The Week: Women's Movement

As a thriller in Phoenix made clear, the LPGA is golf's hottest tour

By Alan Shipnuck

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When the 2002 LPGA season ended last November, Annika Sorenstam was merely the best player on tour. Now she's a star. Sorenstam made her season's debut at last week's Safeway Ping in Phoenix, and she felt an electricity there unlike any she had experienced in her nine previous years. "There's a different buzz," she says.

Sorenstam's gender-bending decision to take on the boys at the PGA Tour's Colonial, in May, has done more for her Q rating than all of her 42 victories put together, but she is only part of the success story of the women's tour. The perennial hand-wringing about what's wrong with the LPGA has been swept away by the realization that almost overnight it has become the coolest tour in golf. Flush with exciting young talent and sizzling rivalries, propelled by a low-fat schedule that this week delivers the season's first major -- already! -- the LPGA, in its 53rd season, is enjoying its best buzz since the Nancy Lopez-Jan Stephenson era. Even the tour's scandal du jour is harmless fun. In an era when The Bachelorette is must-see TV, LPGA commissioner Ty Votaw's romance with tour veteran Sophie Gustafson just makes for more hot copy.

The Safeway Ping was a showcase for all that is right with the LPGA. Sorenstam was, for three days, her usual brilliant self, opening 67-66-65 to forge a two-stroke lead heading into the final round. But unlike the PGA Tour's best player, the LPGA's top gun faces fierce, fearless competition when leading on Sunday. Tied for third, three strokes back, were Karrie Webb and Se Ri Pak. Since 1998 Webb has won six majors and Pak has taken four -- while Sorenstam has bagged only two in the same span. This time it was Pak who made a charge, making two eagles on the front nine, including a four-iron from 225 yards to a foot and a half on the par-5 4th hole, and shooting a six-under 30 to surge into the lead.

Sorenstam, uncharacteristically, showed little fight, shooting a 71 to tie for third, and leaving the LPGA's glamour-girl-in-waiting, Grace Park, to chase Pak. Park, 24, calls to mind Nancy Lopez's description of the LPGA's dream ambassador -- one who looks like a woman but plays like a man. Park was dazzling down the stretch, birdieing six of the final 10 holes to shoot 65, but she came up a stroke short, thanks to an epic finishing kick by Pak. All Pak did was spin a wedge to two feet on the 16th hole for a tap-in birdie, hole a 40-foot putt to save par on 17 after driving into a hazard, and then stick another wedge to three feet at 18 for one last birdie in a tidy round of 64.

For Pak, 25, it was her 19th LPGA victory. The only tournament missing from her résumé is the Kraft Nabisco Championship, which kicks off this week, and a win would push Pak closer to her ultimate goal: "To be Number 1," she said on Sunday. Sorenstam, as usual, is standing in the way. She will be gunning for her third straight triumph at the Nabisco, and a three-peat could herald the kind of dominance in the majors that she craves. "Colonial is one week," Sorenstam says when pressed on whether her focus has strayed with all the hullabaloo surrounding her upcoming cameo on the PGA Tour. "I'm going to play 20, 22 events on the LPGA, and that's where I want to set all my new records. The Colonial is only a step toward that."

Yes, that's how sweet life is on the LGPA these days -- the PGA Tour is now just a warmup act.

O.B.