LPGA INVITATIONAL : DONNA WHITE : Her Record-Tying Round Sunday Couldn’t Make Up for Thursday’s 80

In her own way, 3-year-old Kristin Paige White is Donna White’s best fan.

“She didn’t know if I shot 80 Thursday or 66 today,” White said. “I’m still mommy to her.”

Kristin wasn’t even impressed Sunday when her mother was summoned to the Uniden Invitational press tent to talk about her round that equaled the Mesa Verde women’s course record set by Nancy Lopez a year ago.

Twice Kristin stretched up to whisper in her mother’s ear. The second time the interview was abruptly interrupted for a visit to the ladies’ room.

“At least she told me before it was too late,” White said.

Kristin and White’s mother tag along on the tour while husband Mike, a teacher and coach, is at home in Florida until joining the group in summer.

“She’s a well-disciplined kid,” White said. “She’s probably been good for me. I’ve played better since I had her than I ever played, the best golf of my career these last three years.”

A career highlight was White’s six-under-par 66 Sunday. If she hadn’t opened the $330,000 tournament with an 80 Thursday, she might have been in position to win the top money instead of settling for fifth place and $14,025.

“It’s been a strange week,” White said, and Sunday was a strange round.

Starting the day 12 strokes behind leader and ultimate winner Bonnie Lauer, White chipped in from 40 yards to open with an eagle three on the first hole, then ran off a mixture of seven birdies, three bogeys and seven pars.

“Even to shoot under par on this course ... this is one of my favorite courses, a tough course,” White said. “I categorize it like a U.S. Open course. The greens are very tricky, particularly the last few holes. It’s long. To shoot 66 here is like shooting maybe 62 on another course.

“The scores have indicated it. Of course, Bonnie is going like crazy out there.”

As White spoke, Lauer was still on the course, playing about five holes behind., head to head with her nearest remaining rival, Alice Miller.

Most golf tournaments are played in a fourth dimension, with contenders calculated by their score against par, regardless of where they are on the course. For a while Sunday, White was playing better than anyone, although hardly anyone had noticed except a gallery of a few dozen.

On the front nine Lauer had improved her score by only one stroke to go eight under par, and when White dropped a 15-foot birdie putt on the 14th hole she was seven under and had chipped the original margin in half to six.

“I really wasn’t looking at the leader board,” White said. “I just kept trying to get red numbers (indicating strokes below par on the leader boards), pick up a shot here and there. I was so into my own game I wasn’t thinking about the lead.”

But she was thinking about the record after using only 32 strokes through the first nine holes.

“Walking off nine I was thinking, ‘I wonder what the course record is.’ I mean, after shooting 80 on the first day, I was just trying to bring myself back up.

“I started out 130th on Thursday. I knew I had to shoot 72 or better on Friday to make the cut. I did that (71) and it gave me confidence. I’ve never had to think about the cut that much.”

Lauer and White each shot 207 over the last 54 holes. The 10-stroke difference in their total scores was all on Thursday when there was a morning drizzle.

White: “Believe it or not, I played when it was perfect, so that 80 looked even worse.”

White, 30, is only 5-2 but one of the longer drivers on the tour, and she plays most of her shots and putts with a minimum of agonizing.

“That’s one of my negative things,” she said. “I play fast, even when I’m not in contention. I rushed a few putts.”

That may have hurt her on 15 when she missed an eight-footer for a birdie on the low side, then on 16 when she three-putted for a bogey from 20 feet.

“I was trying to show down,” she said. “I don’t take any time over the ball. I think it’s silly to. I prepare myself before I get over the ball. I don’t like to waste any time.”

But the way Lauer was playing, nobody was going to catch her, anyway.

White, who has won three tournaments in eight years, saved her day and a share of the record by sinking a delicate 25-foot putt for a birdie two on the last hole, to the delight of the hillside gallery. She leaped into the air as if she had won the tournament.

By then, of course, she was relaxed.

“I’m not real tense,” she said. “I’m more anxious. When you start pressing to win, it doesn’t happen.”