Laura Davies regains form to take ANZ Ladies Masters
IN: News | ALPG | ANZ Ladies Masters (2003) | Wrap | by Bruce Young | 23 Feb 2003
» Laura Davies Interview
If somebody was going to have to beat Karrie Webb on her patch then I imagine a large percentage of those at Royal Pines would have chosen Laura Davies as the lady most would want to do it.
Davies is a delight in every respect. Not only is she a fine player but in recent times I have begun to appreciate her preparedness to go the extra mile for the support of tournament. A good example of this was on Sunday, where as an on-course reporter at the ANZ Ladies Masters I was asked to interview Laura for a highlights package being put together for the Evian Tour. This was to take place on the driving range prior to her warming up. We started the interview three times only to be plagued by equipment failure each time. Many players would not be prepared to continue but Laura said we could do it later and that proved to be the case.
I make this example, as there are many that would not necessarily do that. It is true that that the pre-round routine is important for them and that there are many that would rather not have that interrupted once, let alone two or three times, but Laura recognises the need to promote the game which has meant so much to her and she found a way to make it happen.
In terms of her game this was a much different Laura Davies to that we have seen in recent years. She seems to have regained the confidence that we have come to expect and there was much more aggression in her game than I have seen in the last few years here also. The confidence with the driver has returned although she did show a little more discretion in the last round, taking the driver on a few less occasions. Davies suggested "the changing wind caused me to adopt slightly different strategies in the final round than I was in rounds one and two."
Her putting in rounds one and two was very good but in the final round she did miss a number of chances on the greens.
For Webb, it was yet another near miss in this event that she has made virtually her own in recent years. Overall her game was not sharp although when she had reached the lead by a shot from Davies through nine holes, it did seem that we were about to witness the fifth win in the last seven years at this event by Australia's greatest current player. A missed green at the short par three eleventh saw her fail to get up and down and the subsequent bogey saw her fall back into a share of the lead with Davies. The deadlock remained until the par five fifteenth where Webb's ordinary pitch and run from ten metres short of the green left her with a difficult birdie putt which she missed and when Davies made her putt from half the distance then she had taken the lead for the first time since the first hole in round two.
Webb's drive at the last was unfortunate. It did not deserve the fate that befell it. Just missing the fairway left she found herself with no option other than to hack the ball out 70 meters or so and was still faced with a shot of 95 metres for her third. That ended up being a rather ordinary effort and when her ten-metre putt for par fell short it was up to Davies to hole it to win. In the meantime Rebecca Stevenson who had been playing almost unnoticed in the same group, was putting together a near faultless round and when she hit a fine second from 180 metres at the last to fifteen metres a door was ajar for her to hole the putt and put even further pressure on the two main protagonists. Stevenson did just that and it was then up to Davies who had run her first putt from the fringe three metres past to hole that to save par and avoid a three way playoff with both Webb and Stevenson.
"It was a left half putt and when it was three feet from the hole I knew it was in and looked away to eye my caddy. I could not immediately find him and when I looked back it had fallen in. I would have looked a goose if it had missed I guess" said the champion afterwards.
Davies is very much it would appear back on track in a year that will see the Solheim Cup played again in 2003 after having been played in 2002. This is being done so as not to clash with the Ryder Cup in 2004, everything being put out of synch as a result of the September 11th attack in 2001.
There were many other good performances but three are very much worthy of mention.
Rebecca Stevenson's dramatic finish for a tie for second with Webb will see her go into the balance of the year on the European Tour, where she has her card to play in 2003, with a great boost of confidence. She was the Australian Amateur Champion in 1999 but has struggled to raise sufficient funds to campaign internationally since turning pro. Even though she was qualified to play on the Futures Tour in 2002 in the US she was not in a financial position to, so stayed at home. The $A70,000 odd she will have earned for her efforts this weekend will give both her bank balance and her confidence the boost it needs to go on to bigger and better things.
New Zealander Brenda Ormsby, at 44 and feeling the pinch financially in her first few months as a professional, was a great story. She openly admitted after her second round 66, which had her early on day two in the lead, that she did not enjoy being on the road and the pressures of "watching the pennies."
She started the final round shakily and did well to cling to par until the sixth where a delightful long iron to three metres saw her settle the nerves somewhat. She did the same at the eighth and although she ran out of steam somewhat on the back nine it was an impressive first four round event as a pro. Now with a club job in New Zealand she seems content to enjoy the variety that being a member of the Evian Tour will bring to her life although she does seem likely, at this stage at least, to play just the five or so events per year. Time will tell on that front but for sure the $A13,000 will be a great help.
Lorena Ochoa touted as one of the great young players in world golf didn't let her admirers down. She has game and that almost instinctive ability to get it around as they say. She missed many chances on the greens on Sunday but there is little doubt that she has great future and a delightful young lady at that. Her second shot to the par five ninth will stick in my mind as a memory I have of her for the memory bank. Her five wood never left the flag and set up an eagle out that had her hovering around the lead. Look for her as a multiple winner in the USLPGA Tour this season.
In summary the event which suffered so much from the elements had a memorable conclusion with the two most credentialled players in the field fighting it out until the late arrival on the scene of Stevenson. Even the disappointment of a Saturday washout could not stop the fans who regularly flock to the event seeing yet another great finish at Royal Pines.
