Magical Golf Shots: An Eyewitness Account

Annette Walker, @TinkWalker

For those who love the Game of Golf there are places -- Musselburgh Links, The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, Pinehurst No 2, Pebble Beach -- and people -- Old Tom Morris, Francis Ouimet, Babe Zaharias, Arnold Palmer -- that anchor our collective memory and give meaning to the game.  And whether we play the game of golf or simply love it from behind the ropes, we savor and share our golfing stories about places and people in much the same way that families tell stories at holiday gatherings. The memories created by those stories bind us together.

Moving Day at the US Women's Open

Saturday at the US Women's Open, the galleries are swelling
Photo credit: USGA

I was sitting in the stands watching Stephanie Meadow and Karrie Webb warm up on the range this morning.  Behind me, a thirty-something thoughtful and patient daddy was identifying golfers and explaining the nuances of pro golf tournaments to his endlessly curious 10-year old daughter --

. . . that's Catriona Matthew, she's a mommy too and has little girls your age . . . and that's Michelle Wie, she might win the Open tomorrow (it was actually Azahara Munoz), and that's Karrie Webb, she's very, very famous because she's won so many golf tournaments, and that one in the pink shirt with the ruffles on her skort, that's Stephanie Meadow -- she's a college student . . .

US Women's Open: Remembering The Babe

Babe Didrikson Zaharias, 1911-1956

In 1954 the United States was in the grip of the Cold War and being held in thrall by Joe McCarthy's Red Scare, and it seemed like only Edward R Murrow and Fred Friendly were going to take exception to McCarthy's madness.  Love was in the air and so was radioactivity: Monroe married Dimaggio and the first hydrogen weapon exploded over the Bikini Atoll.  The nation was poised on the brink of a cultural revolution, pondering but not yet able to envision the post-Brown v Board of Education social landscape.  Texas Instruments launched the transistor radio and Burger King launched its proletarian hamburger challenge.  The first issue of Sports Illustrated appeared on newsstands.

This was the year Babe Zaharias won the US Women's Open for the third and final time, defeating Betty Hicks (for the second time) at the Salem Country Club in Peabody, Massachusetts.  It was her 48th and final victory on the links.

Beyond the Spotlight: Missing the Cut

Aussie Karrie Webb, 2014 JTBC Founders Cup Champion.

As I began writing this post, the second round at the JTBC Founders Cup was still in process.  As I am finishing it the players have completed the final round.  For the final two rounds Judy Rankin's attention was focused on the top of the board, on the two battling rookies -- Mirim Lee and Lydia Ko -- and for a time on Morgan Pressel, who was briefly flirting with the lead but then lost her momentum -- always a good story to follow up with a post-round interview.  But here came Karrie Webb, playing her way up the leaderboard on a bright, sunny Phoenix Sunday afternoon to snatch the victory with a clutch putt on the 18th hole, over an hour before all the cards were signed and all the players were in the clubhouse.

Until near the end of that sprint to the finish Webbie played outside the television commentators' spotlight and we almost missed it.   In her comments on Webb's victory, Judy Rankin admitted that for much of her early career Karrie Webb played in Annika Sorenstam's shadow and while Webbie was and is a fierce competitor and a very skilled golfer, she was overlooked because the media tend to focus on the prevailing star.  Rankin's correct.  There's so much golf being played outside the spotlight, so much to be learned by looking beyond the top five on the board, or the top ten, or even the top twenty.

There's More to Golf Than Winning!

I know! I know! I can hear it as I write!  We can't play golf if we don't have a positive attitude, if we don't bring the I can do this -- I can beat you to a bloody pulp attitude to every round we play and keep that attitude tattooed inside our eyelids from the first drive to the last putt.  Anything less makes us losers, condemns us to a miserable game of mediocre golf.

Solheim Cup Team USA, 2011

Let's set that chest-beating, raw-meat-ripped-off-the-bone-in-chunks attitude aside for a few minutes.  Don't abandon it.  Don't deny it.  Just set it aside.  We'll come back to it.