All Is Not Yet Lost for Pak

So what went wrong Saturday on the golf course for Se Ri Pak? Well, count her driving and then add putting, she said.

“Otherwise, everything OK,” Pak said.

And so it went during the third round of the LPGA’s PageNet Tour Championship at the Desert Inn, where Pak lost every bit of her lead but not her sense of humor.

Pak’s two-over-par 74 let virtually everybody in the place outside of former hotel guest Howard Hughes back in the chase in the $1-million season-ending tournament. When today’s final round begins, Pak is tied for the lead at 10-under 206 with Lorie Kane, who has made a career of being runner-up but caught up this time with a four-under 68.

Meanwhile, there are the main figures in the tournament’s ongoing subplot--Juli Inkster and Karrie Webb--who are back in the race for the $210,000 winner’s check with the player-of-the-year award hanging in the balance.

Inkster’s 69 moved her within one shot of Pak and Kane at nine-under 207, not to mention a chance at stealing the player-of-the-year award from Webb on the last round of the year.

Webb is one shot behind Inkster, the same as Laura Davies, after posting her second consecutive 70 that left her vaguely unsatisfied. That’s how you feel if you have played the last eight holes every day without a birdie.

Webb sounded as if she is struggling to maintain her optimism.

“Hopefully I can do some of the stuff I’ve done all year,” Webb said.

That’s not a bad plan for someone who has won six times.

But as well as Webb has played this year, she still could lose the player-of-the-year award to Inkster, who was four under on the back. The only way Inkster can win the award is to win the tournament while Webb finishes in a two-way tie for second or worse.

Inkster, who will be paired with Webb in the final round, said she isn’t necessarily going to keep an eye on her chief protagonist.

“I’m not playing Karrie,” Inkster said. “It’s not Juli Inkster and Karrie Webb.

“[But] Karrie is in a great situation. I have to win. She just has to play her game.”

Pak’s game was not up to her continued good spirits. She hit her drive out of bounds on No. 3 when the ball struck the base of a tree and bounced over a fence into somebody’s yard.

Pak correctly interpreted this occurrence as a bad sign.

“That is first my trouble,” she said.

Pak also drove under a tree on No. 8, shot a three-over 39 on the front and actually lost her lead briefly to Kane when Pak bogeyed No. 10. But then Pak rolled in a 40-foot bomb to birdie No. 11 and sent a 10-footer into the hole to birdie No. 12.

Davies, who was paired with Pak, also knocked a ball out of bounds, but didn’t let the sight of all those golf balls bouncing all over the grounds bother her.

“It was weird sort of stuff, though,” she said.

That may be true, but the weirdest sort of stuff is what has been happening to Kane. She has finished second eight times and lost five playoffs. This year alone, Kane has lost two playoffs and finished as a runner-up three times.

It is a series of misfortunes Kane is committed to change. She showed renewed confidence after brief chats with ABC commentators Judy Rankin and Ian Baker-Finch, who told her she had the game to succeed.

Kane said she is ready and feels no pressure.

“I’m going to go out with the attitude that I have the skills that I need to get the job done and I’m going to do it.”

As for Pak, she left the course smiling and made plans for a nice meal, then a return trip to the gaming tables, where there aren’t any trees.