Golf

Oh, the places Sorenstam still could go

By BOB HARIG
Published July 6, 2006

For someone who once wondered if she'd ever win a tournament, Annika Sorenstam's career continues to amaze. And after another victory in a major championship, it makes you wonder how much longer she wants to pursue greatness.

After all, what's left?

She's 35 and in the Hall of Fame. Her 68 LPGA Tour wins are a whopping 35 more than the next active player, Beth Daniel, who is 49. Her 10 majors are tied for fourth all time with Babe Zaharias, with only Louise Suggs (11), Mickey Wright (13) and Patty Berg (15) ahead.

It would be easy to sit back and enjoy.

"It's been tough to climb straight up for six years," she admitted.

Where else is there to go?

Sorenstam is now just 20 behind the all-time victory total of 88 held by Kathy Whitworth. Wright won 82 times. After them, there is nobody else until Sorenstam.

At one time, the idea of catching those players seemed absurd for anyone. They played at a time when LPGA fields were smaller and weaker. Wright especially felt enormous pressure to play and win, so much was expected of her.

But Sorenstam has made such a run seem possible, although the victory lull before winning the U.S. Open showed that the five or six or seven victories she would need to average over the next few seasons are not automatic. The competition is more keen, and Sorenstam had trouble finding fairways. Even the great ones hit rough spots, and winning 20 more tournaments is certainly not a given.

Perhaps Berg's major record will provide the motivation to keep her game at the highest level. The women's majors have never held the same allure of, say, Jack Nicklaus' total of 18. Most people don't even know that Berg is the all-time leader. But if Sorenstam wants to pursue it, the number will have meaning.

"This is a long journey and you've got to enjoy it. Otherwise you can't get to the destination," Sorenstam said. "It's been tougher this year because I think people expect a lot of me. And so do I."

Astute viewers: Jeong Jang, who won last year's Women's British Open, was nabbed by golf's television police Sunday at the U.S. Women's Open.

Jang was playing the 18th hole of the third round and had driven into thick rough. From there, she attempted to get back into play with a wedge shot that buried deep into the grass, then appeared to strike the ball again.

Viewers were sure of it, and NBC's phone lines suddenly got busy.

So a rules official asked Jang if it had happened, and the South Korean golfer said she did not think so. She was then advised to sign her card.

But the calls kept coming, prompting USGA officials to look at video. "It was clearly a violation," said Mike Davis, the USGA's director of rules and competitions. "It wasn't even close."

So a stroke was added to Jang's score, giving her a 7 on the hole and a round of 75. How come she was not disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard?

Davis said because a rules official had told her it was okay to sign the card, she was allowed to simply add the stroke to her score. Typically when a player signs for a number lower than what was shot, he or she is bounced.

Who knows if it affected her play in the afternoon's fourth round, but it could not have helped. Jang shot 80 and went from a tie for 10th to a tie for 28th.

TV critique: Seminole's Brittany Lincicome is obviously not as well-known as fellow third-round co-leaders Sorenstam and Michelle Wie. But viewers never saw how Lincicome tumbled from contention. Lincicome was hanging in there through six holes, two shots off the lead, when she double-bogeyed the seventh hole, then made bogey at the eighth. NBC never showed a single shot of those holes, then only caught up with her on the ninth hole as she was holing a par putt that left her five shots behind.

Around golf: Greg Norman is skipping this week's U.S. Senior Open, saying his game is not ready. Norman, 51, had knee surgery in February. . . . Sorenstam and Wie are the only players to finish in the top 10 at all three LPGA majors this year. . . . Former PGA Tour winners Fred Funk, Jack Renner and Mac O'Grady are entered in this week's U.S. Senior Open and making their Champions Tour debuts.

[Last modified July 6, 2006, 06:33:21]