Davies Goes the Distance for Title

There aren’t many players who can hit it farther than Laura Davies, but there are a whole bunch of them who can putt it straighter, although there weren’t nearly enough of them Sunday at the $1-million PageNet LPGA Tour Championship.

Davies, a reformed optimist who has never met a putt she liked, coaxed just the right number of them into the hole during the last round at the Desert Inn, which allowed her to trudge away with her first victory in 20 months.

Davies turned in a solid if unspectacular three-under 69 and managed a four-shot victory over Pat Hurst, Karrie Webb and Brandie Burton with an 11-under total of 277.

Kelly Robbins and Juli Inkster were next at six-under 282.

The final official money event of the year was worth $215,000 to Davies, whose last victory was the Standard Register Ping in March 1997, a drought of 36 tournaments.

“[Twenty] months without a victory for a supposed top-10 player . . . you start making yourself feel you’re even more terrible than you’re actually doing,” said Davies, who led after every round at Las Vegas. “My mental approach wasn’t exactly textbook this week, to say the least.”

Davies jumped from No. 24 to No. 11 on the money list with $517,547, but it was still her worst position on the earnings list in five years.

Hurst began the third round 10 shots behind Davies and started the fourth round three shots back, but by the time Hurst birdied No. 7, she had made up all but one shot on Davies.

It probably felt fairly familiar to Hurst, who shot a 64 in last year’s tournament and set the Desert Inn course record. In that one, Hurst forced a three-way playoff with Annika Sorenstam and Lori Kane that lasted three holes before Sorenstam won.

This time, a scorekeeping error indicated that Hurst had caught Davies with a birdie at No. 9, and Davies didn’t find out it was a mistake and her lead was still one shot until she reached No. 12.

Hurst made a critical bogey at No. 13 while Davies birdied two of the last four holes for a comfortable margin. At the par-five No. 15, Davies two-putted for birdie from 40 feet. And on No. 18, Davies knocked her eight-iron second shot to six feet, then rolled in the birdie putt to close it out.

“It’s a perfect golf course for her,” Hurst said. “It’s perfect for someone who can dominate the par-fives.”

Davies managed to do that, all right. She played her 16 chances at the four par-five holes in a combined 12 under par.

As for Sorenstam, her best shot at shot-making history was just barely good enough.

“I’ve had these weights on my shoulders,” said Sorenstam, a part-time computer nerd who began tracking her chance at the scoring record on her computer four weeks ago.

“It’s been a tough week,” said Sorenstam. “I’ve been thinking too much about numbers.”

Sorenstam eagled No. 17, her 70th hole, to go one under, then three-putted the 18th for a bogey and managed to finish at even-par 288 to become the first LPGA player to end the year with a scoring average below 70.0.

Sorenstam wound up with a 69.99 scoring average. You can’t spend a record, but Sorenstam has plenty of other opportunities. Sorenstam finished No. 1 on the money list for the second year in a row and the third time in the last four years.

She also won her third player-of-the-year award.

In her five years on the LPGA Tour, Sorenstam’s scoring average has dropped each year, from 71.90 to 71.00 to 70.47 to 70.04 to 69.99.

“I know I’m doing something right,” Sorenstam said.

Meanwhile, Davies was doing just enough of the right things to overcome her own pessimism about her putting.

“I’ve never been so nervous,” she said. “I just never really thought about winning, to be honest, just about trying to play well. It was just good enough, but it wasn’t comfortable out there. At least now I can stop whining about my putting for a while.”