Americans of Pennsylvania fail to qualify Women’s Open
Today is an excellent day for the initiation of the first event of the opening of the Women’s Open on the bright sunny fairways of Oakmont Country Club here in Pittsburgh.
The world’s champion female golfers will all meet on the common ground, leaving out the players from Pennsylvania where the event is actually taking place. It seems like this season Americans are not in the mood to set some impression. It’s not an issue of want, but they could not actually qualify the criteria.
Since 1995, the ratio of American and South Korean winners has been nearly equal. There have been five victories for the Americans and four for the Koreans so far. Cristie Kerr is the only American to win in the last five years.10 out of the 15 US open’s champions were non Americans and as time is moving forward this rate of Americans seems to decrease. At the present moment two of the World’s top 10 and five of the World’s top 20 golf players are Americans which is a decent number.
Americas only hope is Cristie Kerr .Looking at her impressive 12 shot victory 19 under par at Locust Hill in the LPGA Championship one can expect an American to be the winner of this season’s Women Open. Other than that, there is a positive energy in Kerr’s performance which can be seen as confidence and in her attitude. The competitive advantage which she has is her putting has given her the rank of top 5s. Other than this privilege she was also ranked 5th in green hits in regulation in 2005. She has an edge in putting, greens and longest hitting. Predictions are that she might go through some really tough time because of the difficulty of the venue. Although, her accuracy and driving distance is not as spectacular as it is expected out of her, thus she needs more effort on this side. In the same year, Cristie won ten tournaments on the LPGA tour, with a new record setting of 12 stroke margin. Song-Hee Kim ended up runners up in this league.
South Korea's Ji Eun-Hee is the second candidate that can spill heat on the fairways of Oakmont .She has the victory of last year’s US open to her credit. Ji’s score card showed an even-par 284 through four rounds. The 23-year-old South Korean made a birdie putt on the 72nd hole to emerge with an even-par 71 and claimed the U.S. Women's Open in 2009.She has an accuracy of 69.9% and a driving distance of 250 yards per. She has 88 birdies and 1 eagle to her credit. She is ranked 61st with 64.7% at green hits in regulations.
The reputation of Oakmont Country Club, the only course designed by Henry Fownes, will set the players in the deepest difficulty level ever. It has 210 deep bunkers on the course. The Church Pews is the mammoth of the most difficult bunkers with 100 yards length and 40 yards width with 12 islands of turf inside. Although the players are all set to deal with reputation of the course but there are surprises for the best of best even. The most frightening part will be the 18th hole on sloping, and undulating greens.
Although the club has hosted 13 all time, recognized, professional championships, but for the Women’s open it is going to be the second time.
There are high expectations from Cristie Kerr, as well as Ji Eun-Hee to set new records in the scorching heat of July with their skills on the undulating slopes of greens. The current speed recorded so far has been 14 to 14.2 on the Stimpmeter and there is a good probability that it is going to increase as the rounds move forward. The temperature is souring high but the expectations of the scores lie in the range of 90’s.
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