Cherry Hills Village – All day Sunday, the 6,749-yard playground for masochist golfers, also known as Cherry Hills Country Club, didn’t invite someone to win the 60th U.S. Women’s Open as much as it dared them to.
Whenever a player had the temerity to approach the top of the leaderboard, the attempt was met with the cruelest of responses. Even trying to sneak atop the summit from the back of the pack, like a Lorena Ochoa, only brought on a chunky hunk of misery.
“I just gave the tournament away,” Ochoa said shortly after a fat drive on the 18th hole led to the water and an 8 on the scorecard, ending her chances.
“I was fighting a lot for 71 holes, and all of a sudden, just in the last one, you give everything away.”
For a time, it appeared the only winner would be the backroom sadists of the USGA, the folks who seem to take immense pleasure in humbling the game’s best.
But then fate blinked and found Birdie Kim digging into the sand just off the 18th green, just hoping to land the ball close for an up-and-down par and get into a Monday playoff.
“Actually I am not a real good bunker player,” Kim, 23, would say later through an interpreter. “I change my sand wedge about two weeks ago. That club is not used to me yet.”
Now, it is likely Kim’s best friend. Kim splashed the ball out onto the green and toward the pin some 30 yards away. Kim hoped the shot would nestle close. Instead, she got a great deal more. The ball tumbled into the hole, the deciding stroke in her first win as a pro.
One of the wave of South Korean players who have inundated the LPGA since the success of Se Ri Pak seven years ago, Kim’s biggest claim to fame before Sunday was her decision to change her name to stand out among the six Kims currently on the tour.
Last season she made just $9,897 in 20 events. This year, working with legendary coach Bob Toski, Kim had earned almost $70,000 in 13 starts entering the Open.
That wasn’t enough to get her into the LPGA’s Match Play event this week in New Jersey, or any other premier tournaments. That no longer will be a problem. With her two-shot win, Kim picked up a check for $560,000, putting her into virtually any event she wants to play for the foreseeable future.
“I am not really follow the money, so I just really happy to win the tournament,” she said. “I don’t think about the money.”
For a tournament that makes players break into cold sweats, the Open can be surprisingly generous to unproven players. Two amateurs, Morgan Pressel and Brittany Lang, finished in a tie for second.
Of the top nine finishers, only three, Lorie Kane (T-4) , Ochoa (T-6) and Candie Kung (T-6), had an LPGA victory before this week.
Two years ago, Hilary Lunke got her first win at Pumpkin Ridge in Oregon. Ten years ago, Annika Sorenstam triumphed at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs for her first victory.
The Swede entered this week seeking not only a third Open title, but her third consecutive major win of 2005. A triumph would have left her one step removed from the first professional Grand Slam of four majors in the same season. Instead, Sorenstam never found the magic that had carried her to six victories in eight starts this year. She opened with an even-par 71 that turned out to be her high-water mark for the week.
Sunday, a 6-over 77 – her worst round of the year – left Sorenstam at 12-over 296 and in a tie for 23rd place.
“I tried so hard all four days,” she said. “I had not given up. I fought and fought. My caddie and I have talked about it, analyzed everything and it is just one of those weeks. I got nothing. To win a championship like this, you need some good momentum, and I just tried to find it. I have no idea where it is.”
All the while, Sorenstam appeared to be making a mockery of the idea of competition. She insisted that it wasn’t as easy as it looked, that there were plenty of good players out there.
Ochoa certainly fell into that category. So did Paula Creamer, 18, who started the day in tied for fourth, one shot off the lead. She finished with an 8-over 79 that left her in a tie for 19th.
Certainly it included Pressel and Michelle Wie, the precocious teenagers who had a share of the lead after three rounds. Wie double bogeyed her first hole Sunday en route to an 82 that dropped her to 23rd.
Pressel, playing in the day’s final pairing, took Cherry Hills’ best shots and stayed close, sitting in a tie for the lead until Kim’s miracle.
“That was unbelievable she made that shot,” Pressel mused. “I was like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening to me.”‘
Perhaps it was just one final chuckle by a tournament that often defied logic, by a course that showed it still could bare menacing teeth and take a bite out of those foolhardy enough to believe they could conquer it.
Which is perhaps why the unassuming Kim was the last player standing.
“I never think about to win,” she said. “I just try to do my best.”
Staff writer Anthony Cotton can be reached 303-820-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
