Course’s Tricky Nature Doesn’t Fool Sorenstam

If the first two rounds of the Office Depot Championship offer any insight about what to expect in the final round today, it is that the player who wins will be the one who passes a grueling test of patience and ability to overcome mistakes.

A second-round two-under-par 70 Saturday gave Annika Sorenstam a total of six-under 138 and a two-stroke lead over Meg Mallon and Rosie Jones at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana. Michelle Redman shot 70 and is fourth at three under.

Only four players broke 70 during the second round and there were 18 players who failed to break 80 on a course that offered as stern a test as the LPGA players will face all season. The first-round stroke average was 76.438 and the second was 75.293.

Even those playing well accept that they will make bogeys and have to grind out tough pars.

“It’s just that type of golf course, it really is,” said Sorenstam, who had five birdies and three bogeys Saturday. “This course really keeps you on your toes. You are looking at some holes as a birdie hole and then you walk away and it didn’t turn out that way and that’s what makes it hard here. Some of the easier holes turn out to be the hard ones.”

The cut Saturday fell at seven over, only one stroke lower than the Kraft Nabisco Championship last week. Last year the cut at El Caballero was eight over, second only to the Kraft Nabisco Championship on the list of highest cuts all season.

“You know you are going to make some mistakes,” Jones said. “You hope you don’t, but you have to be acceptable to your mistakes or you start to tense up and you start guarding something that you can’t guard. You’ve got to go for more.”

Jones, a 13-time tour winner, easily could have been discouraged by a double-bogey on the third hole, but she rebounded with a 12-foot birdie putt on No. 6. She got to four under for the tournament when she holed a nine-iron shot from 126 yards for eagle on the 375-yard par-four 15th.

“The reality here is that the greens are so tough that chances are you are probably going to make a bogey,” Jones said. “You just can’t be discouraged by it or freak out. I just hope I make five birdies to one bogey. Or seven birdies.”

It may take that to catch Sorenstam, the No. 1 player in the world and defending champion. She had two birdies and two bogeys in her first 10 holes before stringing together consecutive birdies on Nos. 11 and 12. On No. 17, her sand wedge shot from 102 yards hit the cup and nearly went in for eagle before she tapped in for birdie.

She led wire to wire when she won last year and has led after the first two rounds this year. She has won 33 of 52 tournaments when leading entering the final round.

“She is a very, very strong player on Sunday,” Jones said. “You have to know that she usually makes less mistakes than the rest of us. But it’s not like she’s unable to make mistakes.”

Sorenstam has some added incentive: A victory today would be the 50th of her LPGA career.

“I do think about those things, but I don’t walk around every day and figure out where my goals are and so forth,” Sorenstam said. “It’s just something that’s in the back of my mind.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Office Depot

Championship

LEADERBOARD

Second-round scores from El Caballero Country Club, Tarzana (Par 72, 36-36):

*--* Annika Sorenstam...68-70--138 -6 Rosie Jones...70-70--140 -4 Meg Mallon...69-71--140 -4 Michele Redman...71-70--141 -3 Michelle Ellis...74-68--142 -2 Catriona Matthew...72-70--142 -2 Jill McGill...69-73--142 -2

*--*

COMPLETE SCORES, D18