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Dulled Spotlight
Lincicome Intent On Making Name For Herself
By Stuart Hall
As Brittany Lincicome arrived for the Ginn Open earlier this spring, she noticed promotional flags waving with pictures of many of the LPGA’s new, young faces on them. Hers was noticeably absent – at least to her.
Most casual discussions about the next generation of LPGA Tour stars include the names Lorena Ochoa, Michelle Wie, Morgan Pressel, Paula Creamer and Natalie Gulbis. Lincicome is often an afterthought.
“Kind of frustrating a little bit, because I work as hard as they do and I'm as friendly as they are and I try to do the right things that they do and I just don't get out there as well,” said Lincicome.
A bit of branding never hurt.
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| Brittany Lincicome knows she can compete with the best of any field. Last year she finished seventh in the Women's Open. (John Mummert/USGA) |
And then there is Lincicome, a 21-year-old power player from Seminole, Fla., who finished first and second, respectively, in driving distance average her first two full seasons on tour.
“Obviously myself being able to hit it really far,” said Lincicome, citing one of her strengths and who ranks seventh at 270.0 this season. “We all have our little thing that we try to build on.”
Lincicome is also known as “Sign Girl,” if to no one other than Laura Davies. When Lincicome was 12, she was the standard bearer for the Davies-John Daly pairing during the now-defunct JC Penny Classic, an event that paired PGA and LPGA tour players in an off-season competition.
“I had to watch them play because they hit it far,” Lincicome joked. “So every time I see her, it's a joke now.”
What is not a laughing matter is Lincicome’s growing confidence in the professional ranks, where she has resided since 2005.
Last July, she claimed her first LPGA title at the HSBC Women’s World Match Play Championship. Lincicome took down three of the game’s biggest players: Wie (quarterfinals), Ochoa (semifinals) and two-time U.S. Open champion Juli Inkster in the final. In April, two weeks after a second-place finish at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, Lincicome was six shots off the lead through eight holes and eventually rallied to defeat Ochoa by a stroke to win the Ginn Open.
But Lincicome is not overly concerned about her place on the marketing pecking order. Winning ultimately outweighs bluster. In fact, Lincicome has more career wins (two) than Gulbis, Pressel and Wie combined.
“Obviously if I play well, they are going to have to write about me or put my picture up,” said Lincicome. “I'm not going to go to the press and be like, ‘You didn't write about me today or put my picture up or whatever.’ We just try to go out and play as good as I can possibly play and they will have to.”
Ochoa, for one, has taken notice of Lincicome’s moxie and game.
“I think obviously she's a very strong player, a very aggressive player,” said Ochoa, who is a wily veteran at age 26. “She's known as a player that can make birdie, bogey, birdie, bogey and all of the sudden she will make like five, six birdies in a row and that means that she has the game.
“If she learns to be a little more patient, a little smarter and sometimes if she stops making those mistakes and those bogeys, she's going to be a really good player. She has a lot of potential. I played with her before and she's a tough girl.”
The Beginning
Back home in Seminole (suburb of Tampa), Lincicome, then 9, learned the game at the feet of her father Tom. She and older brothers Hunter and Brian routinely went with their father to a nearby par-3 course after dinner. Brittany was forced to play from the same tees and within two years was out-driving her brothers.
“Come to find out I was a natural,” she said.
She attended a Christian school, but played for the public high school that she was zoned for. Because the school didn’t offer girls’ golf until her senior year, Lincicome played on the boys’ squad. And by that time, Lincicome was out of the private institution and being schooled at home by her parents.
“It was better playing on the boys team, we played better yardages, there was more competition playing against the boys,” said Lincicome, who, not surprisingly led the girls team to the state tournament in its first season.
Over the course of her junior career, Lincicome won more than 60 percent of the events she played. And while fellow teens were making national headlines such as Pressel qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Open at age 12 or Wie playing on the PGA Tour, Lincicome was content to bide her time.
“I wasn’t really worried,” she said.
She knew a bigger stage was ahead, but first there was the decision on whether it would be at the collegiate or professional level.
In 2004, Lincicome, with the counsel of her father, did her due diligence on whether to turn pro. She played a couple of Futures Tour events to gauge the level of her game, and finished 10th in her first outing. Then, still an amateur, she qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open at The Orchards Golf Club in South Hadley, Mass.
In the opening round, Lincicome shot a 5-under 66 that matched the lowest round by an amateur in the championship’s history. Carol Semple Thompson also shot 66 in 1994.
Lincicome’s highlight came when she holed a 7-iron for eagle at the par-4 15th hole to get to five under and began to cry.
“I looked at my dad [who was caddieing] and started bawling,” said Lincicome. “I could not stop. I walked all the way to the green, my mom started crying, and then I started crying even more.”
Lincicome ultimately finished 55th, but nonetheless the experience was beneficial. Later she looked around at her peers who were turning pro and those who had taken the collegiate route. Figuring she could hold her own, she turned professional in December 2004 and finished 20th at the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament, thus earning her card.
In her rookie campaign, Lincicome finished 72nd on the LPGA money list after making 12 of 20 cuts. In her second season, Lincicome finished 14th after making 20 of 23 cuts with five top-10 finishes and the $500,000 payday at the HSBC Match Play. This season, she currently ranks third on the money list.
More important, Lincicome has shown a penchant for performing well in majors. In eight appearances, she has already logged a pair of top-10s, including a seventh-place showing at the 2006 U.S. Women’s Open where she was among the leaders heading into the final 18 holes.
Lincicome will likely arrive soon at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C., site of this year’s U.S. Women’s Open, still flying under the radar. Yes, she has won twice on tour; yes, she is ranked No. 13 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings.
But the usual suspects will be on hand, as well. That is not Lincicome’s modus operandi to step out of her skin and be something other than who she is. She will just keep on doing what she does best.
“I think you've got to find your thing, for sure. Mine is hitting it far,” she said. “I obviously do that well. It comes naturally to me. I'll build on that.”
Then in a lighter moment at last week’s Ginn Tribute hosted by Annika Sorenstam, Lincicome went a little out of character.
“I actually had some funky nail polish on last week and all the fans seemed to like it,” she said. “Maybe that will be my new thing. Paula has the pink thing on Sunday. It's just something that you build on that gets you exposure and gets your name out there a little bit better.”
Putting her name on the U.S. Women’s Open Championship Cup, though, could put Lincicome on more promotional posters.
Stuart Hall is a writer with the Golf Press Association whose work has appeared previously on www.uswomensopen.com.
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