Cherry Hills Village – OK, imagine the newest female athlete sex symbol in America wins her first tournament in our backyard. Imagine she does it to end Annika Sorenstam’s bid for a Grand Slam.
Now imagine how many calendars Natalie Gulbis would sell.
Sure, it’s three days and 54 holes away.
But the woman golf experts say is more than just a pretty face put herself in prime position to contend at the 60th U.S. Women’s Open on Thursday at Cherry Hills Country Club.
Gulbis, 22 and in her fourth year as a pro, shot a 1-under 70 for a tie for fourth, two strokes behind co-leaders Brittany Lang, Angela Stanford and Karine Icher (who made it through 14 holes before play was suspended).
And it could’ve been so much better.
She torched the front 9 with a 3-under 32, with birdies on three of the first five holes. However, she bogeyed three of the first five on the back nine and bogeyed the difficult 18.
“The good tournaments that I have had, I have had a lot of birdies and cleaned up the bogies,” Gulbis said.
She has had good tournaments.
She had six top-15 finishes last year and has six already this year, including a tie for fifth in the LPGA Championship only two weeks ago.
Continuing her hot streak Thursday, she sank a 15-foot birdie putt on No. 1 and used a sand wedge to get the ball within six feet for a birdie on No. 3.
She then drained a 20-foot putt from the back fringe for a birdie on 5 to get to 3-under.
“It’s always nice getting off to a good start,” she said. “That definitely sets a good tone for the day.”
She couldn’t hold it. She didn’t get up and down on 10, 14 and 18 and suffered her only three-putt on 11. But considering she was one of only six golfers who broke par, she wasn’t complaining about her so-so style points.
“It didn’t seem up and down,” she said. “I actually hit the ball well and was just on the fringe to a short pin and had missed a couple of up-and-downs. So it’s not like I was all over the course.”
Gulbis has worked harder on her iron play of late and it showed. Whether she can stay in contention is another thing, but a Sorenstam-Gulbis duo in the final pairing Sunday could be very intriguing.
She sounds confident. Asked point blank whether, after going around the course once, she’ll change anything Gulbis said, “No. We had a pretty good round, actually.”
John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or at jhenderson@denverpost.com.
