Webb Will Attempt To Snare Third Straight Title

Karrie Webb will be attempting to become the first player since Willie Anderson in 1905 to have won three consecutive Opens.

David Shefter, Golf Journal

HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Six women put themselves in position to accomplish one of golf’s rare feats. But in each instance, they all came up short. Will it be lucky seven for Karrie Webb?

That’s the $3 million question. By the way, that’s the record purse for the 2002 U.S. Women’s Open (July 4-7), which comes to Prairie Dunes Country Club for the first time and features a two-time defending champion looking for the natural hat trick.

Few players in golf history have ever captured three consecutive United States Golf Association championships. In fact, it’s only been done once at an Open and you have to go back to 1905 to find Willie Anderson’s name. On the amateur side, it’s been done 11 times, the last being Carol Semple Thompson, who earned her third straight U.S. Senior Women’s title last fall on her home course, Allegheny Country Club, in Sewickley, Pa. Tiger Woods is the last male to do it, winning three straight U.S. Juniors from 1991-93, and then taking an unprecedented three straight U.S. Amateurs (1994-96).

Yet, several prominent lady professionals have had the opportunity for a three-peat, the last being Annika Sorenstam of Sweden. Webb hopes she does not suffer the same fate this July as her chief rival did in 1997 at Pumpkin Ridge outside of Portland, Ore., when the four-time LPGA Player of the Year failed to make the cut. Sorenstam entered that event bombarded with the three-peat questions and never got her normal steady game on track.

Webb, by the way, has had good karma at the Women’s Open. In six appearances, the Aussie has never missed a cut. She has two top-10s (seventh in 1999 and fourth in ’97) to go along with her two victories.

"At the start of the year there are four tournaments that stick out in my mind, [but] this one probably sticks out the most and this is the one I want to play the best in," Webb told an assembled group of reporters at Women’s Open Media Day on April 22. "I’ve been thinking about this tournament since the day I left Pine Needles [in Southern Pines, N.C.]."

Mickey Wright, Donna Caponi, Susie Maxwell-Berning, Hollis Stacy and Betsy King were also thinking about a Women’s Open three-peat. Stacy, in fact, had won three consecutive U.S. Girls’ Juniors from 1969-71, beating Amy Alcott in a 19-hole thriller to complete the trifecta. After opening with a 71 in 1979, Stacy faded and finished nine strokes off the pace. King saw her chances go awry with a second-round 78 in 1991 in the brutal Texas heat at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth. Caponi closed with a pair of 77s in 1971 and tied for third, 11 strokes behind winner JoAnne Carner, while Wright calls her final-round 82 in 1960 at Worcester (Mass.) Country Club one of her career disappointments. She would win the title again in 1962, making it three Opens in four years.

"There is a little pressure there and it would be great to achieve something that nobody has ever done before," said Webb, who has yet to win this year on the LPGA Tour, although she has one non-LPGA Tour win in Australia. "But any time I tee it up at the Women’s Open, I’m a little nervous on the first tee. It’s probably the most nervous I am all year. To me, though, it just shows how much this tournament means to me and how much I want to do well. Just giving myself a chance to win is what my goal is."

Although Webb could have taken the time to play the course, she chose only to peruse the venue, which has hosted six previous USGA events, including three Women’s Amateurs (1964, 1980 and 1991) and one Curtis Cup (1986). It’s a world-class layout few players on the LPGA or, for that matter, any tour, see very often. The father-and-son tandem of Perry and Press Maxwell — each designed nine holes (Press finished the second nine in 1957) — created a links-style course within the confines of sand dunes and natural prairie grasses. Imagine playing golf at Carnoustie or St. Andrews in the heartland of America. The only thing missing is the ocean or sea.

Hutchinson might annually host the Kansas State Fair and the national junior college men’s basketball championships, yet the crown jewel of this rural city is Prairie Dunes, a golf course that consistently ranks among the country’s top 20 by all the leading publications.

"Every time we’ve held a championship here, it’s proven to be a gigantic success," said Cora Jane Blanchard, the chairman of the USGA’s Women’s Committee.

Judy Bell, the USGA’s first female president and a native of nearby Wichita, Kan., was one of the driving forces behind Prairie Dunes landing the Women’s Open, the first for the state of Kansas since 1955. Bell, who is still undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, was unable to attend the Media Day festivities due to another commitment. Webb started hearing about the course two years ago from Bell.

"She was already thinking about 2002 and how good this U.S. Open was going to be, and she told me a lot of good things about the course," said Webb, the LPGA’s player of the year in 2000. "And just playing in pro-ams with different amateurs, they’ll always ask where the next U.S. Open is going to be played. If I said Hutchinson, Kansas, people who have played here said, ‘Oh, you must be playing Prairie Dunes.’ I’ve never heard a bad word about the course at all."

Because of Prairie Dunes’ sloping, undulating greens, the USGA will try to maintain green speeds of 10 on the Stimpmeter. The course’s true fortress is the wind and tall grasses that await any errant shot. The primary rough will be grown to 3 1/2 inches, with knee-high and waist-high native grasses. If the wind howls during the championship, the world’s best female golfers will be severely challenged. Some have hinted that scores could be as high as in 1998 at Blackwolf Run in Kohler, Wis., when the winning score for 72 holes was 6-over 290, the highest total by a Women’s Open champion since 1984 at Salem Country Club in Peabody, Mass.

"The one factor that we have no control over is how much the wind will blow," said Kendra Graham, the USGA’s director of rules and competitions —Women’s Open. "Those who live here know we could get anything that will certainly be a part of the excitement."

Webb plans to use the next two months to work on the kinds of shots necessary to succeed at Prairie Dunes. The practice sessions likely will include a lot of knock-down and low-trajectory shots to combat the wind.

"In a few ways, [the course] is pretty similar to The Merit Club [north of Chicago] where I won my first U.S. Open," said Webb, who won’t play Prairie Dunes until the first practice round the Monday of the championship. "Just from the layout without [many] trees and the really tall — the waist-deep is it? — rough. Mostly it was a pretty wide-open course where the wind was pretty much the sole defense. … The wind just adds that little bit more of a challenge, but even the person who is at the top of her game is not going to hit every fairway or green. I like the sound of that. Hopefully having a little bit of wind is going to bring the best out of the top players and we’ll have a great leaderboard."

This will also be the first year the USGA employs a two-tier qualifying system. Eighteen holes of local qualifying will proceed a first-ever 36-hole sectional qualifier to determine the final spots in the 150-player field. Previously, qualifiers only had to play 18 holes at a sectional to earn a place in the field. The new format hopes to take out the "lightning-in-a-bottle" factor while also insuring a higher-quality field.

"I think it’s the best move the USGA has made since I’ve been playing the U.S. Open, apart from raising the purse," said Webb, drawing laughter from the media. "It may eliminate a few people entering into the qualifying because it eliminates that person who thinks they’ll never qualify, but says ‘What the heck, it’s only 18 holes’ and then plays the round of their life and makes the U.S. Open. Then when they get there, they shoot in the mid-80s, high-80s, and hopefully not 90s. That just adds to the slowness of play out there. It does cause some of the slow play. But over three rounds, you’re going to find the best 80 or so players."

Webb won’t relinquish the Women’s Open trophy without a gritty fight. A group of players led by Sorenstam, who is the only player with a shot at the Grand Slam having already captured the Kraft Nabisco Championships, 1998 Women’s Open champion Se Ri Pak and rising American star Cristie Kerr, who has placed in the top five at the last two Opens. And Nancy Lopez, given a special exemption by the USGA, likely will be competing in her final Women’s Open.

"It’s an appropriate time to say thank you," said Blanchard of Lopez’s exemption. "She has brought thousands and thousands of fans to the women’s side of the game. She knows, she’s accepted and she’s thrilled."