Annika Sorenstam (32. Sweden) might earn a new nickname, `Sorceress of Red Shoes`.
The season’s first U.S. LPGA Tour major tournament, Nabisco Championship (total prizes worth 1.5 million dollars), closed at Mission Hills CC’s Dinah Shore course (par 72), Rancho Mirage, California.
Sorenstam walked onto the field with shining lace-less red shoes, instead of her usual ones. Just as `Golf King` Tiger Woods (U.S.A.) always wears a red T-shirt in final rounds, `Tigress` Sorenstam perhaps wanted to look special too.
As if the new shoes performed magic, she managed to hit 4 birdies without bogie to record the final score of 8-under, and claimed the title outrunning Liselotte Neumann by 1 stroke.
Sorenstam said, “Every time I stepped onto the greens, I would look at my shoes and smile. That helped me to go low and do the putting comfortably.”
Since the tournament was promoted as a major tournament in 1983, Sorenstam’s victory, this time, was the first consecutive title, and also her season’s second title after Takefuji Classic. She achieved the personal sum total of 33 wins and 4th major title. As Sorenstam marked 2 final-wins and 1 semifinal-win out of the season’s 4 tournaments she participated, she added 225,000 dollars to her total of 472,000 dollars, getting ready to have another monopoly after last year.
Meanwhile, Park Se-Ri (25. Samsung Electronics) hit 6 birdies, but also earned 1 double-bogie and 2 bogies to reduce only 2 strokes. She scored 2-under ranking 9th with Park Ji-Eun (Ihwa Women’s Univ.).
Park aimed for the youngest `career grand-slam` title, which wins all 4 major tournaments of life, but just missed it. Even if she wins it next year, she is still to break Karrie Webb’s (Australia) record (26 years old, 6 months and 3 days) set in last year.
Park Ji-Eun, who started late catching up on the ranks with 4-under, put out a stable performance winning her 3rd entry in `top 10` following Takefuji Classic (6th) and Welch’s/Circle K Championship (3rd).