|
 She didn't feel any differently, either. Not after a double bogey
on the third hole, missing what amounts to a tap-in that gave her a
three-putt bogey on the seventh hole, or any of the four birdies
that followed in her round of 1-under 71 in the LPGA Titleholders.
"Just normal," Ko said. "I didn't feel too odd or special or slow or
whatever today. That actually surprised me. I thought I would be
much more nervous. And actually, one of the good things was I wasn't
thinking about any money or related stuff. I just tried to play my
game, which was obviously very helpful."
It was a slow start and a strong finish, quite the opposite of
Sandra Gal, who made six birdies on the opening six holes and wound
up with an 8-under 64. Gal had a one-shot lead over Rebecca
Lee-Bentham of Canada, who made six birdies on the back nine at
Tiburon Golf Club for a 65.
The LPGA Tour grouped players for the opening round of its
season-ending tournament with a theme.
The top three players in the world and on the LPGA money list —
Inbee Park, Suzann Pettersen and Stacy Lewis — were in the final
group. Juli Inkster, Karrie Webb and Cristie Kerr were in the same
group. They have combined for 84 victories on the LPGA Tour,
although Kerr found another theme — "$47 million," she told her
colleagues, referring to career earnings (it's actually closer to
$45 million, but who's counting?)
In between were Ko, Michelle Wie and Jessica Korda.
Not since Wie has there been so much attention on a teenager making
her pro debut. Wie played with Korda when she turned pro.
Wie couldn't help but think of that day in October 2005 at Bighorn
Golf Club — about two weeks after she turned 16 — when she started
shaking after being announced on the first tee, hit a thin 3-wood
and threw her hands in the air in mock celebration when it found the
fairway.
"There were definitely flashbacks to when I hit," Wie said. "She
played great today. She looked calm — a lot calmer than I looked."
Ko can only hope for a better outcome.
Wie tied for fourth in her pro debut, but she didn't get the $53,126
because LPGA Tour officials determined she had taken a penalty drop
in the wrong spot. She was disqualified for signing for the wrong
score.
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Wie said she told Ko about her opening tee shot
as a pro. The three of them walked together off the second tee,
and the conversation between Ko and Wie turned to their first
meeting with Phil Mickelson, and some of the amazing shots Lefty
has hit.
It was a relaxing atmosphere that could have turned dour if Ko
had not kept her composure.
Her round took a bad turn early on the third hole.
Ko pulled her tee shot through a waste area of coquina pebbles
and just into the pine straw. She tried to play a draw toward
the right side of the green, but was distracted when her club
clipped a branch at the top of her swing, and her foot slipped.
She didn't get out of the waste area, and then took two more
shots to reach the green and made a 4-footer for double bogey.
"I think I was a bit too ambitious," she said. "A 7-iron down
the right side would have given me more than an opportunity to
make up-and-down for par."
She turned a birdie chance into a shocking bogey on No. 7 with
a three-putt from just inside 15 feet, missing a 2-footer for
par when she tried to jam it into the back of the hole. That put
her at 3-over through seven holes, as Gal was making birdie on
the other side of the course on every hole.
"My birdie on 8 definitely helped," she said. "It kind of came
in from the back of the hole, which was quite interesting. I
thought I had missed it. I gave myself opportunities, and par is
sometimes good. All I can do is just set up birdie putts, and
then some will go in and some won't."
They were dropping for Gal. She shot to the top of the leaderboard, settled into a string of pars, and then had a big
finish. Unlike the teenager, Gal was thinking about money, or at
least the breakdown. The prize distribution from the $2 million
purse is heavy at the top — $700,000 for first place, while
second place pays just over $139,000 and third place is about
$100,000.
"I thought this tournament was a little different than the
other ones, so I thought, 'I'm just going to be really
aggressive and just go for everything,' because really all you
want to do is win here," Gal said. "Any other place it doesn't
really matter that much. So that's kind of the mindset I had and
I think that really helped me, and I just kept rolling in putts.
So that was kind of fun."
[Associated
Press; DOUG FERGUSON, AP Golf Writer]
Copyright 2013 The Associated
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