Thursday, September 3, 2009

Canadian Women's Open Thursday: What's Gotten Into Anna Rawson?

Check me on this, but wasn't it just earlier today that I wrote of Anna Rawson, "she needs to get her putter going to avoid Q-School"? So far, so good, at the Canadian Women's Open: she just opened with a 9-birdie 64! Even though she was bombing it out there (averaging 266 yards off the tee), she only hit about the same number of greens (11) as her season average (.663) would lead you to expect. If making more than 6.33 birdies over normal birdie rate wasn't enough to tip you off that her putter was incandescent today, her total number of putts (24) should convince you. That's a career low on the LPGA. Way to go, Anna! (Way to overshadow Louise Stahle's lowest round ever on the LPGA, a fine 67. I think Stahle was leader in the clubhouse for about 15 seconds. As for Il Mi Chung's 67, her best round since the Corning, by comparison it seems kind of meh, eh?)

Don't look back, though. Lorena Ochoa's made 5 birdies in her last 8 holes to get to -4. She has 2 par 5s and 2 par 3s still to play on the front. And Momoko Ueda just eagled the par-5 12th to also climb to -4. So don't let your 64 be a 1-round wonder, Anna, or you'll get passed faster than you can say "Beth Bader at the Safeway"!

[Update 1 (4:40 pm): Oh ho ho! Ochoa's walkoff birdie gives her a 66. Game on!]

[Update 2 (4:42 pm): Snap! Suzann Pettersen opened with a 31 on the front.]

[Update 3 (4:46 pm): Hey there, Golf Babes, I know you read MH because of your name-check in your Ai Miyazato tribute, so be sure to change "best of the year to date" to "best of her career on the LPGA to date," ok?]

[Update 4 (11:58 pm): So Pettersen closed with a 34 to finish 1 shot behind Rawson. But Amanda Blumenherst must not have liked my "not ready for prime time" assessment in my preview--she matched Ochoa's 66. Wow!]

[Update 5 (9/4/09, 1:13 am): Check out the post-round interview with Rawson for her frank take on what's been holding her back this season. Let's see how well she stays in the present in the afternoon tomorrow.]

[Update 6 (2:53 pm): Interesting contrast in reactions by Stephanie Wei and Vince Spence, wouldn't you say?]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Clearly her woes with the flat stick are YOUR fault - you should've made that observation much earlier instead of waiting until September !! :-)

The Constructivist said...

You're right. I blame myself. Drat that schedule for ranking the rookie classes that I set at the beginning of the year!