By Dave Shedloski
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Birdie Kim, a past U.S. Women's Open champion, missed the cut for the second straight year. (Hunter Martin/USGA) |
Bethlehem, Pa. – You would think that a player as successful as Laura Davies, whose 51 world-wide victories include the 1987 U.S. Women’s Open, wouldn’t take much satisfaction from simply making another cut. But the smile on her face and the slight gleam in her eye was a clear refutation of that supposition.
“This was huge for me,” said an ebullient Davies late Friday afternoon outside the sprawling clubhouse at Saucon Valley Country Club. “I’m finally starting to feel good about my golf again.”
Though she staggered in with a couple of sloppy bogeys on the Old Course for a 4-over-par 75, Davies finished well inside the cut and earned her second weekend tee time in the championship in the last seven years. What’s more, she stopped a desultory streak in which she had withdrawn or missed the cut in her last five starts. One of the five was at the AIB Ladies Irish Open two weeks ago. She shot 10 over par – a shocking performance for a player who had missed the cut previously in just three Ladies European Tour events in her career, not counting the Women’s British Open
No wonder the 5-foot-10 Englishwoman with the booming drives and go-for-broke style was feeling a bit of heat coming down the stretch.
“I have to say I was very nervous coming in,” said Davies, 45. “I’d blown a couple of cuts of late, and I was definitely thinking about that, even though I knew I was probably comfortably in. It means a great deal to me to get out of that rut.”
Davies, who earlier this year won her 31st LET title at the Ladies Australian Open, completed 36 holes in 5-over 147. That put her in a tie for 28th place entering Saturday. Davies has finished joint 32nd the last two times she made the cut, in 2007 and ’02. The last of her four top-10s in the Open came in 2000, when she tied for ninth at The Merit Club in Gurnee, Ill.
The cut of low 60 and ties came in at 9-over-par 151, with 72 golfers advancing to the final two rounds. A late shift benefited 10 players. Haiji Kang and Cindy Lacrosse, both competing in their first U.S. Women’s Open, each bogeyed their final hole of the day to slip to nine over. Kang shot 78 and Lacrosse 75.
Beneficiaries of the reprieve included former two-time champion Juli Inkster, 49, who rallied with a 73 to make it on the number after missing out the last two years. Defending U.S. Amateur champion Amanda Blumenherst, who competed as a professional, also got in at 151 after a 76. Stacy Lewis, who finished tied for third a year ago, followed Inkster’s lead in improving five strokes from her opening round with a 73.
The list of survivors included seven amateurs, led by 14-year-old Alexis Thompson is already playing in her third Open. She made her first cut decisively, following up her even-par 71 Thursday with a 73 Friday and 144 total that landed her in a tie for eighth.
Two years ago at age 12 Thompson, of Coral Springs, Fla., became the youngest player to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open. Last year at Interlachen Country Club in Edina, Minn., she bogeyed two holes down the stretch and missed the cut by two strokes.
“I wasn’t just looking to make the cut,” said Thompson, who was invited to the Kraft Nabisco earlier this year and finished tied for 21st. “I know I can contend if my game is on out here. I’m just going to try to do the same thing I did the last two days and hopefully it’ll be good.”
Among those falling short included a number of former Open champions. Se Ri Pak finished at 153 after a 77, while Meg Mallon and Birdie Kim, winners in 2004 and ’05, respectively, were well off the pace at 160.
A couple of pre-championship favorites also failed to advance. Angela Stanford, a former Open runner-up who had collected seven top-10 finishes -- including one win -- on the LPGA this year, carded 75-153. And Yani Tseng ballooned to 79-156. Ranked No. 2 in the world behind Lorena Ochoa, Tseng hadn’t missed a cut all season.
Helen Alfredsson, the 2008 runner-up, checked out early. She withdrew after her opening 10-over 81. She was one of nine players who didn’t complete 36 holes, a group that also included ’05 runner-up Pat Hurst.
Dave Shedloski is a freelance writer whose work has previously appeared on www.uswomensopen.com.
