densely populated locales, where land is expensive, or in environmentally sensitive areas, where special construction methods must be applied, the cost can soar five times as high or more. Something as innocuous as the web of cart paths required at resort courses can cost more than $1 million. Which brings us to the seemingly outrageous greens fees charged at some courses. Generally, course operators make a profit by charging about $10 for every $1 million they spend constructing a course, so if the facility costs, say, $10 million, the greens fee will be $100. That's too rich for many golfers. "I'm most concerned about the price of golf," Nelson says. "I wonder if the guys building these high-end courses would pay $200 to play them. I think some people will have to lower their prices and take a hit to stay in business." During the boom, course designers frequently added expensive eye candy-artificial waterfalls, elaborate mounding, excessive plantings-to their projects. In the future the emphasis will be put on such virtues as thrifty minimalist design and working within a strict budget. Says architect James Engh, "We have to build smart courses that people can afford to play. The days of excess are over." Issue date: April 2, 2001
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