This Thursday morning 156 professional and qualifying amateurs tee it up at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colorado, for the 66th U.S. Women's Open Championship. I was there earlier this week watching the practice rounds and realized one thing after years away from the women's game, these ladies can play!
The venue for this year's tournament is the classic Broadmoor East Course set at the base of Cheyenne Mountain with Will Rogers Shrine perched on the top. Where it is noted that all putts on Broadmoor's devilishly sloping greens fall away from the shrine except on certain diabolical pin placements.
The course is a blend of old school and new school design. In 1918, the revered master designer, Donald Ross, created holes 1-6, 16-18. While the father of modern American golf design, Robert Trent Jones, Sr., re-crafted holes 7-15 which opened in 1948. The USGA has set up the course to be the longest course ever for women's golf at 7,047 yards to compensate for altitude benefits. Along with length, 4" rough, stimped greens at 11, mercurial winds, and lots of long uphill holes, this Open will protect par with a vengeance. How does even or over par sound for a winning score? Ladies start your engines. It's go time!
The field is stacked with experienced and talented women golfers. Defending champion Paula Creamer, Morgan Pressel, Cristie Kerr, Juli Inkster, Brittany Lincicome and a host of Asian women too numerous to mention except for one, Yani Tseng, are all capable of winning this prestigious event. My money is on Yani.
For those of you who do not know about this 5'6", 22 year old phenom from Taiwan, Yani Tseng, is arguably one of the finest lady golfers ever to play the game. Experts are comparing her talent and her dominance on their respective tours to another 22 year old, recent USGA Open Men's Champion, Rory McIlroy. But before we coronate Yani, she must win this tournament to achieve that distinction. If she does win on Sunday, she will possess a career grand slam at a very young age. That has never been done at age 22.
Presently, Yani is #1 in the world in women's golf. She hits the ball off the tee on average 270 plus yards and accurately. A boomer with precision, that's a good start. She ranks first in greens in regulation, third in putting, first in scoring average, first in birdies, first in rounds under par, first in wins, first in money winnings. Why wouldn't anybody pick her to win after stats like that? All that aside, what's equally impressive about her is her mental toughness which one needs in order to be a champion at that level. Her toughness and work ethic is legendary even at such a green age.
A couple of years ago when Yani exploded on the tour. The Chinese government tried to woo and seduce Yani and her family with millions of dollars and perks beyond measure. The catch was she had to renounce her Taiwanese citizenship and embrace mainland China as her new nationality. Without missing a beat the story goes, she said, "I cannot change my nationality. Sorry." Her father was less diplomatic, he said, "go to hell" in Chinese. Some things in life just aren't for sale. Don't the Chinese get that?
So, Yani has the God given physical talent and a mental toughness from a certain fatherly gene pool that has made her a success at every level. But as we all know, luck is a huge gift in tournaments like the Open. Will all the forces meld favorably for a victory stroll up the 72nd hole on Sunday for Yani? I hope so. Anybody who says no to the brutal Chinese government is a hero in my eyes.
Yani begins her quest this morning paired with "Miss Pink", Paula Creamer. It should be an exciting weekend of golf, especially if the local wandering bear makes another appearance cavorting in the bunkers like he did in 2008 during the Senior Open. I can't "bare" the thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment