When Cristie Kerr won the LPGA Championship by 12 strokes two weeks ago, she figured it was a big deal for all kinds of reasons.
The biggest may have been that she is American.
“It’s especially big for American golf for us to do well in these kinds of tournaments, because there are so many little girls out here that we see in the practice rounds,” Kerr said Tuesday at bunker-laden Oakmont Country Club, where she was practicing for this week’s U.S. Women’s Open. “And if you can touch a couple of them, maybe they’ll turn into great players in 20 years and be out here. That’s the way that I got involved, and I’d imagine that’s why those fathers are bringing those daughters here.”
Oakmont will feature two potentially driveable par-4s at the second and 17th holes, but also the fastest, most undulating greens the women’s tour will see all year. It also will feature a camera-ready favorite, Kerr.
“There’s a little pressure on her,” Erik Stevens, Kerr’s husband, told the New York Times in a story earlier this week. “The LPGA needs its stars right now.”