Golfing Go-Getters : Inkster, Zimmerman Both Went to Great Lengths to Improve--and It Worked

Competition among women golf professionals is getting so intense that some of them are resorting to unusual methods in an attempt to gain an edge.

Juli Inkster, 1984 LPGA rookie of the year, lives in Los Altos, near San Jose, where her husband, Brian, teaches golf. But Juli travels to London to take lessons from Leslie King, a 75-year-old teacher.

Mary Beth Zimmerman, who earned nearly $90,000 in her second year on the LPGA tour, attended a mental training program at Sports Enhancement, Inc., in Eugene, Ore., last June to change her outlook on the game.

Apparently, both methods paid off.

Inkster won last week’s Women’s Kemper Open in Hawaii with a 276, 12 under par. Zimmerman won the previous two tournaments, the Samaritan Turquoise in Phoenix and the Uniden Invitational in Costa Mesa, where she birdied the last three holes to edge Pat Bradley and Laura Baugh by a stroke.

Both are 25-year-old college graduates, Inkster from San Jose State and Zimmerman from Florida International, and both are among the favorites in the $250,000 GNA/Glendale Federal tournament beginning today at the Oakmont Country Club in Glendale.

And both are off to their best starts since joining the tour together from the qualifying class of August, 1983.

“I feel like every time I tee it up, I’ll be in contention,” a confident Inkster said. “I didn’t hit the ball well last year but over the winter I worked hard. I worked a lot of hours on my swing and I feel comfortable hitting the ball.

“I’ve been working with Leslie King’s method for nearly eight years and I’m just beginning to feel like I’m doing what he wants me to do. Last year, I hit a lot of topped balls. This year, I’m hitting them solid. I’m hitting the ball longer, at least a club, maybe a club and a half longer.”

Brian Inkster was an assistant pro at Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz in 1976 when Juli Simpson, then 16, was one of his students. They were married in 1980 and during their honeymoon Juli won the first of her three consecutive U.S. Amateur championships.

“While Brian was at Pasatiempo, he was advised to look up Leslie King if he ever got to London,” Juli said. “Ever since he met him, I’ve been following his methods.

“Lots of pros can see what you’re doing wrong, but they don’t know how to correct it. Leslie has a terrific eye for discovering what you need to do to change what you’re doing wrong. His method relies on rhythm and timing.”

Inkster, a tall woman, has a long, fluid swing that enables her to hit the ball much longer than most of her opponents. Her biggest problem has been trying to live up to expectations--hers and her friends’.

When you have won three U.S. Amateurs and the California Amateur, then turn pro and win your fifth pro tournament, expectations are high.

Then, when you win two LPGA majors--the Dinah Shore and du Maurier Classic--in your rookie year, expectations get even higher.

“Even though I won a tournament (the Lady Keystone Open) last year, I didn’t have a good year,” she said. “It really began to bug me. The more I heard, ‘Why aren’t you playing well?’ the more pressure I put on myself until I felt like I was going to explode.”

Husband Brian came to the rescue.

“Brian convinced me that I had to go back to having fun, to enjoying myself on the course. He said, ‘If you’re not going to enjoy yourself, come on home.’ This year I’ve having fun again.”

Coincidentally, one of Zimmerman’s reasons for taking time off from the tour to attend Sports Enhancement was because she wasn’t enjoying herself, either.

“It used to be, if I made a double bogey, it would ruin my whole game,” Zimmerman said. “I was a tense person, holding everything inside.

“I was in a clinic with D.A. Weibring and Peter Jacobsen last year and when they told me about the course in Eugene, I enrolled in it. They taught me how to relax and enjoy myself, not to get upset when things go wrong, but to keep calm and go about the next shot as if nothing happened. It has helped me quite a bit.

“The program doesn’t deal with the physical aspects of the game. It deals with what goes on between the ears.”

Zimmerman had not won before this season, but she had served warning in one spectacular streak three weeks after ending her rookie year when she made eight birdies in a row in the Rail Charity tournament in Springfield, Ill. That broke Carol Mann’s nine-year LPGA record of seven.

Unlike the busy Inkster, however, Zimmerman did little but rest during the brief off-season.

“There isn’t much else to do when you live in Illinois and there’s snow on the ground,” she said.

At 5 feet 4 inches and 115 pounds, Zimmerman is one of the smallest players at Oakmont this week, but her fellow players know enough to expect big things from her.

Zimmerman was 10 under par in winning her first LPGA event last month in Phoenix on the relatively easy Arizona Biltmore course. A week later, she came out of the pack to steal the Uniden from Baugh and Bradley over the tough Mesa Verde layout.

“The first win is always the sweetest, but I will always remember the Uniden because I have always dreamed of making a putt to win on the last hole,” she said.

“Laura (Baugh) had a five-stroke lead on me with five holes to play and I was playing for second money when she made a bogey and Tom (caddie Tom Thorpe) said to me, ‘You know, we’re still in this thing.’

“On No. 18, when the three of us were all even, I hit the best shot of my life, a 3-iron that landed about five feet from the hole.”

Zimmerman made the putt. She had sunk one of 20 feet from the fringe on No. 16 and another from 25 feet on No. 17.

“I like this course (Oakmont) because it’s tough, a lot like Mesa Verde,” Zimmerman said. “I’m better on tough courses. I don’t shoot 65s and 66s. I am more consistent, around 70, which is why I like them tougher.

“In the end, though, it will come down to the putting, and this is a tough putting course. Everyone says that the putts break toward something, but what is it? I hope I have it figured out by Thursday.”

She apparently learned how on Wednesday as she led her pro-am team to a 12-under-par 60 despite a rainy morning.

That was only one stroke back of the winners. Teams led by Becky Pearson, Laurie Rinker and Beth Solomon all tied at 59, 13 under par.