Longest break in Tour history ends
Ladies finally tee it up at storied Inverness
TOLEDO, Ohio — As the sun rose high Friday over Inverness Club, Lindy Duncan stepped to the first tee.
The crowd near the tee box was sparse because of safety measures due to the coronavirus pandemic and because the 54-hole LPGA Drive On Championship is being played without fans in attendance due to the coronavirus pandemic.
It didn’t matter. Nerves were still present.
And with one swing — thwack! — the LPGA Tour was off and running.
One-hundred-sixty-six days passed between Inbee Park’s par putt on the 72nd hole of the Australian Open in February and Duncan’s tee shot, the longest stoppage of play in LPGA history.
A few hours later, all the talk shifted to the golf course, a world-class Donald Ross design that’s part of the sport’s lore. On Friday, Danielle Kang took a bite out of mighty Inverness with a sterling bogeyfree 6-under 66.
Perhaps a six-month layoff served the fourth-ranked player well.
“I just didn’t have any hiccups on any part of the game,” Kang said. “I definitely miss-hit some shots, miss-hit some putts, but I had some great iron shots, great tee shots, and great putts and chips. Any time one part of my game kind of gave me a tough shot, I made it up with a good save.”
Kang hit 15 of 18 greens and had two sand saves. Her 27 putts were the fifth least.
She leads Jodi Ewart Shadoff by one, Lee-Anne Pace and Celine Boutier are 4 under, and a resurgent Lydia Ko, Minjee Lee, and Amy Olson are 3 under.
“I hit the ball fairly well,” said Ko, the former No. 1 player in the world. “I think I missed a couple here and there, but other than that, I thought I gave myself quite a few looks for birdies that I actually wasn’t able to take advantage of. Hopefully, I’ll be able to continue doing that. The greens are pretty tricky. They’re undulating, so if you’re on one wrong side or a difficult side, it’s actually quite a tough two-putt. Throughout the week, it’s only going to get firmer and drier.”
The Drive On Championship is just the second LPGA event to take place at Inverness and first since 1954, when Hall of
Famer Betsy Rawls and partner Betty MacKinnon won the 1954 Inverness Invitational, a four-ball event.
The best player in the current field struggled, as No. 2-ranked Nelly Korda crashed to a 4-over 76, bogeying five holes and carding one double bogey. She only hit eight fairways and 12 greens. And her short game didn’t bail her out, going 1 for 3 on sand saves and taking 34 putts, tied for 115th in the 132-player field.
“Inverness is so difficult,” Ewart Shadoff said. “You really have to be accurate off the tee, and obviously the greens are tiny.”
Across the country — 2,173 miles to be exact — is the PGA Tour’s Barracuda Championship, where Maverick McNealy, Kang’s boyfriend, is tied for third entering the weekend. The duo is two good rounds of golf away from an historic pair of wins.
“Just go with the flow,” Kang said.
O captain! My captain!
How excited was Angela Stanford to restart the LPGA season?
Enough so that she forgot her golf clubs. Stanford, who lives in Saginaw, Texas, drove to Toledo for the two-week stint. But when the 2021 assistant United States Solheim Cup captain was 15 minutes down the road, she realized there was precious cargo missing from her car — a golf bag filled with 14 clubs.
The 17-hour trip was extended by a few minutes. The morning after arriving in Toledo, she had a flat tire.
“I’m like, ‘OK, is this supposed to be an analogy? What is going on here?’” said Stanford, who shot a 2-over 74. “I feel like a rookie. This is my 20th year, and it was supposed to be smooth sailing.”
The round Friday didn’t give her much time to look around and imagine potential pin placements or teeing locations for next Labor Day. But she will return Tuesday for a Marathon Classic pro-am, which will give her an opportunity to gather a full scoring report.
Hole of the day
The par-5 second hole was the easiest on the course — by far, playing more than a half-stroke under par. There were two eagles, 68 birdies, and only five bogeys. Not only was it playing short at 476 yards, it was straight downwind, creating perfect scoring opportunities. Lee was the only player among the seven-person top five who didn’t birdie the hole.