Inkster Had Special Cup to Help Her Toast Hall-of-Fame Victory

Juli Inkster was not concerned Sunday that the improbable U.S. victory in the Ryder Cup would overshadow her march into the LPGA Hall of Fame.

Far from it.

Like most golf fans, she was caught up in the excitement.

“It was a lot of fun,” said Inkster, a sports nut who spent the morning watching the Ryder Cup on television in her hotel room before wrapping up a six-shot victory in the Safeway LPGA Golf Championship at Portland, Ore.-- the title that qualified her for the Hall of Fame. “I was high-fiving the walls and jumping up and down. I just wish somebody else had been there for me to high-five.”

There was no shortage of well-wishers a few hours later on the 18th green at Columbia- Edgewater Country Club, where Inkster completed a comeback that was a lot longer in the making and almost as impressive as the one by the Americans at Brookline, Mass.

Inkster, 39, was mobbed by a group of 10 tour players, including Hall of Famers Nancy Lopez and Beth Daniel, who congratulated her move into the Hall by showering her with champagne and enveloping her with hugs.

The victory capped an incredible season for Inkster, whose 22nd win, coupled with five major titles, gave her the 27 points needed under the new Hall of Fame criteria adopted this year.

She has won five times this season, including two majors, and is second on the money list to Karrie Webb of Australia with $1,263,703, nearly double what she won last year in what had been her most successful season financially. With her win at Portland, she surpassed $5 million in earnings.

She has 16 top-10 finishes in 21 starts and is second to Webb in player-of-the-year points and lowest scoring average at 69.88, the lowest of her career.

“It has been just an unbelievable year,” said Inkster, who in March will become the 17th LPGA member inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame at the World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Fla. “It’s one I’ll never forget.”

And one that was almost totally unexpected.

Five years ago, Inkster was seriously considering retirement. Once one of the bright young lights of the LPGA Tour--she won two major championships as a rookie in 1983--the three-time U.S. Amateur champion was in the midst of a five-year winless streak and contemplating life as a full-time soccer mom in Los Altos, Calif., where she and husband Brian, head pro at Los Altos Country Club, are raising daughters Hayley, 9, and Cori, 5.

“I just didn’t want to come out here and be a mediocre player, and that’s what I felt like I was doing,” she said. “I felt like I was just out here going through the motions, hauling the kids around and not really accomplishing much.”

Instead of quitting, though, Inkster made a more radical move, firing her coach, Brian, and replacing him with Mike McGetrick.

“If I was going to rededicate myself,” she says, “I needed to get a game plan, and it was just too hard with the kids and with Brian’s work and my traveling to ever really get a game plan.

“Plus, it’s that husband-wife thing. I’d listen to Mike, but I wouldn’t really listen to Brian. I kept him as a husband, though, and it has worked out great.”

She finished sixth on the money list two years ago, duplicated the feat last year, then put together the best season of her career.

What’s next now that she has reached the Hall of Fame?

“I’ve got to really work on that,” said Inkster, who is playing this week in the New Albany Golf Classic at New Albany, Ohio. “I’d still like to win player of the year. I doubt I’ll ever have another year like this year, but I want to compete and be in the hunt next year too. I’m very competitive, and I don’t like to play bad. I think that’s enough to keep me going.”

But maybe not beyond 2000.

“I know I’m going to play a full schedule next year,” she said, “but after that, I’m really seriously thinking about cutting back. Not because I don’t love what I do, because I do. And not because I’m not playing well, because I am.

“But my kids are really getting into doing their activities. Doing their sports and doing their dance. It kills me every time I miss a game, and I just don’t want to do that. . . . They’re only young once.

“They’ve followed me around and supported my career, and I think I just need to support them and follow them around a little bit.”

THAT’S BARBIE TO YOU

The scathing attacks out of Europe this week on all things American weren’t limited to the fans’ boorish behavior and the U.S. players’ excessive celebration at the Ryder Cup.

Some commentators even ridiculed the appearance of the wives and girlfriends of the U.S. golfers.

Wrote columnist Kate Battersby of the Evening Standard: “Many observers would have sworn that every man on the American team had married the same woman.”

TO HALVE AND HALVE NOT

Justin Leonard’s 45-foot putt Sunday was surely one of the most memorable moments in Ryder Cup history. It proved to be the clinching half-point for the United States and touched off the controversial celebration on the 17th green.

But Leonard is still winless in Ryder Cup matches. He is 0-3-5.

ONE WOMAN’S PERSPECTIVE

Inkster, a veteran of the Solheim Cup, understands what fueled the Americans’ impromptu Ryder Cup celebration after they overcame a 10-6 deficit to win, 14 1/2-13 1/2.

“You just get caught up in the emotion,” she said. “You get caught up in that whole atmosphere of the team and the comeback. I mean, the comeback was just awesome. Granted, if they were to do it over again, they probably wouldn’t have jumped out onto the green, but you can’t write a script for that. I’m sorry, but if they were in Europe and Sergio Garcia had made that putt, you don’t think everybody would have gone crazy over there?

“I’m sure there’s a little bitterness, but maybe when the feelings die down and the emotions die down, maybe things will calm down a little bit.”

CHIP SHOTS

Inkster and Leonard will play together in the final JCPenney Mixed Team Classic in December at Palm Harbor, Fla. . . . Thanks to Hurricane Floyd, the Senior Tour Championship will have to wait a year before moving to the new TPC at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. The course lost about 200 trees, and several bunkers were washed out. Commissioner Tim Finchem said the season-ending tournament will return to its former home, the Dunes Golf and Beach Club, also in Myrtle Beach, Nov. 4-7. . . . The field for the Senior Skins Game in January at the Mauna Lani Resort on the Big Island of Hawaii should sound familiar: Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player, who took part in the inaugural Skins Game in 1982. . . . Actor Joe Regalbuto (“Murphy Brown”) hosts the Meals on Wheels Golf Marathon on Monday at Calabasas Golf and Country Club. Details: (310) 394-5133. . . . The Campanella Golf Classic will be played Nov. 11 at Pelican Hill Golf Club in Newport Beach. Details: (818) 344-6195.