View photos of major champion Patty Tavatanakit throughout her young career.
At just 23 years of age, is it too early to say that Patty Tavatanakit is having a career resurgence?
As one of the most highly touted juniors in recent memory, Tavatanakit got out to a scorching hot start to her professional career in 2019. Winning three times in just eight starts on the now-Epson Tour, Tavatanakit ran away with Rookie of the Year honors and jumped up to the LPGA in 2020.
After a COVID-19-hindered rookie season, the Thai broke through for her first LPGA win in 2021.
Tavatanakit joined a shortlist of golfers whose first win on tour was a major championship, winning the ANA Inspiration by five strokes over Lydia Ko.
In her eight major starts since that win, Tavatanakit locked down three top-10 finishes but rode a cold streak of four straight missed cuts heading into the 2023 major season.
After briefly being in contention at the Chevron, it will be interesting to see how Tavatanakit continues her search for her second major title.
“In some ways, it will be mourning a loss, but in other ways having a sponsor like Chevron who has really been committed will be great,” said Alcott, who won the major championship three times and started the tradition of the winner jumping into the lake at Mission Hills Country Club after her 1988 victory.
Sadness for the Coachella Valley but an understanding that the tournament might be bigger and better in a new location and with sponsorship from Chevron seemed to be the overwhelming reaction to Tuesday’s announcement that the tournament once hosted by Dinah Shore will relocate to Houston in 2023.
“I have a deep love for the event, “said Gabe Codding, the director of marketing for the City of Rancho Mirage who starting working seasonally at the LPGA event in 1996 and worked up to tournament director from 2008 to 2017. “So to see, to know that the event can go to where it started from (in status) and get back to where it needed to be is an incredible feeling. And then absolutely gutted that it is leaving our destination and Poppie’s Pond and Mission Hills. So it’s very conflicting and very hard to process for me personally.”
While he was tournament director, Codding helped with the sponsorship transition from Nabisco to Kraft and then from Kraft to All Nippon Airways. He said the event coordinator side of him understands the need for the LPGA to move the event.
“It’s a North American, U.S. based company,” Codding said of Chevron. “It’s a dream come true.”
Nicole Castrale has two connections with the Rancho Mirage tournament. She first saw the event when she was 15 years old and a top golfer at Palm Desert High School, with her coach and local golf professional Vern Frazer telling her this tournament was what they were working for. Castrale did make it to the LPGA and played in the major championship eight times starting in 2007.
“That was my goal, playing in it, especially it being in my hometown, being that young,” Castrale said Tuesday while on a trip to Greece. “Seeing Juli Inkster, she was a role model to me, and now we are friends. So all through high school and college, I wanted to play in the event in my backyard.”
Castrale was a winner on the LPGA and played on two Solheim Cup teams, but she never won a major before back issues forced her off the tour. She sees the move of the tournament as both good and bad for the LPGA.
“It is a tough spot, because there are the players who are going to be saddened with history coming to an end, but on the flip side, this is their job, and in a small way this is a little promotion,” said Castrale, who now works in real estate at Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells. “They have a sponsor who appears to be completely backing them and giving them the opportunity that they may not have if they couldn’t find another sponsor.”
Introducing Castrale and every other player on the first tee of the Dinah Shore Tournament Course for the last 22 years has been desert radio personality Rich Gilgallon, who was surprised by the news Tuesday.
“I’m devastated for the community and for the club, and I’m personally devastated,” Gilgallon said.
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Gilgallon said he has become friends on the first tee with many players, from Joanne Carner in his first year to Pat Bradley, who shares a New England background with Gillgallon, to Annika Sorenstam, who always wanted to know what was on the card Gilgallon was about to read introducing her.
“I count it as one of the great blessings of my life, really,” he said.
He added that the tournament has still been about original hostess Dinah Shore in recent years.
“I realize it wasn’t called the Dinah Shore, but it was played on Dinah Shore Avenue on the Dinah Shore Course,” he said. “I am sad for that as well, that the legacy didn’t weigh a little more heavily with the sponsor.”
Alcott said the idea that a multibillion dollar company like Chevron sponsoring an LPGA event shows how the LPGA has changed in recent years.
“I remember hearing the adage that women’s golf is sold, and men’s golf is bought,” Alcott said. “And now I think we are getting into a place where women’s golf, because it is exciting, it is global, women’s golf is being bought. People are seeing the value of it.”
As a member at Mission Hills, Alcott said she still senses support for the event locally.
“I sense the members really do want it. Everything changes, but I do sense the members do want it,” Alcott said. “I see the condition of the course, it is in really good shape during the event. I haven’t noticed a change. I have noticed the continued enthusiasm for the event.
“So I think that would be very hard for some people and maybe there will be members who will say great, it’s great to have our course back in April,” she added. “It will run the gambit.”
The financial woes of All Nippon Airways also were a contributing factor in the tournament moving after next year, Codding said. As an international airline, ANA has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and has seen revenues dry up.
“You look at poor ANA with a global pandemic. When we were in negotiation for their second renewal of the contract (a three-year extension through 2022), that was the one thing they were worried about, something semi-catastrophic that just deeply impacts their business and having that much liability, long-term liability,” Codding said.
Castrale said it will be difficult to consider the Chevron Championship as the logical extension of what was once the Colgate Dinah Shore Winner’s Circle.
“The major that we have known and the major that I strived to play in when I was 15 and wanted to have the opportunity to play in, that goal of mine, is not the same,” Castrale said. “But Chevron has now created an opportunity for the next generation to create new memories.”
Larry Bohannan is The Desert Sun golf writer, he can be reached at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com or (760) 778-4633. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_Bohannan. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Desert Sun.
The powerful, lucrative sponsor was too good to pass up.
Was it really the conflict with the Augusta National Women’s Amateur that brought about the end? Or was it the galleries that seemed to get a little smaller each year? Or was it the lack of an immediately recognizable title sponsor?
Or maybe it was just the march of time that will see the LPGA’s first major championship of the year be played for the final time in the Coachella Valley next April. An event that seemed woven into the fabric of the desert, the newly christened Chevron Championship will be ripped out of Southern California and transplanted to a yet-to-be-named course in the Houston area for 2023.
New dates later in the spring, a shiny new sponsor in Chevron, a huge jump in the purse and even the promise of network television times await the tournament in Texas. What will be left behind will be history, tradition, a great golf course and memories, things that don’t resonate all that much in the modern world of sports.
Make no mistake, the tournament most recently known as the ANA Inspiration had its problems, not the least of which was the looming loss of All Nippon Airways as a sponsor after 2022. As an international airline, ANA was hemorrhaging money like all airlines in the pandemic era, and no fans at Mission Hills the last two years because of COVID-19 didn’t help the event or its sponsor.
The conflict with the Augusta National Women’s Amateur was a bigger problem than the LPGA or tournament officials first believed. Augusta National, home of the Masters, is the 800-pound gorilla of golf, and the minute the Georgia club announced the ANWA for dates that conflicted with the LPGA major, smart people in golf knew a date change for the LPGA would be necessary. Augusta National could hold a cornhole tournament and people would watch.
LPGA losing history, tradition, a great course
Crowds that seemed smaller and smaller each year also were a problem. After the LPGA brought ANA to the event, saving the tournament for 2015, a high-ranking LPGA official looked at the sparse crowds during the third round of the tournament and wondered if desert fans understood how hard then-commissioner Mike Whan had worked to keep the tournament in the desert.
It was a well-known secret through much of 2014 that when Kraft walked away from the event that year, several sponsors wanted to take over, but only if they could move it from Rancho Mirage to the east coast or Texas or other far-flung locations. The lure of Poppie’s Pond, the players’ love of the Dinah Shore Tournament Course and a colorful history inspired the LPGA to keep the event in the desert with a sponsor from Japan.
That will all come to an end on April 3, the final scheduled round for the old Dinah Shore tournament in the desert.
Yes, the ANWA hurt the desert major, and so did small crowds in the relatively small market of the Coachella Valley. The number of times someone called the tournament “the ANNA” alone might have driven the LPGA out of the desert.
In the end, the tournament is moving because a powerful sponsor that the LPGA needs and covets is putting up big money and will get the tournament in a better location, with better television exposure and a date away from the ANWA. The greater Houston area will provide larger crowds, and current and future players will grow less and less attached to the old days in the desert. Honestly, how many players on the global LPGA have a true grasp of who Dinah Shore was?
The Desert Sun
So it could be a bigger and better tournament. But it won’t be the same. It can’t be the same. The LPGA and Chevron can find a great golf course, dig a new lake next to the 18th green and even move the statue of Dinah Shore away from Mission Hills Country Club, and it won’t be the same.
No one in Houston will be able to say, hey, that’s where Mickey Wright won her last LPGA event, or that’s where Karrie Webb holed that unforgettable wedge, or that’s where Betsy King holed that crucial bunker shot. They won’t be able to say Houston is where Annika Sorenstam won three times, where a fiesta broke out when Lorena Ochoa won or where Inbee Park and Pernilla Lindberg played an epic eight-hole, two-day playoff. And they won’t say Houston is where Amy Alcott started a winner’s tradition of jumping into Poppie’s Pond, pretty much the only LPGA highlight guaranteed to make SportsCenter year after year.
Some fans will be disappointed by the news of the end of the LPGA in the desert. Others will be heartbroken and shed some tears. A few, even some at Mission Hills Country Club, will shrug their shoulders and move on. But knowing the 2022 Chevron Championship will be the 51st and last time the event is played in the desert will feel like the loss of an old friend. And that’s a feeling that will stick around for a while.
Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for the Palm Springs Desert Sun, he can be reached at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com or (760) 778-4633. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_Bohannan.
The new Chevron Championship purse will increase by 60 percent in 2022 to $5 million, putting it in line with the rest of the LPGA’s majors. The ANA Inspiration’s 2021 purse of $3.1 million is only $100,000 more than this week’s Cognizant Founders Cup.
Is the money worth it?
In short: Yes.
Because it’s not just about the money. The move to a later date in the spring guarantees network television coverage, which should be at the top of the priority list for all big events on the LPGA’s calendar. Does tradition really matter if not enough people see it?
There were a number of hurdles in moving the event’s dates away from the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and keeping it at Mission Hills, including the club’s flexibility, Coachella, desert heat, a dwindling volunteer base and the need for a week with an available 28 hours of live television.
LPGA commissioner Mike Whan was asked about the future of the ANA, which had one year left on its contract, during a press conference at this year’s event.
“You hate to lose tradition,” said Whan, “but as I always tell people, respect history, love history, don’t be afraid to make a little along the way. If you can make a new history that’s better, have at it, but this one to be tough to achieve that, I’ll be the first to admit.”
Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California, home of the ANA Inspiration. (Photo: Beth Ann Nichols/Golfweek)
Before anyone gives too much credit – good or bad – to new commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan, this move was in the works well before the former Princeton athletic director got to her post.
And rumors of the event moving out of Rancho Mirage, California, have been swirling for a long time. Those who have been on the ground at Mission Hills for years can attest to the fact that the event had lost some of its buzz, even before Augusta National stole so much of the spotlight.
For many, there’s a deep emotional attachment to Mission Hills. It’s the kind of place that fills the soul just stepping on property. A bucket-list event for fans and a favorite among the players.
It’s going to be sad to leave. And yes, it’s gut-wrenching to walk away from 50 years of tradition.
Which is why it’s so important that everyone gets one last hurrah in the desert. One final leap into Poppie’s Pond. Wouldn’t it be special if past champions like Lorena Ochoa, Karrie Webb, Juli Inkster and Annika Sorenstam came back to play? Like the Masters, former champions have a place in the field. At the very least an exhibition seems in order.
Before the pandemic, there was an annual champions dinner early in the week. No doubt that will return in 2022.
What traditions carry on beyond Mission Hills depends in part on which course they go to. Is there already a pond on the 18th and room for a small pool? (Serious question!) Perhaps that statue of Dinah should be replicated.
It’s important to remember that the LPGA is only as good as its majors.
On Mike Whan’s second day on the job as LPGA commissioner, he traveled to the desert to meet with officials from Kraft. They walked the back nine at the Dinah Shore course and had lunch overlooking the 18th green. While walking out to his car, Whan got the news that Kraft was out after three more years. His first meeting with a sponsor was, in fact, a goodbye.
“The British Open was going through a pretty difficult time in terms of sponsor renewal,” said Whan in recalling the story. “I remember thinking at the time I might be in the job a year, and we’ll be down to one major.”
While many referred to the Dinah Shore as the LPGA’s Masters because it stayed in one place, held great traditions and had white caddie jumpsuits, the fact that Whan considered signing ANA to be his greatest day on the job as commissioner says it all: There were no guarantees.
It’s a new era for the majors, of course, thanks to the backing of the R&A and the PGA of America – and a renewed zest from the USGA – major championship purses are growing and venues are vastly improving.
Speaking of venues, there’s no doubt that the new course that’s chosen for The Chevron needs to be a home run. Players must view it as a major-caliber test, a place they look forward to coming to each year. All the bells and whistles in the world can’t make up for a mediocre golf course.
But just think about “The Chevron” for a minute. It’s a title that has gravitas. It’s a brand everyone in America is familiar with, not to mention around the world. (After seven years of title sponsorship, people still refer to the ANA as “The Anna.”)
View of the 18th green on Wednesday at the 2012 Kraft Nabisco Championship.
Hopefully it’s the kind of blue-chip sponsor that makes other Fortune 100 companies look to the LPGA as a potential partner.
Because that’s what this is really about – progress. The greatest tradition of the LPGA – more than leaps and robes and celebrities – is that it weathers storms and comes out stronger.
Chevron has the deep pockets, commitment and vision that it takes to build on what David Foster and Dinah Shore started more than 50 years ago.
The LPGA and IMG will Chevron as the event’s new title sponsor, Golfweek has learned, signing a six-year contract with the global giant.
For a tour that was founded in 1950, the LPGA doesn’t have many traditions. Longevity is a precious commodity in the women’s game, even when it comes to major championships. Which is why word that the ANA Inspiration is getting a facelift – new name, new location, new purse – is blockbuster news.
The LPGA and IMG are set to announce Chevron as the event’s new title sponsor, Golfweek has learned, signing a six-year contract with the global giant.
“This partnership elevates us to a whole different level,” LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan told Golfweek.
The Chevron Championship will stay at the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills for 2022 in its traditional spot ahead of the Masters, and ANA will stay on as a partner for next year. The purse will increase 60 percent from $3.1 million to $5 million, putting it now ahead of the $4.5 million purses both the Amundi Evian Championship and KPMG Women’s PGA awarded in 2021.
After 2022, however, several more significant changes are in store.
The event will move away from Mission Hills, its only home since the event’s founding. The tour is looking to potentially relocate the tournament to the greater Houston area, home to roughly 8,000 Chevron employees and contractors.
There are also plans in place to move the tournament dates to later in the spring in 2023, allowing the event to be shown on NBC. The LPGA’s first major has been shown solely on Golf Channel in recent years. The current dates have also conflicted with the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, which airs its final round on NBC.
The ANA Inspiration celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2021, though fans weren’t allowed on property for a second straight year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2022 edition is set to take place March 31-April 3, giving players one more chance to take a final leap into Poppie’s Pond.
President Gerald Ford, actress Dinah Shore, golfer Judy Rankin and Colgate-Palmolive president David Foster at the Colgate Dinah-Shore Winners Circle tournament, which was held in the late 1970s at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California. (Photo: Desert Sun)
Colgate-Palmolive CEO David Foster created the event in 1972 and tabbed Dinah Shore as hostess on the new Mission Hills course. It was a marquee tournament from the start. The first purse at the Colgate-Dinah Shore Winner’s Circle was $110,000, at a time when the average purse on tour was roughly $30,000.
“It took the LPGA from being great women playing golf to celebrity status,” Jane Black, winner of the first Dinah, once told Golfweek.
Even though Dinah Shore was officially dropped from the event’s title in 2000, many still unofficially refer to the event as “The Dinah.” Amy Alcott became the first to leap into the pond on the 18th in 1988 to celebrate her second victory at Mission Hills.
While the future of traditions like the champion’s leap is unknown at this point, Ed McEnroe, senior vice president of golf events at IMG, said finding ways to honor the tournament’s history going forward remains a priority in this new era. To that end, the tournament will have a special Player Advisory Board to help shape what comes next.
“We have such a responsibility with this event,” he said.
This marks Chevron’s first big sponsorship with a women’s sports league. Al Williams, vice president of corporate affairs at Chevron, said the global nature of the LPGA and shared core values made the partnership a natural fit.
Lexi Thompson interacts with fans at the ANA Inspiration.
For Lexi Thompson, the 2014 ANA champion, taking a leap into Poppie’s Pond with her family has been the highlight of her career. It’s a venue players have looked forward to for decades.
LPGA rookie Patty Tavatanakit went wire-to-wire to win the 2021 edition in thrilling fashion over 2016 ANA champion Lydia Ko, who closed with a 62.
“The views are great, and as we said, the history, too,” said World No. 1 Nelly Korda last spring. “I’ve always said, it’s kind of like the Masters for us in women’s golf, so it’s definitely something you as a professional golfer, you want to win.”
All Nippon Airways, Japan’s largest airline, had been the title sponsor since 2015. ANA staged two majors in the span of seven months during a global pandemic that crippled the travel industry.
Former LPGA commissioner Mike Whan once said that signing a contract with ANA to replace Kraft Nabisco as title sponsor was his best day on the job. Securing and elevating the events that form the cornerstones of the LPGA is an ongoing priority for every commissioner.
“If you go back to why David (Foster) and Dinah (Shore) founded this event, they really wanted to have a platform to advance women’s excellence,” said Chevron’s Williams. “That’s something that we look forward to continuing to collaborate with the tour, with the players and really advancing women’s excellence.
“It’s amazing, you fast forward 50 years and our work is not done.”
Temps pushing 110, caddies on carts, a nearby wildfire and, oh, a pandemic, made this a surreal week.
PALM SPRINGS, California — It still seems strange, even eerie, that one year ago this weekend the Coachella Valley hosted perhaps the strangest major championship the LPGA has ever seen.
The 2020 ANA Inspiration, postponed from April because of the COVID-19 pandemic, was finally played this weekend one year ago. While the event crowned a champion in Mirim Lee in a playoff with Nelly Korda and Brooke Henderson, so much about the tournament was reflected by what the country was going through with the pandemic at that moment.
The tournament had no ticketed fans, and those who live on the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage were supposed to only watch from their backyard or common acres of the course. There were naturally a few breaches of those restrictions, but not many.
Oh, and there were those temperatures pushing 110 degrees, caddies riding in a golf cart (only a few, admittedly) and a nearby wildfire that blanketed the desert skies with smoke. On a few days, particularly one day just before the tournament, the smoke was so thick it actually kept the temperature down like a thick cloud cover and the smoke obscured the nearby San Jacinto Mountains entirely.
Just getting onto the course required a negative COVID-19 test and daily health screens, something that we almost take for granted today. In September 2020, all of that still seemed new and in some ways frightening. Masks and colored wrist bands were required. Access to the players was limited for the media, and protocols for getting into and out of the clubhouse at Mission Hills seemed to change every day.
It wasn’t much fun for anyone from players to volunteers, the LPGA staff or the homeowners.
A year later, things certainly seem to be much better, both for professional golf tournaments and for the Coachella Valley. But nothing is quite the same as it was in 2019.
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Edging back to normal for sports
Consider that the ANA Inspiration last April was still played without fans because of county regulations. But the tournament felt much better than it had in 2020, with access to players much easier and with fewer regulations. There were still COVID-19 tests and daily health screenings, though.
If the tournament was played today at Mission Hills, protocols might allow for fans, but only those who had been vaccinated or could provide a recent negative test result. While the tournament was played and a solid champion was crowned in 2020, the 2021 duel between champion Patty Tavatanakit and runner-up Lydia Ko somehow felt much more like an LPGA major event.
We’ve seen fans return to tournaments, most recently the Solheim Cup last weekend in Ohio. We’ve heard of very few players who had to withdraw from tournaments because of positive tests, so fans and players are starting to go about their business again. But the COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t want to go away, with the delta variant keeping everyone on edge.
That isn’t stopping – for the moment – fans attending high school football games or plans for fans to attend the rescheduled BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament in October in Indian Wells. Yes, those tennis fans will need to show proof of vaccination, but remember a year ago at the ANA Inspiration there was no vaccine.
The LPGA and the organizers of the tournament from IMG did everything they could to make the ANA Inspiration run smoothly one year ago, and they succeeded given the limitations of the pandemic. In a sense, it was a small miracle that the tournament was held, and most people will never know the behind-the-scenes work that had to be done to play an LPGA event in the desert in 2020.
The sports world and the desert are both in much better places a year after the pandemic ANA Inspiration. With the BNP Paribas Open less than a month away, and with The American Express tournament on the PGA Tour just four months away in La Quinta, everyone has to hope that the current surge eases and fans can go out and support their favorite players in events that are important to the desert.
The desert has seen two ANA Inspirations played without galleries, one American Express played without a gallery and two postponements of the BNP Paribas Open. A return to normal means getting those events played on time with fans in the seats and along the fairways.
Larry Bohannan is The Desert Sun golf writer, part of the USA Today Network. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_Bohannan.
Check out the final money payout from the ANA Inspiration, the first LPGA major of 2021.
The ANA Inspiration is the first LPGA major of the year and in 2021, it’s a 21-year-old taking home the trophy, the robe (after jumping into Poppie’s Pond) and the first-place check for $465,000.
Patty Tavatanakit shot a final-round 68 to cap off a wire-to-wire finish for not only her first major but her first LPGA victory. But it wasn’t without suspense, as Lydia Ko fired the lowest final-round LPGA major score ever with a 62.
Check out the final money payout from the 2021 ANA Inspiration.
“Figured out my putting today, which sucks on the final day,” Nelly Korda said after he round on Sunday.
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — Very quietly, almost under the radar considering the fireworks at the top of the leaderboard, Nelly Korda put in another great finish at the ANA Inspiration on Sunday.
Korda, who lost the tournament in a playoff last year with Brooke Henderson and winner Mirim Lee, fired a 6-under 66 on Sunday at Mission Hills Country Club. That pushed her to 11-under for the week and into a four-way tie for third, though she finished seven shots behind winner Patty Tavatanakit.
“Figured out my putting today, which sucks on the final day,” Korda said. “I put together a good score and I’m happy I kind of climbed the leaderboard today.”
Lee started the day in second place at 9-under but managed just an even-par 72 on Sunday to finish tied for ninth. Henderson made an early move on the day but finished at just 70 for the day and a tie for 19th.
Kerr’s best round
Hours before Lydia Ko’s big round Sunday, veteran Cristie Kerr was having a big round of her own. Kerr fired a 7-under 65 in the morning, which at the time was the best round of the week. Surprisingly, it is also Kerr’s lowest round in her 23 starts in the ANA.
“You know, I had nothing to lose and I had been playing so good all week until the back nine, and I was just like, This is payback today. Like I’m just going to go for it,” Kerr said. “And I started out of the gates really strong birdieing the first hole, getting a good break to stay in bounds on the second hole, and I made eagle. I just stiffed a 3-wood, and I just — all day I just kind of played with no fear.
“So just ecstatic with my round today,” Kerr added. “I had a couple other putts that could have gone in as well. I hit it so good, and my caddie and I were in lock step out there. My long-standing full-time caddie is about to have a baby, so it’s a pretty exciting day.”
A winner of 20 LPGA titles including two majors, Kerr has never won the ANA Inspiration. She finished second in the event in 2009 when Brittany Lincicome won the title.
A national record
Aditi Ashok finished well off the pace on Sunday, but she still had a record-tying week.
The Indian star has now played in 16 professional major championships, tying Anirban Lahiri for the most majors played by an Indian golf professional.
“It means a lot. And of course from my rookie year, in my rookie year I played all the five majors so it’s always been my goal to be at the majors and play well there,” she said. “I think I’m getting better, getting a little bit more experience with it. Yeah, of course means a lot, especially coming from India where golf isn’t that big and women’s golf is still not as big as men’s golf is. Yeah, it means a lot being an Indian at every major.”
Patty Tavatanakit couldn’t sleep Saturday night. She turned out the lights at 10 p.m., took some magnesium powder and tried to count her breaths. The rookie said she must have reached 100 at least five times. Of course, after watching Tavatanakit …
Patty Tavatanakit couldn’t sleep Saturday night. She turned out the lights at 10 p.m., took some magnesium powder and tried to count her breaths. The rookie said she must have reached 100 at least five times.
Of course, after watching Tavatanakit cruise around Mission Hills on Sunday without a single flinch, one would assume she slept like an absolute rock before that final round at the ANA Inspiration. Nothing about the rookie’s game would’ve suggested that she was new to the winner’s circle.
Such mental fortitude doesn’t come without work, and to that end, Tavatanakit gives high credit to Vision54 coaches Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott, who were in the desert this week. When asked to name the most helpful thing Nilsson and Marriott passed along during a four-day stretch in which the 21-year-old led wire-to-wire, the powerful Thai player reached for her phone to read a text exchange that occurred on Sunday morning.
Vision54: Reality check. You don’t know if you’re going to win or not today. You can play good and not win, or you can play so-so and still win.
You do want to make yourself proud by taking the best actions possible to manage yourself and your game plan.
Tavatanakit said she took that message seriously, focusing on what she could control.
Here’s how Tavatanakit responded: I agree. No matter what happens today my core values are:
1. My parents will be proud of me and still love me no matter what.
2. I’m already so proud of myself to be able to play good the last three days and just be a better player already since last year.
3. I’m still going to be the same Patty who appreciates the love and care from the people that matter in Patty’s life.
4. At the end of the day, there is always room for improvement and I won’t stop trying to be or get better.
Tavatanakit tried to let those words sink into her system: “I really think those core values helped me to win today.”
Lydia Ko began the round birdie-eagle, then notched four more birdies to post the first 29 in ANA history.
It almost felt like the 50th anniversary of the ANA Inspiration had two champions. While Patty Tavatanakit put on a remarkable display of power, finesse and poise to win the title, Lydia Ko put together the lowest final round in LPGA major championship history, a 10-under 62.
A “Hello World” moment from the Tiger-inspired Tavatanakit juxtaposed with a resurrection round from Ko, a one-time prodigy who at 23 years old looked to end a three-year victory drought three hours after Jordan Spieth did the same in Texas.
Ko began the round birdie-eagle and then notched four more birdies to post the first 29 in ANA history. She was 9 under through 11 holes and within two shots of the lead after starting the day eight shots behind Tavatanakit.
Another birdie on the 15th made all kinds of history well within Ko’s grasp. Given that this is a player who rewrote ever youngest-to-ever record in golf history, anything seemed possible.
When Ko stepped to the reachable par-5 18th tee, the most iconic hole on the LPGA, an eagle would’ve given her a 12-under 60, the lowest round in major championship history – male or female. A birdie would’ve tied her with Hyo Joo Kim’s major record of 61. A par tied the tournament record of 62 set by Lorena Ochoa.
Ko’s drive sailed left off the tee into a flock of birds, leaving those at home no choice but to hold their breath as she bypassed a cluster of palms and came entirely too close to the water.
After a layup, Ko hit a wedge from just under 100 yards to 22 feet. The birdie putt slid by and Ko’s chances at winning the tournament seemingly went with it. Her bogey-free 62, however, is the lowest final round in LPGA major history, besting her own record of 63 (2015 Evian Championship) and shared by Mary Beth Zimmermann, 1997 ANA Inspiration and Sei Young Kim, 2020 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
“No, 59 did not come across my mind,” said Ko. “Maybe if I was like Annika, it would have come across my mind, I don’t know.”
Tavatanakit said she didn’t have a clue what Ko was up to ahead of her, not looking at a leaderboard all day. The fact that there were no fans on the course made that possible. Ko would’ve had the place rocking.
Where does a round like this take the humble Ko?
So few stars find a way to re-build themselves to a level of domination after so long a drought. But then again, Ko is unlike any other player who has come before her.
Time and again she credits her work with Sean Foley, as much for how he helps her mentally as anything else. Earlier in the week, Foley told her she needed to have 100 percent conviction over every shot, correcting Ko’s use of the word commitment.
“I think the area that Sean has really helped me is to sometimes call me and he’ll say a few things and I’ll be like, ‘Whoa, that was way too much.’ Not like technical stuff, but he kind of gives me like a word slap, like wake up, and I think that’s what we all need at some point,” said Ko. “Sometimes you just get in the way of your way.
Lydia Ko walks to the 18th green on Sunday, April 4, 2021, at ANA Inspiration at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California. (Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)
“I know that sometimes I get in the way of myself, and at the end of the day all I can do is – it’s me against the golf course, and sometimes the me part is the really hard thing to get over. He’s been really helpful to clear those questions and kind of build the confidence in me.”
As Ko fielded questions after her record round, she kept an eye on the 18th green. When Tavatanakit clinched the title, Ko broke into a smile and started to clap.
