LPGA Gainbridge

[Phil Burr]

Who else is excited to see this week’s LPGA event?  Annika making an appearance?  As a former LPGA caddie this is must-see TV for me!  Plus, Lake Nona always looked to be just a cut above so many of Fazio’s ubiquitous FLA designs.  I’m looking forward to seeing it and hope the camera work doesn’t follow the all too common approach to women’s golf of failing to actually show the course.

[Peter Pallotta]

Phil -
just to say, in a thread like this I'd much rather hear from *you* than from just about anyone else. So I hope that, as the tournament is being played, you keep this thread going, single-handedly if necessary.

Sure, others can and might post, and some of their opinions will be interesting and others not so interesting. But best of all would be your sharing of what you see and what strikes you as noteworthy -- whether about the course or any of the players or key/great shots etc etc.

As a former LPGA tour caddie, I think it's *your* insights and analysis into the game at that level (eg how Annika is engaging with the architecture, how the short or long hitters are playing it, the short game challenges etc etc) that would be most fascinating.

In short: it's nice of you to be asking us mutt-heads for our thoughts, but you can trust that your thoughts on this will be much better!

[JMEvensky]

What Peter said--we don't get much LPGA inside baseball.

[Joe Bausch]

My last visit to Lake Nona was in 2008 and I was toting my camera:

http://www80.homepage.villanova.edu/joseph.bausch/images/albums/LakeNona/index.html

[Phil Burr]

JMEvensky,


You are correct in that we get precious little female insight into our conversations.  I realize we are an architecture discussion group, but we certainly wander away from that topic.  One thing I've never seen discussed is the greatness of Annika Sorenstam.  Playing in an era that overlapped with Tiger Woods, her dominance was every bit as formidable, yet went largely unnoticed.  Comparing their records during their primes (TW 1996-2013; 1994-2008 AS) and excluding seasons curtailed by injury (2010-11 TW; 2007 AS) from 1996 (Tiger's rookie season) to 2008 (Annika's final year), the similarities are striking:


Event entered: TW 276; AS 307
Cuts made: TW 267 (96.7%); AS 298 (97.1%)
Wins: TW 79 (28.6%); AS 72 (23.5%)
Top 10s: TW 181 (65.6%); AS 212 (69.1%)


36 of Tiger's entries and 18 wins were no-cut WGC events, but excluding those events has little statistical impact on the figures.  While the LPGA has a number of limited field events with no cut, researching every one would be overly exhaustive.


Another interesting perspective on Annika's greatness comes from the question "what if she played for the same prize money as Tiger?".  If you take the average first place check from each of Tiger's wins from their overlap years of 1996-2008 and award that sum to Annika, her prize money during that period would have been $63,404,975 vs. the actual $57,45,015 he pocketed from his wins.  It's also noteworthy that during those overlap years Annika amassed all 72 of her LPGA wins, while Tiger won 65 events in the same span.


Now you know why I am excited about Annika's entry into this week's LPGA event and why I'm hoping she'll play the Senior Women's Open this summer.  Tiger and Annika dominated their sports for more than a decade, establishing a level of greatness in an individual sport that has only been since approached (or in my opinion, exceeded - but that's another discussion) by Mikaela Shiffrin.

[Mike Sweeney]

Phil,


Thanks for posting. Annika had a tough day yesterday with a 79, and I will watch today as I am guessing the "old fire" will kick in.


The money stats are very interesting. Would Annika have had "off course issues" if she had won that amount of money? Who knows, but money often brings new problems. Annika certainly deserves a watch on a rainy day.


I never got to either Lake Nona or The Concession in our old Central Florida days. The Concession looks more interesting, but Lake Nona looks more playable from afar...

[JMEvensky]

Phil Burr, thanks for that. A TW/AS comparison would be interesting. But you'll never convince me Mickey Wright isn't the GOAT  .


Going a little further, couldn't you also compare/contrast Karrie Webb with AS as you might compare/contrast Phil Mickelson with TW? Seems like that entire 4-some has a lot of similarities. I've always thought PM "inspired" TW and the same dynamic was in play for AS/KW.


Maybe Mike Clayton will see this thread and chime in. He's also spent some time caddying on the LPGAT. Any time he offers opinions on professional golfers, any tour, it's a valuable read.

[Craig Sweet]

Women play golf so why is there so little talk about course design and the "women's game"?

[Daniel Jones]

I live just around the corner and ride my bike past the Lake Nona entrance a couple times a week. If you didn't know the tournament was going on already, you'd have no idea from driving by. No signs, no.. anything. Looks like any other week.

[Terry Lavin]

I’ve played it a few times. Fun, challenging and great pace of play. Once we were playing cartball as a foursome, with five guys, each in his own cart, all ready to strike their ball as soon as we got out of their way. It was Lou Holtz and four other members. Probably played in 3:15.

[Phil Burr]

I’m not trying to make an argument for AS over Mickey Wright as GOAT, just as I wouldn’t try to make one for Tiger over Jack.  To be fair, MW dominated a tour that had a relatively shallow talent pool.  Kathy Whitworth, Betsy Rawls, Louise Suggs, and a handful of younger up & coming future HOFers, but still nowhere near the depth over which Annika was so dominant.  The KW aspect is an interesting component of Annika’s career.  Maybe the combination of KW for the first 2/3 of Annika’s reign followed by Lorena for the rest of it would be a better comp. AS & TW have nearly double the wins of Karrie & Phil, respectively, and in TW’s case 3x the majors.  And just as the AS comp might be Karrie + Lorena, the TW comp might be Phil + Vijay.


Mickey and Jack probably get the nods (mine included) for GOATs in their respective games.  Perhaps the fact that neither was as statistically dominant (in terms of winning) as AS and TW speaks to the shallower talent pool in gold’s earlier days.  Whitworth, Rawls & Suggs, along with Arnold Palmer and Billy Casper, all compiled enormous win totals even when their GOAT was in full glory.  They left precious little for the rest of their tours.

[Terry Lavin]

I’m not trying to make an argument for AS over Mickey Wright as GOAT, just as I wouldn’t try to make one for Tiger over Jack.  To be fair, MW dominated a tour that had a relatively shallow talent pool.  Kathy Whitworth, Betsy Rawls, Louise Suggs, and a handful of younger up & coming future HOFers, but still nowhere near the depth over which Annika was so dominant.  The KW aspect is an interesting component of Annika’s career.  Maybe the combination of KW for the first 2/3 of Annika’s reign followed by Lorena for the rest of it would be a better comp. AS & TW have nearly double the wins of Karrie & Phil, respectively, and in TW’s case 3x the majors.  And just as the AS comp might be Karrie + Lorena, the TW comp might be Phil + Vijay.


Mickey and Jack probably get the nods (mine included) for GOATs in their respective games.  Perhaps the fact that neither was as statistically dominant (in terms of winning) as AS and TW speaks to the shallower talent pool in gold’s earlier days.  Whitworth, Rawls & Suggs, along with Arnold Palmer and Billy Casper, all compiled enormous win totals even when their GOAT was in full glory.  They left precious little for the rest of their tours.

I used to play Louise Suggs persimmon woods, back in the proverbial day. What a player!  And I loved the clubs, too, until technology helped my lame game.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I’m not trying to make an argument for AS over Mickey Wright as GOAT, just as I wouldn’t try to make one for Tiger over Jack.  To be fair, MW dominated a tour that had a relatively shallow talent pool.  Kathy Whitworth, Betsy Rawls, Louise Suggs, and a handful of younger up & coming future HOFers, but still nowhere near the depth over which Annika was so dominant.

The LPGA Tour is still much weaker, even relatively, than the PGA Tour. The fact that Annika could make the cut after not playing much for 13 years speaks to that.

Tiger beat much stronger fields than Jack, and Annika much stronger fields than MW. They are both the clear GOATs to me.

[David_Tepper]

"I used to play Louise Suggs persimmon woods"

Terry L. -

Back in the 1980's (when vintage persimmon woods were hot items), I inherited a Louis Suggs Macgregor persimmon driver that I had re-finished, with a men's shaft installed. I received a lot of compliments about that club until it was made redundant by "Pittsburgh persimmon."

DT 

[Terry Lavin]

"I used to play Louise Suggs persimmon woods"

Terry L. -

Back in the 1980's (when vintage persimmon woods were hot items), I inherited a Louis Suggs Macgregor persimmon driver that I had re-finished, with a men's shaft installed. I received a lot of compliments about that club until it was made redundant by "Pittsburgh persimmon."

DT

Oh, the persimmon perfectionists, may they rest in piece...

[Joe Bausch]

"I used to play Louise Suggs persimmon woods"

Terry L. -

Back in the 1980's (when vintage persimmon woods were hot items), I inherited a Louis Suggs Macgregor persimmon driver that I had re-finished, with a men's shaft installed. I received a lot of compliments about that club until it was made redundant by "Pittsburgh persimmon."

DT

Oh, the persimmon perfectionists, may they rest in piece...

I see what you did there, Judge!