LPGA return prompts smiles for Sorenstam
Annika Sorenstam doesn’t remember golf being this difficult.
The Hall of Famer managed plenty of smiles Thursday when the most dominant player of her era played her first LPGA Tour event in more than 12 years. With one birdie and one triplebogey, Sorenstam had a 3overpar 75 in the LPGA Gainbridge on her home course at Lake Nona near Orlando.
“It seems a little bit more stressful, this kind of golf,” said Sorenstam, who won 72 LPGA events, including 10 majors, from 19942008.
Sorenstam was 10 shots behind another Lake Nona member, Lydia Ko, who opened with a 7under 65 for a twoshot lead.
But then, this week isn’t about Sorenstam winning or even starting a comeback at age 50. The LPGA Tour came to her home course and she wanted to play. She did it for fun.
“I could have been more aggressive on the putts, I could have been more aggressive on iron shots,” she said. “I’m at a point in my life that it’s not automatic. It’s not a pinseeker the way it was. Now it’s more a greenseeker. I did OK. A little more stressful golf, but overall, it’s fun.”
⏩ Webb Simpson ran off three straight late birdies to share of the lead with Matthew Fitzpatrick at 6under 66 in the World Golf Championships’ Workday Championship in Bradenton, Fla.
Brooks Koepka was a stroke out of the lead at 67 with Billy Horschel, Sergio Garcia and Kevin Kisner.
Secondranked Jon Rahm bogeyed the final hole late in the afternoon for a 68. Tony Finau, coming off a playoff loss Sunday to Max Homa in Los Angeles, also was at 68 with defending champion Patrick Reed, Wade Ormsby, Sungjae Im and Cameron Smith. Rory McIlroy had three bogeys in a 69.
Those who struggled included Homa, a Cal alum, at 73. World No. 1 Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Bubba Watson each shot 77, while Matthew Wolff shot an 83 and withdrew.
⏩ Tommy Gainey, 45, birdied five of the last seven holes at breezy Grand Reserve in Rio Grande for a 7under 65 and the firstround lead in the PGA Tour’s Puerto Rico Open.
Obituary: Bill Wright, the first Black competitor to win a USGA event in an era when African Americans were not welcome either in segregated country clubs or in the top amateur and professional ranks, died on Feb. 19 at his home in Los Angeles at age 84.
Wright was attending the Western Washington College of Education (now Western Washington University) in 1959 when he won the USGA Amateur Public Links Championship in Denver.
A Black man did not win a PGA Tour event until 1964, when Pete Brown finished first at the Waco Turner Open in Texas. The next two African American winners of USGA tournaments were Alton Duhon (the 1982 U.S. Senior Amateur) and Tiger Woods (the 1991 to 1993 U.S. Junior Amateurs).
NFL: The Denver Broncos released defensive tackle Jurrell Casey, freeing up about $12 million in salary cap space.
Soccer: The MLS lost a marquee name when Thierry Henry resigned as head coach of Montreal after one season to return to London.