Pine Needles Set To Host Fifth USGA Championship

By David Shefter, USGA

Far Hills, N.J. - As golf began to boom during the early 1920s in the Sandhills region of North Carolina, additional courses were needed to handle the additional volume. The Tufts family, which founded and owned the Pinehurst Resort, realized this and decided to add another layout to meet the demands of the day. Architect Donald Ross already had done layouts at the Resort, including the famous No. 2 Course that would later play host to two U.S. Opens and a U.S. Senior Open. So the Tufts commissioned Ross to design Pine Needles just down the road in Southern Pines.

In 1928, Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club opened and offered another Ross gem to the region. Twenty-five years later, Pine Needles was purchased by a group of investors that included Peggy Kirk Bell and her husband, Warren. Bell was one of the original founders of the LPGA Tour and in ’55, the Bells bought out their partners to obtain solo ownership of the facility.

But Pine Needles, which hosted the 1972 Titleholders Championship (an LPGA Tour major at the time), had to wait until 1989 before hosting its first USGA championship, the U.S. Girls’ Junior.

Brandie Is Dandy

Brandie Burton of Rialto, Calif., was certainly one of the country’s premier junior players in 1989 and she lived up to her lofty status at Pine Needles. Only once in her six matches did Burton fall behind an opponent. That came in the semifinals against highly touted 16-year-old Vicki Goetze of Hull, Ga. Burton rallied from a three-hole deficit to post a 1-up victory over Goetze, who would win the U.S. Women’s Amateur a week later up the road at Pinehurst.

Meanwhile, Burton defeated fellow 17-year-old Camie Hoshino of Hilo, Hawaii, in the championship match, 1 up, becoming the sixth player from California to win the U.S. Girls’ Junior in the past seven years. It was a trend that would continue into the 1990s with three more winners hailing from the Golden State.

Three weeks earlier, Burton had won the Junior World title in San Diego. And a week before that, she won the All-America Prep title in Arizona. A year earlier, Burton joined 1973 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion Carol Semple Thompson as the only players to have completed 72 holes at the U.S. Women’s Open. The long-hitting Burton used her power to overwhelm her opponents. In stroke-play qualifying, she shot a pair of 69s to register a 36-hole record score of 138, two better than Japan’s Michiko Hattori had posted in 1986.

Preuss Prevails

Five-time USA Curtis Cupper Phyllis Preuss, 52, of Colorado Springs, Colo., registered a 1-under-par 34 on the second nine of the third and final round to rally and win the USGA Senior Women’s Amateur in 1991 by a stroke at Pine Needles. Preuss’ final-round 74 gave her a 54-hole total of 221, a stroke better than longtime Great Britain and Ireland Curtis Cupper Belle Robertson of Scotland, and three-time Senior Women’s Amateur champion and eight-time USA Curtis Cupper Anne Sander of Seattle, Wash.

Preuss waited 33 years and more than 40 USGA championship to finally claim a title. Her first USGA event was at the 1958 U.S. Women’s Amateur. Three years later, she reached the Women’s Amateur final, only to lose to Sander by a 14-and-13 margin.

"This [title] is very special to me," said Preuss. "I just tried to tell myself to play my own game and be patient."

Sander, who was the two-time defending champion, started the final round five strokes back, but finished birdie-eagle to close the gap. "I hate to relinquish the trophy," said Sander, "but if I have to, I couldn’t be happier to relinquish it to [Phyllis]."

Repeat Performance

Not only did Annika Sorenstam back up her 1995 U.S. Women’s Open triumph with another victory in ’96 at Pine Needles, but she also established a 72-hole scoring record in the process. Even though par had been set at 70 for the championship, Sorenstam registered an 8-under total of 272 to beat runner-up Kris Tschetter of McLean, Va., by six strokes. The previous scoring mark of 277 had been set in 1988 by Liselotte Neumann and tied six years later by Patty Sheehan. Sorenstam came up one short of the under-par record held by Pat Bradley, who posted a 9-under-par winning score in 1981 at LaGrange (Ill.) Country Club.

Sorenstam opened the competition with rounds of 70-67, giving her a three-stroke advantage over Jane Geddes and Brandie Burton at the midway point. Burton had won one of the two previous USGA championships held at Pine Needles in 1989 (U.S. Girls’ Junior). Sorenstam maintained her three-stroke advantage over Burton with a third-round 69. The two had been tied as late as the 16th hole, but Sorenstam picked up three strokes over the final two holes. Sorenstam put things away on Sunday with an eagle-3 at the par-5 10th hole with a 20-foot putt. That gave her a seven-stroke lead and she cruised home from there.

Sorenstam joined Mickey Wright (1958-59), Donna Caponi (1969-70), Susie Maxwell Berning (1972-73), Hollis Stacy (1977-78) and Betsy King (1989-90) as the only players to win back-to-back Women’s Open titles.

But when the Women’s Open returned to Pine Needles five years, a seventh woman would be added to that prestigious list.

Webb Master

Australia’s Karrie Webb birdied the last two holes to put her stamp on the biggest U.S. Women’s Open triumph in

	Karrie Webb begins celebrating her Women's Open victory in 2001. (John Mummert/USGA)

21 years. Webb, who had won the 2000 Women’s Open at The Merit Club outside of Chicago, posted a 72-hole total of 7-under 273 for an eight-stroke victory over 1998 champion Se Ri Pak of Korea. Webb was also the only player in the field to finish under par for the championship.

The key for Webb was a 65 during the rain-altered second round, where only half of the field managed to finish as a heavy downpour saturated the Donald Ross layout. With most of the field enduring a long Saturday, Webb could relax until the afternoon, where she shot 69 to take a five-stroke lead over Pak into Sunday’s final round. Pak got as close as three strokes, but at the par-4 seventh, Webb knocked a 6-iron approach to 16 feet and made the birdie putt, while Pak missed a 15-footer for par. Webb now led by six with 11 holes to play.

"I really came in playing well and thought I had a very good chance," said Webb. "You put a lot of hard work in to get ready because this is so important. To walk up the 18th fairway for the second year in a row with a comfortable enough margin to really enjoy the atmosphere is a great feeling."

The championship also was memorable for 13-year-old Morgan Pressel of Boca Raton, Fla., who became the youngest qualifier in Women’s Open history. Pressel was actually 12 when she qualified, but turned 13 just prior to the championship proper. Four years later, Pressel would win the U.S. Women’s Amateur and in 2007, she became the youngest golfer to ever win a ladies professional major (Kraft Nabisco Championship).

Pressel won’t need to qualify for the 2007 Women’s Open at Pine Needles as she is one of 68 players already fully exempt.