As the 75th U.S. Women’s Open kicks off this week in Houston, 41 players will be experiencing the game’s ultimate test for the first time. Rookie week at this championship is impossible to forget – the nerve-wracking, awe-inspiring, did-that-just-happen moments are seared in the memory banks. Golfweek asked a number of LPGA players to share highlights from their U.S. Women’s Open debuts. It won’t be long now before names like Hinako Shibuno, Yealimi Noh and Bianca Pagdanganan have stories of their own.
Annika Sorenstam, 1992 Oakmont Country Club (T-63)
It was really rainy there. It was so wet that year. That’s when Patty Sheehan and Juli Inkster got in a playoff. The course was known for fast greens. They roll 12 and the members think it’s slow. The first day I only played four holes; I teed off at like 7:30 at night. The next morning, we were hitting balls warming up, and it was so lush. I was hitting wedges and my divots were huge, thick and heavy. Just mud. I remember just hitting one after another and these divots were flying, and I wasn’t really paying attention to where they were flying. My caddie said maybe you should aim somewhere else. I said why? Well, there’s a player over there giving you the evil eye. I looked over and it was Dottie (Pepper). It had landed on her head like several times, this wet divot. I was like oops.
Maybe not the entry I had planned.
Lydia Ko, 2012 Blackwolf Run (T-39, low amateur)
I know what it was like for my cousin. She fainted that week because it was so hot. And then the next day my aunt fainted. I think that was the first U.S. Open they came to and the last as well. It was obviously extremely tricky. It’s a golf course I’d seen from Se Ri’s win (in 1998) so it was super cool for me, especially being South Korean-born to go to a golf course where there’s so much history and where she really changed the game and women’s golf. It was cool to kind of see that and go oh, that shot she hit on 18. It is probably, even to this day, maybe the trickiest, or top two trickiest U.S. Women’s Opens I’ve ever played in. I was so nervous that I hit my driver and hit my second shot on the green and I couldn’t line up my putts. I use the line on my ball for putting and I just couldn’t do it. I tried a few times and I couldn’t … I remember putting without a line that first hole.
Morgan Pressel, 2001 Pine Needles (MC)
It’s funny, the things I remember are the rain delays, because it was a time that I was in the locker room with all of these people I had looked up to. It was the locker room, and then there was a little dining room. I never wanted to leave. I just wanted to sit there because it was an opportunity for me to talk and say hi to all these people I had only ever seen on TV.
"I got to sit in the locker room with players I had looked up to my whole career. My whole young life!"@LPGAGirlsGolf alum @mpressel, who made her U.S. Women's Open debut at age 12, knows exactly how inspirational #USWomensOpen players can be for the next generation. pic.twitter.com/zt03YdsaLL
— U.S. Women's Open (USGA) (@uswomensopen) December 6, 2020
Maria Fassi, 2015 Lancaster Country Club (MC)
I birdied my very first hole. I honestly don’t remember if I started on 10 or 1, but there was a bunker on the right side and we had talked about it with my caddie, that the bunker wasn’t really in play. I remember flying it past the bunker because of how excited I was. We had a good laugh after that, and then I hit it to 4 feet and made the putt. So I was like OK, first time out here. It was a cool birdie, and a great way to start a U.S. Open.
Stacy Lewis, 2007 Pine Needles (MC)
I was still in college. I had (former Arkansas coach) Kelley Hester caddying for me because she was going to Georgia that summer. I remember I played pretty terrible. It wasn’t the best first U.S. Open experience. I remember kind of being overwhelmed by the golf course. It was hard. I just remember not feeling prepared. It was unlike anything I’d ever played before.
As you do it more times, you kind of forget what that experience is like. You almost forget what it’s like to be that rookie or to be that amateur that’s playing for the first time.
I like seeing the girls here with their dads caddying because that’s what I’ve always had. You try to help them out, but they just need to experience that themselves. I was having a good summer too. I won nationals that year – won the Southern, the Western, semis at the North & South. I was playing well.
Ally Ewing, 2014 Pinehurst (MC)
My first U.S. Open was Pinehurst. I had won the North & South there the previous summer so qualifying for that was so exciting to me. I’d played well there, and then I just got eaten alive. Pinehurst is just a really distinct golf course. I have never walked away from a golf tournament feeling like I had executed more shots then I was given credit for. So I walked away from Thursday/Friday saying, you know, I hit some really good shots that didn’t work out. It’s just an unforgiving golf course.
Angela Stanford, 2000 Merit Club (MC)
I played with Carol Semple Thompson. We had played on the Curtis Cup together that year. I remember standing on a tee and I swear she said this is my 27th in a row. (Editor’s note: Thompson, an amateur, did not play in 27 consecutive but she did compete in 32 U.S. Women’s Opens, her last coming in 2002.)
I remember thinking holy cow … how in the world did she do that? So this (year) is 21 (for me). Just looking back on that, I remember thinking I hope I get to play 10, and this will be my 21st in a row!
And I remember being terrified of Karrie Webb.
Karrie Webb, 1996 Pine Needles (T-19)
What I remember was that (my caddie) said the word patience so many times that I ended up like, I’m sick of hearing the word (bleeping) patience! But that’s my biggest memory. I had to learn how to play U.S. Open golf. You know, I’d play well up until then but had not come across a course as difficult. And I wasn’t used to making as many bogeys and working as hard for pars. And it is, it’s about patience. I think that’s still, for me, my biggest battle at any major is patience. I have, at times, been really good and then other weeks be a couple over early and start pressing and thinking about end scores and I know better than that. That’s just always going to be my Achilles’ heel at majors is patience.
Brittany Altomare, 2009 Saucon Valley (MC)
My dad caddied for me. My grandfather had actually just passed away when I had qualified, like a few weeks before. It was kind of like a special moment, playing in it. I didn’t know that you could call and make practice round times. You go and you register and look at the screens for practice rounds and Lorena had an opening in her group. My dad was like just do it! So literally my first U.S. Open and professional tournament I played a practice round with her. I was more nervous on Monday than I was teeing it up on Thursday. But she was like the nicest person ever. She was engaging with me and asking me questions. It could not have been a better experience.
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