Sorenstam in Trouble With First-Round 77

It used to be a staple scene in melodramas: a down-and-out guy standing on a cliff, looking at a skyline, shaking his fist and yelling, “Damn you, New York,” or “L.A.,” or “Chicago,” or “[your town here],” “I’ll whip you yet.”

By and large, those films now go unmade and unmourned, but if they ever want a ‘90s retro version, Annika Sorenstam might be ready to play the part.

She figuratively shook her fist at the sky at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Cluband declared, “I know how to play this golf course, and I’m not going to leave here until I beat it.”

If she has another round resembling the six-over-par 77 she chopped out Thursday, and she might go from seeking her third consecutive U.S. Women’s Open victory to seeking her way back to Lake Tahoe two days earlier than planned.

OK, insisted Sorenstam: “If I have to come back, then I’ll do that. I know how to play it.”

She didn’t seem to know it as well as “The Other Swede,” Liselotte Neumann, who won the Open in 1988, but who has been overshadowed by her countrywoman the past three years.

Playing conservatively, Neumann solved the Witch Hollow Course at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club late in the day with a four-under-par 67 that included four birdies and some smart play on the undulating greens.

Kelly Robbins, Susie Redman, Se Re Pak and Deb Richard--all of whom fashioned three-under 68s--are a shot behind, but one shot better than Trish Johnson, who double-bogeyed the 18th hole; Nancy Lopez, Lorie Kane and Muffin Spencer-Devlin.

Robbins, fresh off a victory in the Maxwell Q. Klinger, er, Jamie Farr tournament in which she shot an LPGA-record 265, continued her hot play with four birdies and a lone bogey, suffered when she three-putted the par-three 15th hole from 50 feet.

“After what I did last week, you come in with a lot of confidence,” she said, and then reality set in. “You’re anxious to see how your game is going to react coming off a good win. . . . but I’m just kind of riding this train out. . . . and I would love to see it continue for a few more days.”

Where Robbins struggled on the 15th, Redman, who has never won on the LPGA Tour in her 13-year career, got her game going by getting a hole-in-one with the six-iron proffered by her caddie and husband, Bo.

After being hit by a hard six-iron, her ball hopped six feet short of the hole, hopped again and rolled in.

“I’ve never had a hole-in-one, so I didn’t know how to react,” she said.

Sorenstam had trouble reacting to a front-side 41 that included a triple-bogey seven on the ninth hole.

So did everybody else.

“I saw her posted at five-over when I got to the golf course, and I said, ‘Oooooh,’ ” said Richard, who bogeyed the first hole and spread four birdies among the other 17.

Sorenstam wasn’t sure what to think.

“I was a little confused,” she said. “I didn’t know what was happening. As far as I can remember, the last three or four years, I haven’t been five over par after nine holes.

“It’s like, ‘Where am I and what am I doing? How do I get out of this? Take me away from here.’ ”

How she got there was by spending more time in the front-side sand than Karch Kiraly. Bogeys resulted from bunker shots on Nos. 1, 4 and 7 but they were offset by a birdie on the par-three fifth hole--where she finally found grass--and by a sand save on No. 8.

And then came No. 9.

It started poorly, with a drive into a fairway bunker, 160 feet from the pin. Sorenstam pulled out her nine-wood, saw the ball had an uphill lie, opened the face of the club and hit the ball dead right into some thatch-type grass . . . she thought.

It took Sorenstam, her caddie and the gallery 4 1/2 minutes to find her ball, and the rules allow only five minutes. In that 4 1/2 minutes, the expedition turned up three more balls, two of them Titleist 1’s, which Sorenstam plays, but neither of them were hers.

Once found, only a small part of the top of the ball was showing when Sorenstam swung her sand wedge for her third shot.

Then she adjusted her stance slightly to accommodate a ball that had advanced three inches and hit her fourth shot. Sorenstam putted from 50 feet--the first was 10 feet past the hole as over-aggression on the greens was a problem for her all day long--and wrote down seven with nine more holes to go.

And with trying to do something only four others--Murle Lindstrom (1962), Carol Mann (‘65), Susie Maxwell Berning (‘72) and Sandra Palmer (‘65)--have done: win the U.S. Women’s Open from a first round of 77 or more.

“I haven’t given up,” she said, “This is just Thursday . . . If you look at the scores at the Open the previous years, what is it? Three-, four-under, normally? I can shoot five under on this course.”

After all, The Other Swede, has already shot four under.

“Nothing is impossible for Annika,” said Neumann. “She is the best in the world.”

But on Thursday, she was 85th-best at Pumpkin Ridge.

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Seven-Shooter

How Annika Sorenstam played the ninth hole (388 yards, par four, slight dogleg left) at the Witch Hollow Course at the Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club on Thursday:

* First shot: Driver, 228 yards into second of two fairway bunkers.

* Second shot: Nine-wood, ball squirts about 100 yards, right of the green, into high grass. Sorenstam, caddie and gallery look for the ball for 4 1/2 minutes, finding it nearly buried under stiff grass.

* Third shot: Sand wedge advances ball about three inches.

* Fourth shot: Sand wedge, 40 yards to edge of the green, 50 feet from the hole.

* Fifth shot: Putt, 10 feet past the hole.

* Sixth shot: Putt, short of the hole.

* Seventh shot: Tap-in triple bogey.

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The Leaders

Liselotte Neumann: -4

Deb Richard: -3

Susie Redman: -3

Kelly Robbins: -3

SeRi Pak: -3

Muffin Spencer-Devlin: -2

Nancy Lopez: -2

Trish Johnson: -2

Lorie Kane: -2

* COMPLETE SCORES C11