Annika Sorenstam is disappointed. She came into the sixth U.S. Senior Women’s Open feeling good about her game, but left Fox Chapel Golf Club Thursday evening hardly satisfied after an opening even-par 71.
“I really didn’t release the club, and it was just very cautious golf,” she said. “As you know, there’s a fine line of being aggressive, but then also being patient and having a strategy, and I just felt I really didn’t have the courage.”
On the other hand, if a round of even par turns out to be her worst round of the week, she said, this start will be OK. The LPGA icon trails Japan’s Kaori Yamamoto by four in Pittsburgh, where bad weather washed out Tuesday’s practice round.
Sorenstam, who won this event in 2021, is one of five past champions in the field. Leta Lindley, who has finished runner-up in her last two appearances, sits alone in fourth after an opening 69.
Though Sorenstam lives in Orlando, she has spent the past two months at the family’s Lake Tahoe home. She planned to take a cold plunge after the round.
The heat was so brutal in Pittsburgh that a woman fainted while Sorenstam’s group was teeing off. Sorenstam’s son Will rushed over to get the woman a chair and offer assistance.
While the top of the leaderboard is always of interest, there’s an event within the event at the Senior Women’s with JoAnne Carner in the field. The eight-time USGA champion is the oldest player to ever compete in a USGA championship, and it’s become tradition to see how many times the legendary player can break her age.
Carner, now 85, managed the feat for the seventh time at this championship, carding a 14-over 85. Carner made it clear, however, at the start of the week that her goal was to make the cut.
She notched one birdie on the par-4 seventh hole and stumbled through three double-bogeys on the back nine.
When she got the 18th tee, she needed a par on the closing hole to break her age. After piping her drive, someone in the gallery said, “You hit a nice one!”
“That’s cause I’m headed to the bar,” Carner replied.
Not surprisingly, Carner was not at all pleased with a bumpy round that included a four-putt. It’s a course, she said, that requires more than one practice round, which is all she got with the weather.
JoAnne Carner, making her 50th start in a USGA championship, just teed off at the U.S. Senior Women’s Open. The eight-time USGA champion is 85 years young!
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@juliapine) pic.twitter.com/aiCEH3oaHQ
— Beth Ann Nichols (@GolfweekNichols) August 1, 2024
When asked after the round if she was happy to shoot her age, Carner said no, it was terrible.
“I played really bad on the back,” she said. “I didn’t putt well. Then I lost my swing temporarily. I hit a couple shots that I thought were good, but not having played the course but one time, I ended up in trouble, in one of those bunkers, and you just have to hit it out.”
Carner turned professional at age 30 and won 43 times on the LPGA, including two U.S. Women’s Opens in Pennsylvania.
She inspired a young Nancy Lopez, who wanted to be just like her when she grew up.
“She always looked like she was having a good time … never saw her angry,” said Lopez. “She was always very animated.”
Another LPGA Hall of Famer, Beth Daniel, gives Carner credit for improving her wedge play her rookie year.
“When I first came on tour I was a horrible wedge player,” said Daniel. “I’d miss greens with a pitching wedge.”
Carner helped her fix that problem, as she so often came to the aid of fellow players.
Though she’s lost some distance the past couple years, Carner felt she was trending heading into the championship after a recent lesson. She’d like to hit it 220 again, and right now averages between 205 and 210.
Thursday’s test proved to be a tall task.
When asked if an evening of storytelling might lie ahead, Carner said everyone might be too tired.
“At least I am,” she said. “I’ll go back and cool down, take a shower and sit and have a nice cocktail.”