Depth of talent on LPGA Tour light years ahead of 1983, especially among the younger players
By Grant Hall
THE MORNING NEWS
FAYETTEVILLE – The LPGA Tour has come a long way from that moment in 1983 when Jan Stephenson, upset that she hadn’t been invited into the interview room after a good opening round in the U.S. Women’s Open, walked in there anyway, picked up the microphone and announced, “Jan Stephenson is now in the interview room.”
This was at Cedar Ridge in Tulsa, Okla., where there now is an annual LPGA Tour event called the SemGroup Championship Presented by John Q. Hammons.
Call it a sister event to the new LPGA NW Arkansas Championship Presented by John Q. Hammons, beginning Friday at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers.
Stephenson, who was 32 in 1983, won the Women’s Open that year, helping solidify her reputation as a very good golfer in addition to being the tour’s “calendar girl.”
One of the current LPGA Tour heartthrobs is twentysomething Natalie Gulbis, who just happened to be on hand at Pinnacle when the LPGA NW Arkansas Championship was announced earlier this year.
Since then, Gulbis has won her first LPGA tournament, the Evian Masters in France. No doubt, that’s helped her own calendar sales.
But a big difference between 1983 and now is the depth of good players on the LPGA Tour — particularly young ones.
Back in ’83, pre-technology as that relates to today’s golf balls and clubs, a good drive on the women’s tour was considered to be about 240 yards.
Nowadays, teenager Michelle Wie can probably hit an iron that far.
Suzann Pettersen of Norway, one of the entrants in the NWA tournament, averages about 273 yards per drive, and that only ranked third as of late August.
It used to be said about the women’s tour that it was the place to watch if you wanted to learn how to swing the club with nice rhythm and tempo.
While that’s still true to a degree, there are also a number of women’s players who swing from the heels.
The University of Arkansas golf team had one not long ago, Amanda McCurdy, who at 5-foot-1 took the club back almost as far as John Daly does and belted the ball 280 yards or more. McCurdy now plays on the Futures Tour.
Stacy Lewis, who came along at Arkansas after McCurdy, doesn’t swing quite that hard, but she hits the ball as straight as a person can point. A winner of the women’s NCAA individual title this year, Lewis will play in the NW Arkansas Championship this week on a sponsor’s exemption.
Lewis has some experience at Pinnacle, having played in two Lady Razorback Invitational tournaments there.
The LPGA tournament offers fans the chance to not only support Lewis, now a UA senior, but also see, up close, such stars as Cristie Kerr, Se Ri Pak, Mi Hyun Kim, Meaghan Francella and Gulbis.
Some other top players are missing this year because of the upcoming Solheim Cup in Sweden, Sept. 14-16, but should visit Pinnacle in future years.
Lorena Ochoa, No. 1 in the women’s rankings, said at Tulsa in May that she would not be able to attend the first LPGA NW Arkansas Championship because her brother would be getting married in Mexico around the same time.
My guess is that if you haven’t watched a women’s pro tournament before and aren’t sure what to expect, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the caliber of play and the golfers’ personalities.
Unlike the PGA Tour, on which many golfers don’t seem to feel the need to interact with the gallery, the LPGA Tour golfers understand that it behooves them to sell their its product.
When Annika Sorenstam was out with an injury for several months this year and Wie was struggling, players like Morgan Pressel, Paula Creamer, Stacy Prammanasudh and Ochoa picked up the slack comfortably, and the tour didn’t miss a beat.
Gulbis, when she visited Pinnacle this year, asked nearly each person she met, “Are you going to come watch us?”
Well, are you?
