Best of Decade: The finest LPGA rounds

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October 22, 2009

Can you believe we’re at the end of the decade of the 2000s? It’s true! And we never even figured out what to call this decade — the "thousands?" the "aughts?" Whichever, we’ll be spending the rest of the year running down the finest achievements in the world of golf over the last 10 years. Today: the finest individual LPGA rounds of the 2000s.

1: Annika Sorenstam’s 59, 2001 Standard Register Classic, Moon Valley Country Club, second round. Sorenstam’s legendary 59 was two strokes better than the previous LPGA Tour low of 61, shared by Karrie Webb and Se Ri Pak. The round featred 13 birdies and no bogeys and only 25 putts. She reached every green in regulation and her longest par putt was less than four feet.

2: Sorenstam’s 71, 2003 Bank of America Colonial, first round. The eagle-eyed will note that this is actually a PGA Tour event, and while Sorenstam’s history-making round of one over par didn’t end in a made cut, she performed brilliantly under the kind of pressure no woman golfer had ever encountered. The longer distances weren’t an issue, but the missed opportunities on the green were. Nonetheless, it marked a large step forward for women’s golf.

3: Juli Inkster’s 66, 2002 U.S. Women’s Open, final round. On the very same course on which she won the 1980 Women’s Amateur, Prairie Dunes Golf Club in Kansas, Juli Inkster ran down and passed Sorenstam to take the title. At 42, Inkster became the second-oldest women’s Open champion, after Babe Didrickson Zaharias. Her score tied an Open record for the lowest by a champion in the final round.

4: Michelle Wie’s 66, 2003 Kraft Nabisco Championship, third round. Say what you will about Michelle Wie, with her performance in the 2003 Kraft Nabisco Championship she became the youngest player in LPGA history ever to make a cut. Due to the 66 on Saturday, Wie made it to the final group on Sunday of a major. Wie was only, believe it or not, 13 years old. She shot a 74 on Sunday (not bad, considering the circumstances) to finish in a tie for ninth.

5: Lorena Ochoa’s 62, 2006 Kraft Nabisco Championship, first round. Ochoa, the 2003 LPGA rookie of the year, established the lowest-ever score in a major championship, male or female, and served notice that Sorenstam wasn’t going to be on top forever. (Incidentally, Ochoa did not win the tournament. See next entry.)

6: Karrie Webb’s 65, 2006 Kraft Nabisco Championship, final round. In one of the most dramatic finishes of the decade, Webb holed out a 116-yard chip to force a playoff with Ochoa, and ended up posting a win that heralded a comeback in her storied career — one that she celebrated with the leap into the water at right.

7: Meg Mallon’s 65, 2004 U.S. Women’s Open, final round. Mallon captured the 2004 Open by playing a masterful 65 to secure a two-stroke win. It was pretty impressive stuff for Mallon, who was 41 at the time and had also won the Open back in 1991.

8: Catriona Matthew’s 67, 2009 Ricoh Women’s British Open, second round. Just 11 weeks after giving birth to her second daughter, Matthew notched a win over Karrie Webb and became the first player from Scotland to win an LPGA major.

9: Se Ri Pak’s 69, 2006 LPGA Championship, final round. The South Korean Pak, a true pioneer in women’s golf, secured her third LPGA Championship and her fifth major overall in a playoff victory over Webb.

10: Paula Creamer’s 60, 2008 Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic, first round. Creamer, who would wind up winning the tournament, birdied nine of the last 11 holes in her opening round, including the final three, on the par-71 Highland Meadows layout.

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