Runaway takes Kerr to No. 1 sooner rather than later June 28th, 2010
Cristie Kerr began the week at No. 5 in the womens world golf rankings, and from the moment she pushed into a tie for the first-round lead in the LPGA Championship on Thursday, she began talking about the possibility of becoming No. 1 by the end of the season at the latest.
Its all over but the shouting after Cristie Kerr makes her final putt. (Getty Images) After a stunning week at Locust Hill Country Club, apparently no wait is necessary.
With a wire-to-wire runaway and record 12-shot victory, Kerr is now projected to become the fifth player overall and the first American to reach the top of the womens game since the world rankings were instituted in 2006 when they are released Monday morning.
Kerr will move past Japans Ai Miyazato, who had taken over the No. 1 spot from South Koreas Jiyai Shin only a week earlier when she won her fourth event of the season at the Shoprite are both retired.
Miyazato provided a few anxious moments for Kerrs quest with a rousing run up the board. She started the final round tied for 24th, and was told before she began Sunday she had to finish second to stay No. 1. In the end, her 66 and 5-under total of 283 left her tied for third with Shin and properly proud of herself for at least not yielding the top spot without a tussle.
Kerr, a 32-year-old native of Miami, soared to the top when she posted a 66, her fourth round in the 60s this week, and finished with two tournament records: a 72-hole total of 19-under 269 and a 12-shot victory over runner-up Song-Hee Kim (69-281) in the most dominating performance this tournament has seen. Betsy King won the 1992 LPGA title by 11 shots at Bethesda Country Club in the Washington, D.C., suburbs at 17 under par.
“Its been such an amazing week,” she said. “To play that well on a golf course this tough and to win by that many shots in a major championship, thats just unreal.”
Kerr also made it very clear getting to No. 1 will not be enough to sate her appetite.
“You dont want to be No. 1 just for one week,” Kerr said. “Oh my god, I got there, and now Im No. 1. It doesnt work that way. You have to do what Annika [Sorenstam] has done, you have to do what Lorena [Ochoa] has done week after week to prove you are No. 1. Its great to get there. Thats Step 1 and prove it over and over every week.”
Kerr proved that at least this week, she had the right stuff to cope with a far more difficult golf course setup than in past years, when this course served as the venue for a regular stop on the LPGA Tour. Fairways were dramatically pinched in at landing zones all around and the rough was allowed to grow to U.S. Open difficulty.
Kerr became an expert on the tall grass this week, if only because she often found herself ankle deep in the gnarly spinach after wayward tee shots. She hit only 31 of 56 fairways but time after time was able to salvage pars and more than the occasional birdie from positions on the course her fellow competitors were usually unable to manage.
“Its playing tough,” she said after a third-round 69. “Im having an exceptional performance so far. The rest of the field is about where I thought everybody would be, including myself.”
Perhaps her finest recovery of the week came on the 341-yard 16th hole Friday, when another slightly askew drive left her in the deep left rough, with a tree about 10 yards in front of her and a low-hanging branch slightly impeding her backswing. With 135 yards to the flag, her 9-iron went high and somehow avoided contact with wood and leaves, landing softly on the green for a 10-foot birdie putt she dropped into the center of the hole.
“I dont know how she got it on the green, to tell you the truth,” said her caddie, Jason Gilroyed. “Its one of the greatest shots Ive ever seen her hit.”
Gilroyed has seen Kerr hit thousands of shots over the years. He was on her bag for a half-dozen of Kerrs 14 career victories, including the 2007 U.S. Womens Open, until she abruptly fired him at the end of that year. Before the start of the 2010 season, she hired him back.
“We were both very immature and butting heads,” Kerr said of the initial breakup. “We had a lot of success early in our career together and it was just kind of we got on each others nerves, I think. It was never his performance as a caddie, or me as a player playing. It was just sort of a personality thing and we split up. I probably maybe fired him a little hastily. But I have matured a lot in the last couple of years, and so has he, and it was just time for us to get back together.”
By all accounts, Kerr clearly has matured dramatically. She was not particularly well-liked among her fellow players earlier in her tour career. There is an often-repeated 2005 incident when one prominent player saw her sitting by herself in a bar and proclaimed out loud, “Theres Cristie with all her friends.”
She can be still be cranky and out of sorts at times, particularly when things are not going as well as they did this week. But her marriage in December 2006 to Erik Stevens, a New York businessman who now also serves as her agent, has clearly softened many of the hard edges for a woman who joined the tour as a teenager. Natalie Gulbis was her maid of honor that week, and several other players, including fellow South Floridian Morgan Pressel, also were in the wedding party.
Gulbis was clearly thrilled for Kerrs ascension to No. 1, and rushed onto the green after Kerr putted out at the 72nd hole to douse her with a champagne shower.
“One of Cristies goals was to be the top American player, it was very important to her,” Gilbis said. “It gives me goose bumps. Thats awesome. Its a really big deal and shes going to take it very seriously.”
Kerr has plenty of friends on tour these days, and it was Stevens who also helped her decide on the new putter she put in her bag the week before she won the State Farm Classic in Springfield, Ill. on June 13. Its an Odyssey Marksman, a switch from the two-ball Callaway model shed been using, and she got instant results with a win in that event that obviously carried over to her week in the Rochester suburbs.
“My husband came out and watched me” with the new putter “and he said I havent seen you hit putts consistently the same speed, and your body and everything looks more still,” Kerr said. “It just felt more balanced than what Ive been playing with. Ive always been a good putter, when I find a putter that feels right, I can make almost anything I look at.
“I found it.”
Not to mention the No. 1 ranking in the world as well.