HOUSTON – The three longest players on the LPGA are paired together at the 75th U.S. Women’s Open, and Maria Fassi has already fired the first shot.
“I’m just gonna to have to hit a good one on the first three holes just to let them know who the boss is,” said Fassi, with a smile, “and then just try to hit fairways the rest of the round.”
It might be the first round of a major, but it won’t be void of a bit of trash talk.
Rookie Bianca Pagdanganan (284.655), Anne van Dam (281.849) and Fassi (280.352) tee off at 11:10 a.m. CST Thursday on the Jackrabbit Course.
Van Dam and Fassi, two players whose personalities are as big as their games, have been paired together several times this season and know each other’s games well. Van Dam said she enjoyed competing alongside players who attack a course in a similar way.
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While none of these players plan to make Thursday a long-drive competition, van Dam said that she and Fassi have been known to give each other a look on the tee when it’s a wide open, green-light hole.
“We don’t have to say anything,” said van Dam. “You walk past it, if you outdrive her by 10 yards, and say ‘Nice drive, Maria,’ and get her fired up on the next hole.”
Pagdanganan has never been paired with van Dam on the LPGA. At the 2019 NCAA Championship in Arkansas, seniors Fassi and Pagdanganan were grouped together in the last round during the final round of the stroke-play competition. Arkansas’ Fassi won the NCAA title and Pagdanganan, who played for Arizona and helped the Wildcats win a team title in 2018, finished third.
During a rain delay, the pair discovered that both have a “Fearless” tattoo. Pagdanganan has the word inked on her left wrist while Fassi’s is hidden away on her foot.
“It’s just how I approach the game I guess,” Pagdanganan said of the tattoo.
All three players are searching for their first win on the LPGA and Pagdanganan is making her U.S. Women’s Open debut. The Filipino tied for ninth in her first major championship – the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Aronimink.
Pagdanganan said she gets to rip driver pretty much everywhere on both the Cypress and Jackrabbit courses. The USGA was forced to use both of Champions’ courses to accommodate a field of 156 players with limited daylight hours. LPGA setups often force all three players to keep driver in the bag, so Champions Golf Club presents a real treat to the big-hitters.
The more low-key Pagdanganan said she won’t try to force anything when it comes to being the longest in the group.
“It’s just a label,” said Pagdanganan of being No. 1 in driving distance on tour. “It’s not everything, but it’s pretty cool.”
Pagdanganan can’t really explain where she gets her power, but driver is her favorite club in the bag. Her coach at Arizona, Laura Ianello, points to “insanely” fast hips and use of the ground as key to her power.
Ann van Dam is a seven-time winner on the Ladies European Tour and has what many consider to be one of the finest swings in all of golf. The 5-foot-11-inch Dutch player paired with Anna Nordqvist and Suzann Pettersen at last year’s Solheim Cup. Last year in Phoenix, Dame Laura Davies called van Dam the longest woman she’d ever played alongside.
“She has the fastest hip rotation speed that I’ve ever measured on a system,” said van Dam’s instructor David Dickmeiss.
The Bermuda rough isn’t exceptionally penal at Champions because it’s December. Texan Angela Stanford, who won last week in Dallas, said these are the tightest fairways she’s ever seen, and that hitting in the rough actually isn’t such a bad thing this week. Even if there’s grass behind the ball, she said, it’s not as thick and healthy. Her aim is to get it out there as far as possible on every hole.
“I don’t think I’ve ever hit this many drivers on a golf course as a pro,” said a fired-up Fassi, whose golf bag is emblazoned with a Wonder Woman logo this week. Fassi felt she connected with the inspirational female superhero during a quarantine spent watching movies.
Arkansas head coach Shauna Estes said Fassi’s swing speed can get up to 113 mph but she has the most control at 106 to 108 mph. At the SEC Championship, the explosive player once hit driver, 8-iron on the final hole, a 478-yard par 5. Estes has lost track of the number of 370-yard holes where Fassi was left with nothing more than a chip into the green.
Stories about this trio can go on for days.
“It’s going to be fun,” said a grinning van Dam. “Too bad people can’t come out and watch.”
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