Cherry Hills Village – How do you measure the validity of a dream? What makes the aspirations of one bigger or better than another? There are 155 golfers at Cherry Hills Country Club who would love nothing better than to win the 60th U.S. Women’s Open, many of them because it would represent the fulfillment of a lifelong quest.
“It’s the tournament you think of winning when you’re a little kid. You stand around a putting green saying, ‘This is to win the U.S. Open,”‘ 23-year LPGA Tour veteran Rosie Jones said. “I’m just a bigger kid now.”
But for the 156th player in the field, today’s opening round could be the first step of an entirely different sort of fantasy. Never in professional golf has a player won all four major championships in the same season.
However, should Annika Sorenstam conquer the field and William Flynn’s 6,749-yard, par-71 course over the next four days, she will be one step removed from a Grand Slam – and history.
“All I can do right now is go play the best I can,” Sorenstam said Wednesday. “I want to go out there and make good decisions. I want to make sure, firm decisions and I need to play smart and just let it happen.
“If I do all that, then I will tell you on Sunday that I am happy, and if that’s good enough or not, we’ll find out.”
The fact that Sorenstam has dominated her sport this season like no other athlete since perhaps Michael Jordan – winning six of the eight tournaments she has entered by an average of almost five shots – is evidence of her immense skill.
It also has created an almost impossible standard. For some, Sorenstam’s season wouldn’t be regarded as successful unless she completes the Slam, winning this week and at the Women’s British Open in late July.
The most notable proponent of that theory could be Sorenstam. It was she who stated at the start of the 2005 season that her goal for the year was to win all four majors.
Despite the pressures of the task, many of them self-inflicted, Sorenstam has succeeded thus far, winning the Kraft Nabisco in March and the LPGA Championship two weeks ago.
“The thing is, she’s giving herself permission to be really great,” said Pia Nilsson, Sorenstam’s former coach on the Swedish national team. “The goal of the Grand Slam is making her motivated, to keep her practicing and improving, but as she practices and prepares for the week, she treats it like a normal tournament. We’re the ones who make a really big thing about the Grand Slam, all of us.
“She’s very grounded; she just wants to do what she normally does.”
The question is whether that will be good enough. Any major champion needs an element of luck to emerge victorious. That may be particularly true at the Open.
“If anyone is going to do it, it’s Annika,” said Laura Davies, one of the few players in the field not intimidated by Sorenstam. “I’m not saying she won’t, but it’s going to be terribly difficult.
“At the U.S. Open, you only need a couple of bad holes and you’re out of it. At the British, you could get on the wrong side of the draw. In either one, anything can happen.”
And, as good as Sorenstam has been, when it comes to this tournament, in recent years what has happened has been mostly bad. Sorenstam won the Open in 1995 and 1996, the first at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. By her estimation, she could have won two others: in 2002 at Prairie Dunes in Kansas and last year at The Orchards in South Hadley, Mass.
Three years ago, Juli Inkster shot a final-round 66 to overtake Sorenstam; last summer, Meg Mallon set an Open record with a 65 on the final day to beat Sorenstam by two strokes.
That doesn’t take into account the 2003 tournament at Pumpkin Ridge in Oregon, when the Swede stood in the middle of the fairway on the 18th hole on Sunday. A birdie on the par-5 hole would have won her the title outright; a par would have gotten her into a playoff. Sorenstam bogeyed.
“The last three Opens I felt we played well enough to win all three,” said Terry McNamara, Sorenstam’s caddie. “We lost twice by great play by Meg and Juli; the one at Pumpkin Ridge, Annika was sick the last day with a temperature over 100, and we hit one bad shot.
“I have desires for this week and she does, too. Annika is consistent, but everybody else out here is pretty darned good. Annika is the best because she does it more than everybody else, but everybody else is capable of doing it.”
For all but two weeks this season, when Sorenstam has started a tournament, she has indeed been the best. By those percentages, the odds would seem to be in her favor. Sorenstam would just like to think of it as going out and playing some golf.
“I guess the next four days will show that,” Sorenstam said when asked about whether she’ll be able to stay in the moment while history beckons. “I think golf is such a mental game; I am trying to keep my emotions intact, just trying to focus on the things that I know I can control.
“I just try to hit the shots that I need to do – not to think too much about the consequences, not to think too much ahead of myself. I have got to stay in the present and do what I have got to do.
“Enough talking, really. Now it’s time to play.”
Staff writer Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-820-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
