Thursday, August 13
First off the first tee, cloudy but calm and for once, the grass isn’t covered in dew and my feet aren’t sopping wet 100 feet down the first fairway. We’ve actually had a very dry summer here with only two days of measureable rain since like, June 1st. My group consists of SooBin Kim, Jane Rah, and Kendall Dye. Lots of interaction between them the whole round, good to see. Everyone starts out strait and long, except Miss Rah, who’s strait and short. Her length, or lack of it, hurts her a lot as the round goes on, but not as much as her putting. She just doesn’t have “the touch” and ends up +6. Just the opposite for Miss Kim. Starts out with a 35 foot birdie on the first hole, which, if the hole wasn’t there, would have been 8 feet by. But instead dives strait into the hole like a Bugs Bunny cartoon scene. One thing I’ve noticed, which has carried over to the second round, is that there must be a big difference between the practice green and the course greens in speed, because nobody has the roll just right. This group left a lot of knee knocker 5-7 footers out there coming back for par. About the fifth hole I finally notice Miss Kim is wearing her U of Washington team golf shirt. YEAH!!!! GO HUSKIES!!!! (I hate Quackers) I casually mention about her U of W association and we have a short, good chat on Seattle. Speaks super good English. Did I mention GO HUSKIES and that I hated Quackers? Miss Dye hangs around par all day playing steady golf and winds up +1, but good to see she made the cut. She’s from OOOOOOOOk-lahoma!!
I hang around after my round working on my tan because I’m tentatively going off again at 1:40 taking a sick kid’s place, but the big cheese ultimately gives it to “the intern”. I’m secretly grateful and decide to blow the clam bake around 2pm because I’m bushed. Get home and fall asleep on the futon much to my doxie’s mis-pleasure who reallllly wants to go for a walk. Too bad, snuggles up beside me and falls asleep, too. Two snoring misfits.
Friday, August 14
Rain is the word of the day. A cold front works its way in and slowly arrives on this day. It’s cool, showery, blustery, and cloudy and will stay that way all day. Luckily I brought a rain jacket because I needed it. As I mentioned before, it’s been super dry around here all summer and this rain is big news. More on that later…I’m off with Cindy Feng, Carlota Ciganda, and Sarah Kemp. Chinese, Spanish and Australian. As you would expect, no interaction at all between the players. This day is notable for having the worst shot I’ve ever seen a pro hit, ever. Absolutely jaw droppingly bad. We had just come off a super hole, par 5 seventh where we record an eagle, by Miss Kemp. We step up to 8 which is CE’s “signature” hole, a cool little par 3 over water. Let me note here I’ve walked close to 80-90 LPGA rounds and have seen a couple topped fairway shots and flubbed pitches in my time, but those are nothing. Miss Kemp is first up off her eagle, and promptly drops her shot in the water, throwing away any chance at making the cut. Next comes “the shot” from Miss Ciganda. After the usual pokey pre-shot routine, the address, aaaaannnnnnddd a mighty swing. Whack!!! The ball shanks off the tip of the club at a 45 degree angle, goes about 5 feet in the air, travels 30 yards and stops under a tree by the 10th green/11th tee. Oh the collective gasp of the 8 people following our group. You could cut it with a knife. Miss Ciganda wanted to crawl under a rock. As for me, I don’t know why, but I immediately got this feeling of being on the course and seeing a shank from a hack, like, where did you learn how to golf, K-Mart? It was really an errie feeling that was so strange after watching years and years of pros stripe it down the middle with nearly 100 percent accuracy. After a bit of recovery on the tee from everyone, Miss Feng calmly put her shot on the green to 10 feet. We all took off in different directions. Miss Kemp to the drop area, Miss Ciganda over right of the pond, and the walking scorer, I, and Miss Feng took off toward the green. We all watched as Miss Ciganda calmly walked over to the ball, took one l look at it, sized up the situation, picked the ball up and walked back to the tee. Literally her only option was to basically hit it back onto the tee area anyway, all the while bending over double under the tree. We walked away from 8 with double bogey, double bogey, par. OUCH. I do have to say Miss Ciganda recovered nicely and made a real knee knocker 20 footer from off the green for bird on 18 and made the cut on the number. She did go on and shoot like 66 on Sunday to rocket up the leader board for a good tourney overall, but for 30 seconds……. At the end of the day, Miss Feng, (who had my friend Larry the Looper on her bag!) got to me before I could take off from 18, kindly asked me to spell my name, and gave me a ball signed “Thanks for all your work, Gill”. (Perfect English, definitely did not grow up in China) Of all the golf balls I’ve gotten over the years, this is definitely my favorite. You’re class, Miss Feng.
Oh yeah, After my round I sneek over with my free bag lunch and Cokes to 15, under the big Redwoods, out of the light rain, and watch the tourney go by in a quiet place where tourney officials in carts park behind me and fall asleep or play on their phones for an hour. Around 6 pm a real barn burner shower comes through for like 2 minutes and dumps hard. Then it lets up completely and the rain moves off east to the mountains. It really softens up the course and the tee shots into 15 don’t roll off the back anymore. I watched prolly 15-20 groups come through but only counted six birds, two from chips off the green early. The goils couldn’t read the break from my position to the hole at all and I really wanted to yell at them “It breaks right more than you think!!!” But I didn’t and watched everyone calmly miss the putt…..right. I was a bit chilled when I finally left the course at around 7:30pm. But I got home to Vancouver, basically right across the Columbia River from the course, and it hadn’t rained at all at my house. Darn, have to wash my car.
Saturday, August 15
With the cold front moved on, Saturday broke bright and sunny and turned into a great, mild, 80 degree day. Ideal for the goils, really. With TV dictating the time the tourney was to end the LPGA changed up the format and sent 3-somes off both sides to accommodate a 4pm west coast finish. I loved it because that ment I wasn’t off till 8:45am on my early bird first group, but the volunteer I car pooled with panicked and wanted to get there early to get all the correct scores on all the signs so we got there at an ungodly 7am with virtually no one around but us. Ah great, 2 hours of nothing to do for me, so I watched, well, followed commentary, as my Raith Rovers got beat by Falkirk in Scottish Premiere League Soccer to drop from first place in the Championship. Grrrrr, but COYR!!!!!!
The Saturday group re-shuffle brought me a good pairing I was to enjoy, SooBin Kim (again), Giulia Sergas, and Kelly W Shon (why she insists on the “W” I do not know, as if there was another Kelly Shon on tour) BTW if you saw her, you may think Miss Shon is from the far away land of Kim chi across the big water but no, she’s 100 percent American, from New York, and proudly wore her alma matter Princeton hat. She was cheered on for all 18 holes by her 3 member Princeton fan club dressed in Tiger orange and black.
Italian Miss Sergas provided the entertainment of the day, or should I say her caddie and her. Literally 30 seconds before tee time, her female caddie comes running up and digs out her bib from the bib-bin. Comes on over and shakes our hands, and in an Italian accent, “I’m Vic-toooor-ia”. Cool, but alas, she’s wearing a U of Oregon Quacker hat. Ahemmmm….But I digress. Victoria and Giulia provide the comedy of the day as the caddy does NOTHING but carry the clubs and clean the ball at the green. Quite the chuckle seeing Giulia rake her own bunker and get her own divots, and sometimes have to throw her ball entirely across the green to Vic-toooor-ia to clean off. Especially since she’s not playing that great and is almost spitting nails at times. They must be very close friends because even after all the drama out on the course, they were talking civilized to each other at the end of the round. I saw them and they were still a team on Sunday and shot up the leader board with a good 67.
Upon introduction again, SooBin REMEMBERED me. Aside from that fact, I think I found my current favorite player. She shot a very smart 67, birdie-ing 3 of the last four holes. She was followed by a couple from Seattle who befriended her at a Huskies charity event, and has followed her ever since. I talked to them at length after the round and they enthusiastically gave me a lot of background on SooBin I didn’t know and made me a fan. SooBin and her caddie, Jorge, (NO, not George, pronounced Hor-Hey) were super nice to me after the round, signed a Titelist, and wished I was going to be her sign carrier for Sunday because when I carried, she shot in the 60’s (69 and 67) When I didn’t carry, 73 and 71. Yep they needed me just like Austin Ernst did two years ago, Haha.
Speaking of Austin, as I was leaving, she and her caddie brother were on the range warming down, quit near the rope. Now I’m a legend in the sign carry area for having carried for her 62 a couple years ago so I wanted to say hi again for old times. I walked over and told them “good round”, but alas, they both didn’t recognize me. They didn’t have time for chat, so I couldn’t ask them (or jog their memory) if they remembered me, but I’m confident they would have because they did last year. I’m still an Austin Ernst fan and will keep looking for her name in the results in the paper, along, now, with SooBin. I had a giddyup in my step as I left the course, good day.
Sunday, August 16th
Again, TV was ruling the time the tourney got over, so this time the first group got off at 9am. I didn’t get to the course at the crack of dawn, but it was close. We chose 7:30am and I was a bit bushed. I’m usually in shape with all the soccer reffing I do, but I haven’t done a game since Spring and I’m a tad out of shape. But I still made it all four days with a spring in my step after four, five mile rounds. First off the 10th hole meant we were also following the leaders when we came back around to do our back nine. My Sunday group was actually recognizable: J-Y Lee, Anna Nordqvist, and Ryann O’Toole. Fit and svelte Miss O’Toole is an absolute boomer off the tee, sometimes driving it a solid 50 yards farther than the other two. By far the longest hitter I had all tourney. But alas, her length and closing 70 didn’t help her up the leader board at all. You’d think Jelly would be right there with Miss O’Toole, but she, and 6’3” Miss Nordqvist, are only really average length players, anymore. One word summed up Miss Lee’s round, “itstheputting”. Sure, she hit a couple, but she left at least 6 very makeable birds out there, which was the difference between her closing 70 and a super 65 which would have rocketed her up the board deep into the big dough. And it’s very probably the difference in her lack of recent success lately. Putting really is the difference in a good round on the LPGA. Don’t know what the answer is in the difference between making a lot and burning the hole every time, but when they find it, scores go low real fast. If only Jelly could find it.
Now I had who turned out to be a great walking scorer along for Sunday, John Lindqvist, who was super psyched to meet Anna, as both were from Sveee-den with last names like that. Could talk of nothing else for the first 10 minutes we were waiting. Anna came up and shook John’s hand first and then, while John was explaining how excited he was to meet her as they were both sweeedish, Anna immediately turned and introduced herself to me. Can you say awkward? For an instant I didn’t know what to do with Anna’s hand out to me and John talking. John kind of stammered for an instant and I quickly shook hands and intro’ed myself. Anna then saved the day and turned back to John and finished the quick chat. John really got his wish as after the round, Anna’s caddie personally took a picture of John and Anna together for John. Like I said, John was a great guy to walk with, very knowledgeable and personable. Had a great last round walking the course and his company was the cherry on top. Oh, the group shot 70, 70, and 71 (for Miss Nordqvist). Not a bad day at the office, but all under par and I’ll take that.
The day was also a “story of two 9’s” as when we were out on the front nine, we went zipping around in 2 hours and when we got to the back nine, and immediately had to play in back of the slow leaders , we had to wait for every shot for the first 4 holes, and a looong wait at 5 and 7 took the second nine to a dragging 3 hours. I later watch the conclusion of the tourney from my quiet place by hole 15 and when the last group came by, they were at least 2 groups out of position. No wonder our second nine took an hour longer than our first.
A couple more things and I’ll quit:
All the rage this year on the LPGA I’ve noticed, is the “straddle the line” putting technique. I’ve never even seen it before and I bet 85 percent of all the players were doing it. Yes, even Jelly. Funny to watch everyone get over their line and rock back and forth. WTHeck?!?!? Finally John explained it to me. Must have really helped someone in the past because it’s caught on like wildfire on the LPGA. Miss Feng did the most rocking of all I saw. Just when you thought you’ve seen everything……
The snack tents were super sparse this year with only a basket full of banana’s and some apples when you finally came to one. They did supplement them on the weekend with FiberOne bars, Yummmm. But anyway, as I was passing the tent on the 10th tee, I noticed a basket of big buttons for the tour players. I thought they were Austin Ernst buttons for her defending champion status, and I wanted to get one and get it autographed, because I never got an autograph from her after the 62 because the LPGA whisked her away right after her round and she didn’t get a chance to greet us low on the pole sign carriers. That’s why I only got to meet her brother caddie, but that was cool, too. So anyway, at the turn on Friday I stopped at the tent and asked if I could have a button. Sure, no problem. They still had at least 25 left and all the players and caddies had taken their share. But lo and behold they were buttons commemorating the passing of LPGA legend Louise Suggs. It was super cool and I’m definitely keeping it. I’m prolly the only non-player / caddie who got one. Sorry, no e-bay for this token, everyone. Sad note, but a good gesture on the LPGA’s part.
Miss Henderson really was the talk of this tourney and it’s a crying shame that the tourney didn’t do a better job of advertising itself here in the Portland area. People missed out on a good chance to see a rising star before she takes off. Look out Vancouver, BC this weekend for your homegrown girl.
Till next year and remember you heard it here first, SooBin Kim is a great ex-Huskie player on the way up.
-ol’68
SooBin Kim on the 13th tee
Jane “SeRi Legs” Rah
Miss Ryu in the practice bunker
Defending Champ Austin Ernst
Jelly out of the bunker to 3 feet at 1, yep, saved par
Flasher at 6 trying to distract Miss Feng, also my friend Larry the Looper
Sunday group putting on the par 5 12th
Rain from my cozy vantage on 15
RIP Louise Suggs
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If you need me PM me. See everyone next year.