Tuesday, July 31, 2001
Woods, Sorenstam survive the Monday night
mixer
By DOUG FERGUSON
AP Golf Writer
PALM DESERT, Calif. (AP) — The LPGA Tour took advantage of
its debut on prime time by airing its new advertising campaign
titled, “Positively Amazing.” The golf was anything
but that in the mixed-team Battle at Bighorn.
The only amazing thing about this made-for-TV event was that it
finally ended.
Hot, blustery winds and brick-hard greens conspired to turn a
Monday night mixer at the club into a gruesome display of left-handed
shots, putts that rolled off the green and errant drives that
wound up in desert shrubs.
When it was over, Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam survived the
41/2-hour ordeal in true alternate-shot fashion.
Sorenstam made a 10-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole to extend
the match, and Woods made another solid recovery that led to a
par-saving victory in 19 holes over David Duval and Karrie Webb.
“All the players that I played with are all great players,”
Woods said. “It was just tough conditions out there. When
you play in this type of format under tough conditions, it's really
tough to get your rhythm. All of us were struggling.”
Duval and Webb finished the 18 holes in 3-over 75, one stroke
better than Woods and Sorenstam, who took back-to-back double
bogeys early on the back nine.
Duval and Webb hit only five greens in regulation. Neither Webb
nor Sorenstam could find the 18th fairway — twice —
with the match on the line.
“I didn't play as well as I would have liked, but that's
the way it goes,” said Sorenstam, a member at Bighorn. “I
had a good partner that picked me up.”
Woods was far from perfect. The same went for Duval.
They missed their share of fairways, hit suspect chips, ran putts
past the hole.
Still, the spotlight was on the women, who played before the largest
audience ever.
Woods and Sorenstam split $1.2 million of the $1.7 million purse,
but the real measure of success will come later this week when
ABC Sports releases its ratings.
Woods vs. Duval two years ago got a 6.9 rating, while Sergio Garcia's
victory over Woods last year got a 7.6. Officials were expecting
something in that range — if not higher — for the first-of-its-kind
match that pitted the best men and women in golf.
“This is one of the biggest days in LPGA history, if not
the biggest day, based on the number of eyeballs that are going
to be on our product,” LPGA commissioner Ty Votaw said before
the match.
By the end of the night, Votaw was trying to assess how his players
will be perceived.
“Golf gets the blame,” he said of the shabby scoring.
“That's what is great about alternate shot. The golf wasn't
that great down the stretch at the men's U.S. Open, either, and
it was pretty entertaining.”
Give this two thumbs up for entertainment value.
The golf was another story.
Working against the players was a wicked wind that whipped up
about 15 minutes before they headed to the first tee with 5,000
people in tow. That made everything more difficult, from club
selection to where the shots would land, compounded by brick-hard
greens that sent balls bouncing into the rough or the bunkers.
“It was hot, dusty and we lost,” Duval said. “That
combination is not good.”
The production had its share of birdies and bogeys. Tough conditions
and a swarming gallery that got more boisterous as the night went
on led to extremely slow play that sent the match 80 minutes past
its scheduled end.
The players were miked for sound, but it was hard to pick up what
they were saying — and what little could be heard was hardly
exciting.
The best emotion came from Webb, who was near tears in a taped
vignette of her paralyzed coach in Australia.
There was other emotion, too. Sorenstam offered an apologetic
smile when she sent her first approach right of the green and
into desert weeds so thick that Woods could barely find the ball.
Webb was embarrassed by a 20-foot putt from the back of the fringe
on No. 2 that missed the cup by 3 feet to the left, then rolled
down the slope an extra 60 feet.
The match had a few light moments, too.
Duval hit a brilliant pitch over the slope to 4 feet on No. 6,
and when Webb holed the par putt, Sorenstam waited to hear that
her 2-foot par putt was conceded.
Silence.
Woods stared at Duval in mock disbelief, and Duval simply shrugged
his shoulders. Right as Sorenstam was getting ready to hit the
putt, Duval called out, “That's good.”
Overall, the golf was less than spectacular.
“It was a good experiment,” Votaw said.
Despite the ordinary play, the women had no regrets. They gave
up two days of practice for the British Open — their final
major of the year, which starts Thursday in England — to
give the LPGA a boost by playing in the prime-time exhibition.
What did they prove? Nothing. But Webb said that was never the
goal.
“The respect was given to us to play with these two guys
on prime-time TV,” she said. “We would liked to have
been able to show the world a little bit more.”
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