Christie Kerr is America’s best shot at the Women’s US Open
Two weeks ago Christie Kerr won the LPGA Championship by 12 strokes. Kerr was very pleased with the way she played and considered the victory a big deal because she is an American woman:
“It's especially big for American golf for us to do well in these kinds of tournaments, because there are so many little girls out here that we see in the practice rounds,” Kerr said of the plenitude of young female golfers she sees practising these days. Kerr believes only a handful of these young hopefuls will turn into something really great,
Kerr was at Oakmont Country Club practising for the U.S. Women’s Open. Oakmont has some of the more undulating greens on any LPGA Tour event, and they’re fast too. There are two potentially drivable par-4s on the second and 17th holes, and Kerr has been practising hard.
“There’s a little pressure on her,” her husband Erik Stevens told the New York Times, “The LPGA needs its stars now.”
Stevens and Kerr are both aware of foreigners dominating both the LPGA and PGA Tours. American golfers have taken a back seat at tournaments taking place on their own soil. Of the last six U.S. Women’s Opens two have been won by Americans. Kerr grabbed the title in 2007, and Meg Mallon won in 2004.
The globalization of golf has seen the emergence of some great players from South Africa, Europe, Australia, and Asia. In the current World Ranking’s top 20 players, only six of them are American. Add to this the fact that most of those players have already hit the peak of their careers, and the future of American golf is looking bleak.
Kerr is America’s best shot at a victory. Not only is she coming off a win two weeks ago, she is the only American to have won the Open in the last five years. Since 1995 the competition has been won four times by South Koreans, and five times by Americans. Betsy King won the tours money title in 1993 but an American hasn’t been at the top since then.
When this is compared to the stretch from 1946-1994 when the Women’s Open was won by Americans all but five times, it begs the question: what’s changed?
The LPGA had 27 scheduled events this year, and only 13 of them took place in America. A major reason less than half of these events happen in the U.S. is because sponsorship dollars have been steadily decreasing, and there are no big name American golfers to headline the tours.
If Kerr wins the Open she will put faith back into American golf. Even the men’s Open championship was won by a foreigner, Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell. Tiger Woods, Ernie Else, Phil Mickelson, all high profile golfers, were favoured to take the title but couldn’t pull through.
Of golf’s international growth LPGA commissioner Mike Whan says: “We’re going global and get over it.” For the PGA, Europeans are dominating the events. In the LPGA, South Koreans are almost unstoppable.
In light of all the young female South Korean golf hopefuls crowding the driving ranges and hiring swing coaches to emulate Eun-Gee Ji, Inbee Park, and Birdie Kim, Kerr hopes that winning the Championship and hopefully the Open will have young Americans doing the same with her.
Of her own inspiration to pursue golf professionally Kerr said: “I would see the Nancy Lopezes, and Juli Inksters, Patty Sheehan, winning these tournaments and I said, 'I want to do that’ . . . If we can touch a couple of them, maybe they'll turn into great players in 20 years.”
Kerr doesn’t rank in the LPGA’s top 10 for driving distance, accuracy or putting, but don’t lose faith. Kerr is hitting her stride, and has won events all year. It’s only a matter of time before she gets her “monumental win.”
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