FAIRFIELD, Conn. — How you like your time warps? Try out this one:
No rope lines.
Classic course with wild greens.
Creaking-floor clubhouse, with snaps of local boys who made good — Gene Sarazen, Julius Boros — on the walls.
Gold medal (and a theoretical check for $180,000) waiting on the porch for the winner.
And the winner: Annika Sorenstam. She won by eight over her fellow Swede, Liselotte Neumann.
Let’s Do the Time Warp Again.
The theme song of this third U.S. Senior Women’s Open, held at the very excellent Brooklawn Country Club.
If you like the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., and Rolling Green, near Philadelphia, and Interlachen near Minneapolis, you’ll like this Brooklawn. The course, designed by A.W. Tillinghast, is tucked in a neighborhood of tall trees and wide sidewalks. The American dream.
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Sorenstam, who won the U.S. Open in 1995, 1996 and 2006, played her final U.S. Open in 2008, at Interlachen. The U.S. Senior Women’s Open was not even a dream then. (The first was held 10 years later.) So this event was Annika’s first USGA event in 13 years. Her first USGA event with her husband, Mike McGee, as her caddie. (McGee’s father was Jerry McGee, a four-time winner on Tour who died in March.) Her first USGA event as a mother of two. Her son and daughter traipsed up and down Brooklawn’s hills, following their mother.
Or, if this is not too personal, their mama. It’s a Swedish thing. Our “mom’s apple pie” is their “mammas äppelpaj.” (As they made their way around the course, Neumann and Sorenstam spoke English when others were around and Swedish when it was just the two of them. They’ve known each other forever.)
Last October, Sorenstam turned 50. That qualified her for this tournament — by age. Next came desire. The third step was family approval.
As she told reporters Sunday night, standing on the Brooklawn porch, she asked her kids, “Do you want to see mama play?”
Their response, per mama: “Yes, we want to see mama play.”
Turns out about 2,000 others wanted to see the return of the legend, too. That is, in person. Jane Geddes, the 1986 U.S. Open winner, was among them. She missed the cut but stayed the weekend and watched Annika make her way around the course, McGee carrying a smallish bag with a stand on it. Neumann had a similar bag.
Neumann had to make a four-footer on the last for solo second, one stroke ahead of Laura Davies. Soon after, she said, position-for-position, Sorenstam’s swing is essentially unchanged from her long playing prime. Her speed is not what it was, not that speed was ever her calling card. But her rhythm and her positions looked completely familiar. The swing as metronome.
Sorenstam’s rounds on the par-72 course, were 67, 69, 72 and 68. From Thursday on, there didn’t seem to be much question as to who would win. She was better than everybody else.
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