QUOTE:
“I think if somebody would have told me on the first tee, ‘We’ll give you level par,’ I would have taken it.”
NUMBER: 2
Number of times Sorenstam got a 1-club-length drop ruling with no penalty on the collar of a green – at Nos. 3 and 9 – because a sprinkler head interfered with her stance. After taking the drop at No. 3, Sorenstam used the edge of her sand wedge like a putter with her third shot and then saved par with an 8-footer. She wasn’t as fortunate at No. 9. Employing a putter, she was too aggressive with her stroke and rolled the ball 15 feet past the cup. Her par putt coming back up the slope stopped on the right edge of the cup, leaving a tap-in bogey to complete an even-par round of 71.
PLAYING CONSERVATIVELY
It’s certainly not the way Arnold Palmer would have played it, but Sorenstam hit a 4-iron off the tee at the 346-yard No. 1, rather than use a driver or a fairway wood. Her strategy worked, and the result – a birdie 3 – was the same as when Palmer drove the green to jump-start a final-round charge in the 1960 U.S. Open.
Sorenstam also used an iron off the tee on the 539-yard No. 5. And she chose a 4-wood off the tee at the uphill, 459-yard 18th. That left her too far away to reach the green with a fairway-wood approach.
GETTING UP AND DOWN
Beginning at No. 1, on her back nine, Sorenstam one-putted six holes during a seven-hole stretch. Four of the six up-and-downs saved par. Those par-savers can be just as important to a round as a birdie.
TOUGH CHIPS
Sorenstam’s best shots of the day may well have been nearly identical chips on the par-4 No. 14 and the par-3 No. 6. Both required wedge chops from thick rough just off the putting surface and with little green to work with. She chipped to 18 inches on No. 14 and to within a foot at No. 6.
HUGE SAND SAVE
Sorenstam appeared in danger of losing at least one stroke and perhaps more on the 539-yard, par-5 No. 5 after her iron tee shot clipped a tree branch, no more than 100 yards down the right side of the fairway.
Fortunately for Sorenstam, the ball deflected left and away from the creek. But it settled into thick rough, and Sorenstam could only hack out with a wedge. Using a fairway wood, she reached a greenside bunker with her third shot. Then she blasted out to feet above the hole, leaving a slick, left-to-right downhill slider. Sorenstam calmly drained the putt for a rather adventurous par 5.
