Players Will Have A Battle Solving Newport

By Dave Shedloski

Newport, R.I. – Scoring opportunities were few and far between Friday at the 61^st U.S. Women’s Open. Pity. It might be the easiest conditions the contestants will face.

The greens at Newport Country Club will never be as soft – if the weather remains dry – and the players will never be as fresh as we go deeper into this championship. And the reward for those who survive Saturday’s second round is a 36-hole march on Sunday that will be a test of stamina and concentration above shot-making.

Four players shot 2-under-par 69 at the long and soggy Newport layout, a score that by week’s end might be worth gold. Two-time U.S. Women’s Open champion Annika Sorenstam posted the only afternoon score of minus-2 to join Pat Hurst, ’98 Open champ Se Ri Pak and amateur Jane Park.

At a potential 6,616 yards, Newport Country Club is the second-longest layout in championship history. Only Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver was longer, stretching to 6,749 yards, though at altitude it played much shorter. With one bunker under water and marked ‘ground under repair’ and standing water touching all corners of this historic track, one could argue that this is the first national championship played ‘below’ sea level. On the surface, Newport sits right at sea level.

Even with many tee markers moved up Newport played extremely long.

"The condition of the golf course is making it a lot harder," said Pak, who two weeks ago won the year’s second major, the McDonald’s LPGA Championship. "It’s a lot longer and so wet out there, and the greens are slow and bumpy."

And Pak got to play before the winds out of the southwest started to make for a more ill-fitting combination.

"It’s difficult with the wind … you have to hit a lot of golf shots out here, a lot of long irons, a lot of knock-downs," said 2005 Rookie of the Year Paula Creamer, who carded par-71, one of just 16 players at par or better. "It’s not the most creative shaping shots, but you definitely have to hit a wide range of hitting high or low."

Only four players got as low as 3 under par - for the day Pat Hurst, Brandi Jackson, Sung Ah Yim and Veronica Zorzi. But no one stayed there; Hurst went the deepest into the round, 16 holes, before giving a shot back.

Two weeks ago at the 106^th U.S. Open, the world’s finest male golfers traversed 72 holes at Winged Foot Golf Club without a single player posting a bogey-free round. It might be similarly difficult for the women to get around Newport C.C. unscathed.

Here’s why: Many of the green surfaces at Newport Country Club sit on plateaus and already have begun to dry out despite more than 4 1/2 inches of rain the past week. Meanwhile, the playing areas are soggy. While that makes the fairways wider for practical purposes, since the ball will not run out into the rough, it leaves players with longer shots into greens that will be less receptive to holding as the weekend progresses. With a forecast of sun and similar winds – 10-20 miles per hour out of the southwest – getting approaches close on firm, multi-tiered surfaces is a task no one would savor.

Then there’s the gauntlet of 54 holes in the next two days. Survival of the fittest never rung so true. "It is a long week, especially now that we’re only finishing the first round on Friday," Sorenstam said. "It’s going to be a long weekend. You have to be patient. You don’t want to waste too much energy, especially when conditions are this tough. You have to think."

And you have to think this is the best chance to make up ground on par. Weather conditions will dictate much of what occurs the next two days, but the fact that this is a U.S. Open also figures into the equation. "You come here for the biggest challenge that we have throughout the year," Sorenstam said.

No one can predict a winning score. But it’s easy to see that scoring will likely get harder.

"I’m not good at predicting scores. I basically try to go out and do the best I can," Hurst said. "Wherever that takes me, great. I know if I give it 100 percent, that’s all I can ask from myself."

Dave Shedloski is a freelance writer whose work has appeared previously on www.uswomensopen.com.