Olympic golf inspires Webb’s game
Hall- of- Fame player says return of the event in 2016 gives her a long- term goal
Karrie Webb isn’t old. Lydia Ko just makes her seem that way. As Ko, a 15- year- old amateur from New Zealand, took a share of the halfway lead at the CN Canadian Open, Webb soldiered through a ragged back nine to make her 40th consecutive cut on the LPGA Tour.
The Hall- of- Fame golfer from Australia emerged from the scoring tent to discover only a single newspaperman waiting, which would have been one too many a decade ago when Webb was sometimes brusque with the press and generally just wanted to be left alone.
With most of the reporters in the media centre Friday afternoon, hanging on every word from a teenager after Ko posted eight- under- par through 36 holes at Vancouver Golf Club, Webb talked candidly about her past and future in golf.
“It seems to get younger and younger every year,” Webb, even par going into the weekend, said of professional golf. “Nothing surprises me any more.
“I don’t feel old, but then you think that Lydia Ko wasn’t born when I started playing professionally. That sounds really bad. Some of the younger players give me a hard time and make me think I am old, but at 37 there’s a lot of golf left.”
Yes, Karrie Webb is still only 37. It only seems she has been around forever.
She was just 21 when she exploded upon LPGA in 1996, respectfully waiting until her second tournament to win before taking player- of- theyear honours as a rookie and becoming the first woman to surpass $ 1 million in annual earnings.
The 1999 du Maurier Classic — the Canadian Open in a previous lifetime — was Webb’s first major win. She has won six others, 38 LPGA titles in all and her $ 17.1 million in career earnings are second all- time among women to retired Swede Annika Sorenstam.
For context, Webb has more wins than Betsy King, Beth Daniel, Pat Bradley and Juli Inkster. All this by age 37. Most of it was by 31 as Webb’s last major victory was in 2006 and her last Tour win 17 months ago. She met the win criteria for the World Golf Hall of Fame by age 25, but had to wait until 2005 to satisfy the 10- season-minimum rule.
Although Webb was never far off her sport’s radar in the years since, she was eclipsed by the LPGA’s Asian invasion, Mexican Lorena Ochoa, a new generation of talented American girls- next- door, Michelle’s Wie’s marketing machine and all things Annika.
So at times, if you weren’t PVRing LPGA events, you might have thought Webb was semi- retired. Instead, Webb was merely waiting to be re- inspired.
The International Olympic Committee’s announcement three years ago that golf would return to the Summer Games in 2016 – ending more than a century without Olympic golf – turned up a fire in Webb that had waned.
“I think it gave me a long- distance goal,” she explained Friday. “It gave me something to shoot for. Achieving what I did at such a young age, I found it was hard to set any goals that were really life- changing for me. But being in the Olympics is an experience I never thought I’d get. And I’m probably only going to get one shot at it; I’d like to have that opportunity.
“The first Olympics I remember watching was Moscow [ in 1980]. It was winter in Australia and – not that it gets cold where I’m from – I still remember watching with my mum and dad huddled around the little heater, a blanket on early in the morning, watching. I’ve always loved the Olympics.”
Webb, who was second last month at the Evian Masters in France and has 10 top- 25 finishes in 14 events this year, said she can’t see herself playing beyond the 2016 Games in Brazil, although she won’t make any career decisions before then.
“I don’t want to be out here just to make up the numbers,” she said. “I am still fairly hard on myself. But I have to say, I’m not so hard on myself as I used to be because it’s just too tiring to be that way. I still work hard and I still expect that hard work to pay off.
“I measure myself by how many opportunities I give myself to win. Back in the day ... I took advantage of nearly all of them. I’ve learned that winning golf tournaments isn’t as easy as I was making it look for a little while. Now, it’s more about enjoying the process that gets you into contention, then enjoying being in contention and hopefully pulling off a couple of wins.
“I don’t think I enjoyed how I played 10 years ago as much as I should have. But the thing with golf is you’re only as good as your last round, and I moved on pretty quickly after a win. I probably didn’t enjoy those wins as much as I should have. On the other hand, I didn’t just settle on a win. I was hungry for more.”
She still is.