BlogWomen’s Open Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

One down and one to go.  The men’s U.S. Open was a big success at Pinehurst, not only with a great championship but no hitches.  The USGA dodge some bullets with storms on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, only getting about an inch of rain on Thursday.  So the good news is that the course will be in perfect shape for the Women this week.

Now the question will be the weather in the coming week.  That could be a bit of bad news and it’s going to be very hot and steamy.  It’s predicted to be 98 degrees on Thursday for the opening round.  The chances of rain increase each day and you would have to think with all of the heat and steamy weather you may have a pop-up shower or two.  Also of concern will be the greens.  Right now they are green, I can’t remember the last U.S. Open in which the greens were green on Monday, but for this week it will be.

The big buzz will be if the Women will find Pinehurst as charming and playable as the men.  There was no question that everyone of the 156 that played in the U.S. Open thought that Pinehurst was a great site and that all of the renovation to bring the course back to the way it was in the 30s was a big success.  So on paper it should be a slam-dunk for the women, but we will have to wait and see, conditions will dictate what the response of the 156 women are.

U.S. Women’s Open Championship information:

The U.S. Women’s Open was added to the USGA’s roster of championships in 1953, 58 years after the first U.S. Women’s Amateur. The reason for the USGA’s relatively late assumption of the Women’s Open is simple: women’s professional golf is fairly new. When Opal Hill turned professional in 1938, she and Helen Hicks were two of the very few women golf profes- sionals in the world. Unlike the other 12 national championships conducted by the USGA, the Women’s Open was created by another organization. In 1946, the short-lived Women’s Professional Golfers Association introduced the Women’s Open at match play at the Spokane (Wash.) Country Club. The Spokane Athletic Round Table, a men’s fraternal organization, contributed the $19,700 purse from its slot machines proceeds.

The first Women’s Open was the only one conducted at match play. Patty Berg won the 36-hole qualifying medal in 1946, with rounds of 72-73-145, then won the championship by defeating Betty Jameson, 5 and 4, in the 36-hole final.

The small membership of the WPGA ran the championship for three years. By 1949, however, women’s professional golf was making significant strides and the Ladies Professional Golf Association was founded. A group of 11 women, including Berg, Jameson, Louise Suggs and Babe Didrikson Zaharias, established the new association to provide organized tourna- ments for women professionals. The LPGA ran the Women’s Open for four years, but in 1953 asked the USGA to conduct the championship. The first Women’s Open under the USGA flag was played at the Country Club of Rochester, in upstate New York, where Betsy Rawls won the second of her four Women’s Open titles (1951, 1953, 1957, 1960).

Conducted by the USGA ever since, the Women’s Open is the oldest championship open to women professionals and ama- teurs. Rawls and Mickey Wright, the only other four-time winner (1958, 1959, 1961, 1964) were the championship’s domi- nant players from 1957 through 1964, winning six Women’s Opens between them during those eight years. In 1967, Catherine Lacoste, daughter of French tennis player Rene Lacoste and 1927 British Ladies Amateur Champion Simone Thion de la Chaume, became the only amateur to win the Women’s Open.

In its 68-year history, the U.S. Women’s Open has reigned as the world’s greatest women’s championship, attracting steadily increasing numbers of entries and spectators. Whereas only

37 contestants played in 1953, in 1976 the field jumped to 205 players and sectional qualifying was introduced. In 2001, a record 980 contestants entered. A four-day attendance record of 41,200 was set in 1979 at Brooklawn Country Club in Fairfield, Conn. At the 50th Women’s Open, in 1995, that record was more than doubled at The Broadmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs, Colo.

In recent years, the U.S. Women’s Open has truly become the world arena of women’s golf. Since 1990, 11 champion- ships have been won by foreign-born players, whereas only three of the first 41 champions were foreign-born. The emer- gence of the Women’s Open as a great international contest came in 1987, when England’s Laura Davies prevailed in an 18-hole playoff against Japan’s Ayako Okamoto and JoAnne Gunderson Carner of the United States. Another foreign-born player, Annika Sorenstam, of Sweden, established the 72-hole scoring record of 272, 8-under par, at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in 1996. Juli Inkster, an American professional, matched that 72-hole score of 272, also setting a record in relation to par at 16 under, in 1999.

In 1965, the final round of the championship was televised nationally for the first time. The Women’s Open has been televised ever since, with all four rounds now broadcast.

In 2002, qualifying for the Women’s Open was held in two stages for the first time — 18 holes for local qualifying and 36 holes for sectional qualifying. Since 2010, there has been one stage — a 36-hole sectional qualifier.

A three-hole aggregate score playoff to immediately follow the end of regulation play was adopted in 2007. It was first used in 2011, when Korea’s So Yeon Ryu defeated countrywoman Hee Kyung Seo.

Course information:

• Pinehurst Resort & Country Club (#2 course)
• Pinehurst, N.C.
• 6,649 yards     Par 35-35–70

We talked a lot about Pinehurst last week.  It’s going to be the same course as last week, minus 900 yards.  On Sunday Mike Davis, Executive Director of the USGA talked about what they were trying to accomplish for the coming week, almost the same conditions on the course as the men had and he was hoping that with all of their research and thought, that the Women would be hitting into greens the same club as the men did.  Now of course Stacy Lewis doesn’t hit an 8-iron 160 yards as Martin Kaymer, but the USGA has moved the tees enough so that while Kaymer may of had an 8-iron into one from 165 yards, Lewis will have an 8-iron but from 140 yards.

On paper wonderful, we will see how it works.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the U.S. Open:

• Just like last week the keys are simple, hit lots of greens and putt well.  Kaymer was pretty good at this, but as Mike Davis said the key to Kaymer’s victory was the ability to think his way around the course.  Kaymer was never in any real trouble.  After making only one bogey in the first and second rounds, he made five on Saturday and only three on Sunday.  That’s a total of just nine bogeys which is pretty low.
• Also for the women, the short game will be the key.  A lot of the women, especially those from Asia have never seen conditions like you get at Pinehurst in which you have greens that angle the balls to roll off into collection areas.  Kaymer did a lot of putting from off the greens, will the woman pick up on that and do the same?  Also it will be interesting to see the women’s touch around the greens.  Again the difference between what they see on the LPGA Tour and this week is the difference between night and day.  So we will see how they do.
• One last thing, be sure to see our who’s hot and who’s not list.  This will be important to getting a winner.