Rancho Mirage, Calif. – LPGA rookie Meaghan Francella admitted to shedding a few tears before the start of the Kraft Nabisco Championship, but not because of the pressure of playing in her first major championship.
“Everyone kept asking me if my family was coming out to watch, and I kept saying, ‘No, no one’s coming,”‘ Francella said. “Finally, I asked my uncle to come out so I’d have someone here.”
As it turns out, the 5-foot-4 New Yorker has become a crowd favorite, and after a third-round 3-under-par 69 moved her to a tie for third at Mission Hills Country Club, odds are her gallery will be even bigger today.
“I have no idea who these people are,” Francella said of the sizable crowd that followed her as she tied for the best round of the day.
Chances are, there were a great many people saying the same thing about her.
A graduate of North Carolina, Francella has burst onto the scene in a big way. Three weeks ago she won her first LPGA title, holding off world No. 1 Annika Sorenstam in a four-hole playoff to take the MasterCard Classic.
Even though she missed the cut in her next event, Francella said she entered the Kraft Nabisco brimming with confidence, to the point where her thoughts have gone from trying to inch through her first season to winning a major.
“I’ve had to reassess some of my goals, like making the Solheim Cup team,” Francella said. “But I just told somebody that a few weeks ago I didn’t even think I’d be playing in this tournament. Anything that happens from this point on is a bonus.”
No hoops
It was quite clear that the final threesome of Paula Creamer, Lorena Ochoa and Suzann Pettersen had no interest in catching the opening tip of the Georgetown-Ohio State Final Four semifinal.
The trio slapped it around in a stupefying 5 hours, 10 minutes, a pace that could send LPGA officials scrambling to revise a policy implemented at the start of the season.
“I felt my skin frying out there,” Creamer said. “I put sunscreen on seven times. I guess we’ve never been known as the fastest tour on earth.”
According to new rules, the goal for a threesome should be 4:50, down from 5:02 a year ago. Most observers cite putting as the biggest culprit in slow play – according to LPGA officials, a year ago, the average from the time a threesome reaches the green, takes out the flag and then replaces it after the last player has putted out is 3:00 on the Champions Tour and 3:30 on the PGA.
The LPGA? A numbing 5:15.
The tour’s policy says a group is out of position if all three players haven’t teed off before the pin is replaced on the green by the group playing in front of them. If a player accumulates 10 bad times, she’s fined $2,500 and another $1,000 for each subsequent infraction.
During Friday’s second round, the pairing of Ochoa and Karrie Webb was placed on the clock, which the defending champion Webb admitted took her off her game and contributed to a score of 5-over-77.
