Annika Sorenstam, winner of the 2006 U.S. Women’s open playoff — the last 18-hole overtime format that the USGA employed — supports the three-hole aggregate approach under which So Yeon Ryu defeated Hee Kyung Seo Monday.
“I wholeheartedly endorse the shorter, three-hole playoff,” said Sorenstam, who beat Pat Hurst at Newport Country Club in Rhode Island five years ago. The following year, the USGA altered its approach to playoffs.
“After playing 72 holes on the toughest course in the game, there’s no need to go 18 more,” Sorenstam wrote in a Golf Digest wrap-up of the five-day, rain-delayed major championship. “Three holes, aggregate score, is perfect. And winning it with two birdies, the way Ryu did, leaves no doubt about who deserves the trophy.”
Sorenstam, who in 1995 won her first LPGA event, first major, and first U.S. Open on the Broadmoor’s East Course — site of the storm-stricken 2011 Open — discussed the mental and physical difficulties players encountered in having to start, stop, and start again due to incessant thunderstorms.
“That wears on your psyche,” Sorenstam said. “The players who do well under those circumstances are the ones who have tons of patience and don’t get stuck in their decision-making but just allow themselves to go with the flow.”
One player who did not weather the interruptions well was four-time major champ and tourney favorite Yani Tseng, who, with a win, would have become the youngest golfer ever to achieve the career Grand Slam. “I think she just wanted it too badly,” concluded Sorenstam, who offered rather tame views on 2010 Open winner Paula Creamer as well as several other players.
One golfer who did not get off with a slap on the wrist from the 10-time major champion was Michelle Wie. Sorenstam began the week by blasting the 21-year-old Stanford student for not living up to the huge hype that accompanied her to the professional tour way back when. Wie barely made the cut last week, finished with a share of 55th place, and did not escape Sorenstam’s sharp criticism even after Ryu had raised the Open trophy.
Wie, who averaged almost 35 putts per round “was the biggest disappointment of the week for me,” Sorenstam said. “We keep talking about her potential, but that only goes so far. Now it’s time to talk about experience and the mental part when it comes to Michelle, and that’s the part of her game she has yet to showcase.
“Sometimes I get the sense she was more into golf before she started college,” Sorenstam piled on, continuing the Wie bashing that became the theme of the week. “She seems to be going backward; she began to play in majors at the age of 12 and almost seemed more focused when she was in high school than she does now.”
“I sometimes wonder if friends and other things are more fun for her now than golf is. And there’s nothing wrong with that, it just makes me think she was pushed too hard to excel too soon,” Sorenstam said. “But we’ll see what happens after she graduates; it’s still true that she has more potential than anyone.”
(Photo: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Check her out on the Waggle Room, Boston Golf Examiner, National Golf Examiner, and GottaGoGolf websites. You may also follow Kay on Twitter @golfexaminer.)
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