|
|
 |
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Room to coo
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- I've been a bit melancholy the last few days, and not just because I'm in the state of Florida. Here at The Players Championship all the talk seems to be exclusively about Tiger Woods and the Masters, and not necessarily in that order. I've heard hardly a whisper about what should be, by all rights, the most celebrated event of this or any other season. I speak, of course, about Annika Sorenstam's victory last week at the Standard Register Ping, and, especially, her second-round 59, quite possibly the most perfect round of golf ever played. Sadly, we here at Sports Illustrated share some culpability, having buried the story like everyone else. Because this week's issue was the baseball preview, there was no room in the national book. Because the story competed for space with Tiger's first win of the year, Golf Plus could spare but a paltry two pages. Two freakin' pages? For the greatest performance in the history of women's golf! It was like trying to summarize World War II on the back of a business card. I know because I was the poor schmuck given the assignment. Allow me to now tell the story in a little more detail.
It all began last Friday, what was ostensibly an off-week for the On Tour kid, providing me with the opportunity to catch up on three months of overdue expense reports and work on a ton of upcoming travel itineraries. Naturally I squandered most of the week slumped on my couch, watching the Golf Channel, and, later, the NCAA tournament. Friday morning I had checked the golf scores on the Web, noting that Annika had birdied her first four holes, part of a torrid stretch that included not only a first-round 65 but also a victory the week before in Tucson, where she went 23 under, tying the second-best scoring performance in LPGA history. I was well into my second dozen Chips Ahoy bathed in milk when the phone rang. I saw on my caller I.D. it was the New York office, but I answered it anyway. "Annika is 12 under through 13 holes," boomed Golf Editor. "Start packing." And so it goes. During these down weeks all of us writers are on call, sort of like neurosurgeons, though we all know whose job is more important. I watched the rest of Annika's magical round on the tube, then caught the next flight to Phoenix, to chase the story. With the help of a stringer at the tournament, whom I contacted to help me monitor the unfolding events, I was able to piece together the drama. We all know the broad strokes of Sorenstam's round, which began with eight straight birdies, one shy of the LPGA record. What I liked about the day -- and didn't have room for in my SI piece -- were a lot of the little details. To me, one of the neatest parts of the story was how excited the other players were as Sorenstam's round was unfolding. On the driving range, where much of the field was warming up for their afternoon tee times, "There was a buzz in the air," Juli Inkster said. "It was a cool feeling. It didn't matter if you were Swedish, American, Japanese or Korean, we all found ourselves pulling for her." There was a large electronic scoreboard at the range, which drew an audible response every time the numbers changed. When Annika birdied the 17th hole, pushing her to 13 under on the round, a roar went up at the range. Then a funny thing happened. Three dozen players abandoned their posts and rushed over to the practice putting surface, which had a view of the 9th green, where Sorenstam was finishing up her round. She was serenaded by catcalls and all manner of whooping and hollering from colleagues. Even more priceless was how Sorenstam celebrated her historic round -- by making fish soup for hubby David Esch, sister Charlotta (the defending champ at the Standard Register), and father, Tom, who was visiting from Sweden. Annika and Charlotta's complicated relationship has been well chronicled, but in the last year they have grown much closer. Charlotta, who is now separated from her husband, lives in Scottsdale, and the family Sorenstam had long planned this night together. Despite all the hoopla, Annika came through on her promise to make the fish soup, even though it meant stopping at a grocery store Friday evening to pick up supplies. Upon arriving at Charlotta's, Annika barricaded herself in the kitchen, deboning snapper, chopping carrots and making idle small talk. "We didn't discuss golf at all," Tom told me. "Because Charlotta had missed the cut. It might have been awkward." That night Annika hardly slept, or so her husband told me (I wasn't there to do the reporting myself). Come the third round, "I felt like I had a hangover I was so exhausted," Annika would say. That she was able grind out the victory, in the face of a furious charge by a rejuvenated Se Ri Pak, is testament to Annika's incredible heart, and resolve. The victory was also important to the legacy of the 59. Six rounds of 59 have been shot in men's competition, and Annika's compares favorably to all of them. She benefited from no lucky shots or outrageous turns of fortune, unlike David Gossett, who made a hole in one during his 59 at the 2000 Q School, or Doug Dunakey, who chipped in twice at the 1998 Nike Miami Valley Open. At the 1999 Bob Hope, David Duval struck the ball with unbelievable precision -- on nine holes he stiffed his approach to five feet or less, and the longest putt he holed all day was 10 feet -- yet he still missed two fairways, and one green. For her round Sorenstam hit all 18 greens and missed only one fairway -- the 6th, by less than a yard. Plus, she drained a mile of putts, including those of 30, 22, and 18 feet. Other 59s have been tainted as the players who shot them immediately recoiled in the shadow of what they had done. The most egregious offenders were Notah Begay, who followed his 59 at the 1998 Nike Dominion Open with a 74-74 weekend, fading to sixth place; and Gossett, who failed to break 70 in his other five rounds and didn't even finish in the top 35, thus failing to earn his card. Chip Beck -- whose 59 at the 1991 Las Vegas Invitational came on a course that was only 10 months old, and later dropped from the tournament rota -- finished third that week, while Dunakey tied for second. Only one other 59 compares with Annika's -- the very first, Al Geiberger's Banister-like effort at the 1977 Memphis Classic, on a tough, narrow track. His, too, came on a Friday, and he closed out the tournament 72-70 to beat Gary Player by three strokes. Still, I give Sorenstam's round the edge. Geiberger made 11 birdies and an eagle on that day, while Sorenstam did it the hard way, making 13 birds. Also, when Geiberger shot his 59 there had already been a couple of 60s recorded on tour. Until last week no woman had ever shot lower than 61. It is a quantum leap from there to 59. (If you're wondering what took so long for the ladies to crack 60, they're actually ahead of schedule. Last year the LPGA celebrated its 50th anniversary; men's professional golf, meanwhile, was flourishing well before the turn of the century.) Anyway, it was a wild couple of days in Phoenix, nevermore so than Sunday evening, when Annika tried to leave the 18th green following the trophy presentation. She was encircled by an unruly mosh pit as all of Phoenix seemed desperate to reach out and touch history. In the ensuing melee one older gentleman, clutching a hat and a Sharpie, was nearly knocked to the ground. When Sorenstam finally fought her way to a waiting golf cart, the flustered volunteer behind the wheel rolled the cart over the foot of a young girl, leading to an ear-splitting scream and a flurry of apologies. Annika, for the first time all week, look rattled. "I've never seen anything like that before," she told me a little while later, from the relative safety of the clubhouse. "It's nice the fans are excited, but I didn't want to start a riot." It wasn't a riot, but a revolution. Sports Illustrated senior writer Alan Shipnuck periodically waxes about life
On Tour for CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a
question or a nice, friendly comment.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
