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An impressive, runaway win at the LPGA Championship Presented by Wegmans this past weekend has garnered  Cristie Kerr of the U.S. the position of No. 1 in the world, based on the Rolex Rankings released Monday. She claimed the No. 1 spot for the first time in her career after winning her second major championship this season.

Kerr is the third player in as many weeks to hold the top position, following Jiyai Shin of South Korea and Ai Miyazato of Japan.

According to a write-up at LPGA.com, Kerr was an amateur prodigy who bypassed college to turn professional at the age of 18. She started her professional career on the Duramed FUTURES Tour in 1996 and was an LPGA rookie in 1997. A tough inaugural season sent Kerr back to the LPGA qualifying school in the fall of 1998 where she earned co-medalist honors with Se Ri Pak and exempt status for the 1998 season. It took Kerr nearly five more years to become a Rolex First-Time winner at the 2002 Longs Drugs Challenge. She next won the Takefuji Classic in 2004 and proceeded to win two more tournaments that year. Kerr has not had a season without a win since. She captured her first major championship title with a two-shot victory at the 2007 U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles Country Club in Pinehurst, N.C.

The Golf Channel’s Randall Mell wrote a story that talked about how,  Charlie De Lucca, the “Godfather of South Florida Golf,” watched Kerr annihilate the competition when she was growing up in Miami.  As executive director of the Dade Amateur Golf Association, he marveled at the cold, ruthless little competitor who never seemed satisfied or content as she rose to No. 1 in the national junior rankings.

By the way, Kerr had rounds of 68-66-69-66 for a total of 269.  She finished 19 under par and was 12 strokes ahead of her nearest competitor, Song-Hee Kim (281).  Ai Miyazato, who Kerr replaced at the top of the rankings, finished tied for third with a 283.

Also, Kerr broke the record for the largest winning margin in LPGA Championship history and pulled in $337,500 for her effort.

Other notables include:

T19    Michelle Wie     (72-74-73-70) 289 +1
T34    Katherine Hull (74-73-76-68) 291 +3
T42    Paula Creamer (71-72-74-75) 292 +4
T62    Juli Inkster (71-74-77-74)    296 +8

An interview with Kerr can be found here.

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There were a couple of nice write-ups about Juli Inkster in honor of her 50th birthday.
Randall Mell of the Golf Channel wrote how Inkster reminded all her peers on her 50th birthday why she’s still playing. She shot a 1-under-par 71 in the opening round of the LPGA Championship to move into contention to become the oldest winner of an LPGA event and oldest man or woman to win a major championship.  Noting that it is her 28th season on tour, and her 591st career LPGA start, Inkster still loves to compete.

A story by Golf Week beat reporter, Beth Ann Baldry included a list of the 50 reasons why Inkster is widely regarded as “the most fun and respected” players on the LPGA tour.  Some notables include:

• It was the ’08 Ginn Open and I was talking to her about how baggage costs were going up. She asked “What do you fly?” I told her economy. “That’s your problem,” she said. “Fly first class, play first class.” – Katherine Hull
• Won back-to-back LPGA Championships in 1999 and ’00.
• On Monday, she took her daughter and a friend to the Finger Lakes to go tubing and jet-skiing. She has no problem taking time away – Morgan Pressel
• She doesn’t act like she is 50 years old. She acts like she is one of us – Stacy Lewis
• She probably was one of those people – besides Nancy Lopez – who was one of my idols – Cristie Kerr

LPGA Championship Presented by Wegmans is taking place at the Locust Hill Country Club, in Pittsford, New York (near Rochester) this weekend. There is a $2.25 million purse and a first-place check of $337,500.  If Inkster can win at 50, she would surpass Beth Daniel (46) as the oldest winner of an LPGA event, Fay Crocker (45) as the oldest winner of an LPGA major and Julius Boros (48) as the oldest man or woman to win a major.

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Japan’s Ai Miyazato shot a 7-under 64 Sunday to win the ShopRite LPGA Classic.  She was 16-under for the 3-day tournament and finished ahead of M.J. Hur (-14), Inbee Park (-12) and three tied for fourth place (-11): Suzann Pettersen, Hee-Won Han and Katherine Hull.  Paula Creamer did a stellar job in her return, finishing in seventh place (-10).

This was Miyazato’s fifth win on the LPGA Tour in 2010.  The winner’s prize was $225,000, pushing Miyazato’s earnings this year to $830,238.  She has just taken over the No. 1 spot in the Rolex World Golf Rankings.

Also notable: Ai Miyazato sported the knee high socks that are a staple of Japanese fashion.

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According to the United States Golf Association  (USGA), the 2010 U.S. Open Championship set new organization records for website and mobile device engagement by golf fans.

The USOPEN.com website, developed in conjunction with technology partner IBM, featured new apps, including an interactive play tracker and an enhanced course section that allowed fans to recreate historical shots in HD on their computers.

• Overall fan visits to USOPEN.com during the week of the championship totaled 4.2 million, up 8 percent over the 2009 championship week.
• The play tracker engagement received 2.9 million downloads with more than 11 million interactions. It was the third successive year of strong traffic growth for the site.

A story at TechCrunch made special note of the mobile activity:

• The USGA’s Digital Media team recorded 1,711,156 visits to m.USOPEN.com during the championship, an increase of 518% over last year’s mobile site.
• Nearly 30 percent of traffic to the U.S. Open site was from mobile devices.

Alex Withers, the USGA’s managing director of digital media, noted, “We continued to see great engagement on the iPhone application that we launched last year, and adding live video streaming across all video-enabled mobile browsers created a huge volume of fans following the championship via mobile devices.”  He also noted how the “HD live streaming of marquee groups and feature holes (Nos. 7 and 17) across multiple interactive platforms brought fans closer than ever to the on-site excitement of a U.S. Open.”

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On the other coast, the ShopRite LPGA Classic will be taking place .Friday-Sunday on the Bay Course at Seaview – A Dolce Resort, in Galloway Township, New Jersey.  In this tournament, Paula Creamer will be giving her surgically repaired thumb a try-out.  She had her surgery on March 31.

In an Atlantic City Press story, Creamer remarked, “It won’t be completely healed for quite a long time.  It’s a progression. I have to work through it. It’s been a roller-coaster ride, but right now we’re heading in the right direction.”

You may recall that the thumb issue arose during the Honda PTT LPGA tournament in Thailand back in February.  After her tee shot on the 16th hole of the first round, she felt it “pop or tear.”

She said “the only thing that was going through my head was, ‘Oh, my gosh. Am I ever going to be able to play golf (again)?’ ”

Playing this weekend is a big step.

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• The Golf Channel will be covering this event.
• The purse is  $1,500,000.
• The ShopRite LPGA Classic is returning to New Jersey after a 4-year break.
• Here is a link to the pairings

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The USGA (as in United States Golf Association) put out an announcement on Monday that spelled out some of the ways fans can follow the action using “a variety of exciting technologies, digital applications and devices to access scoring, live streaming and the latest news from their home, office or virtually any location.”

New to the U.S. Open website (www.USOPEN.com) this year is an interactive play tracker that expands and modernizes the traditional leaderboard and gives control to the user. This new feature includes an overview map that allows users to follow all groups on the course and a dynamic heat-mapping feature with red, gray and green color indicators to show how hard different parts of the course are playing during each round, using scoring averages on each hole.

Other new features include:

• An Enhanced Course Section that interactively presents the U.S. Open course setup at Pebble Beach through high-resolution images of each hole, flyover and course walkthrough videos
• A new “Experience History” feature developed in association with World Golf Tour that allows fans to watch a video clip of a historical shot from a previous U.S. Open at Pebble Beach and then attempt to replicate it through an HD golf experience. For example, fans can watch and then play out Tom Watson’s famous chip-in shot at the par-3 17th that propelled him to a two-stroke victory over Jack Nicklaus in the 1982 U.S. Open.
• HD Live Streaming across devices, extending coverage to the iPhone and a wide range of other mobile browsers.
• The “Rules Corner” where USGA Rules officials provide expert commentary on rulings pertaining to each day’s action.

As for social networking, there is a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/USOPEN) and there will be Twitter feeds from fans on the course via the American Express Experience Tent.

Clearly, this will be he most connected U.S. Open yet.

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U.S. Open Championship will be taking place Thursday June 17 – Sunday June 20) at the Pebble Beach Golf Links.

On Friday, the tee times for the first two rounds of the 2010 U.S. Open were announced.  Tiger Woods will play with Lee Westwood and Ernie Els in one group (1:36 p.m. PT in the first round) while reigning Masters champion Phil Mickelson is paired with Padraig Harrington and Y.E. Yang (8:06 a.m. PT) in another group.

On Day Two,  things flip with the “Tiger” group teeing off on No. 10 at 8:06 a.m., and the “Phil” group starting at the No. 1 at 1:36 p.m.

The golf writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, Ron Kroichick, noted how some of the groupings announced Friday, included the USGA’s traditional touch of whimsy:

— Tom Watson, 60, will play alongside 18-year-old Ryo Ishikawa of Japan and 21-year-old Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland.

— Three U.S. Open champs will play together: Retief Goosen, Jim Furyk and Angel Cabrera. So will three British Open champs: David Duval, Tom Lehman and Ben Curtis.

— The short-man group (with PGA Tour wins) features 5-foot-9 Mike Weir, 5-8 K.J Choi and 5-7 Tim Clark. The tall-man group (with AT&T wins at Pebble Beach): 6-4 Dustin Johnson, 6-3 Davis Love III and 6-2 Vijay Singh.

— The no-worries group consists of three accomplished Australians in Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy and Robert Allenby.

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“I’ll never watch the Open the same way again,” Wahlberg said afterward. “And this is not even Open-ready yet – the rough is going to be longer and the fairways are going to be harder. … Hey, I love the game, and I’ll always enjoy it. But if I had to do it for a living, I’d slit my wrists.”

Actor Mark Wahlberg was reacting to his experience on Wednesday at the Pebble Beach Golf Links where he played in the Third Annual Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge with hockey great Wayne Gretzky,  Super Bowl-winning quarterback Drew Brees, and essay contest winner, Peggy Ference from New Jersey.

The challenge, a made-for-TV event,  was born from a quote by Tiger Woods during the 2007 U.S. Open, when he said a 10-handicap couldn’t break 100 on such a tough setup.

Wahlberg was the only player in the foursome to break 100, making a par on the last hole to shoot 97.  Gretzky made a triple-bogey on the final hole to shoot 100, and Brees finished at 102.

Ference, who was playing from the championship tees, struggled to reach many of the fairways.  She ended up shooting 118.  The 7,040-yard layout was deemed a par 78 for her.

The conditions were calm for most of the front nine until the foursome turned inland, when gusts of 25 mph blew in the players’ face.

“This was really about the game of golf and how anybody can play it from any set of tees in any conditions,” Ference said. “I have so much appreciation for what the PGA Tour players encounter, not just in the U.S. Open, but regular tournaments too.”

Brees remarked, “Golf is the only sport where you have a lot of time to think about your shot. You stare at your ball, walking around and lining up and you start thinking, ‘I’ve got water on the right, out of bounds on the left, high grass here.’ You start thinking about all these problems, so you have to be very strong mentally. That’s why I can really appreciate the mental toughness of these guys.”

Pebble Beach Golf Links will host the 2010 U.S. Open June 17-20. Designed by Jack Neville and Douglas Grant, it opened in 1919, Pebble Beach has hosted 10 previous USGA championships, including four U.S. Opens.  Each of those Opens was won by one of the game’s great players – Jack Nicklaus in 1972, Tom Watson in 1982, Tom Kite in 1992, and Tiger Woods in 2000.

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Note:  Source for this story include  AP , the San Francisco Chronicle and Golf Digest (also credited for the picture).

Jack Nicklaus and Annika Sorenstam submitted a letter to the International Golf Federation to let them know they are interested in building the golf course in Brazil where the Olympics will be played in 2016, according to an AP story.

There isn’t a public golf course in Brazil, so one of the objectives is to create something accessible to the all golfers after the Olympics.  As architects, Nicklaus and Sorenstam would be responsible for the first Olympic golf course since 1904

Nicklaus is no stranger to South America.  Nordelta in Buenos Aires and the Chapelco Golf and Resort located in San Martin de los Andes, Neuquen, Argentina were designed by Nicklaus and team.

Sorenstam has been involved in a number of projects worldwide.  Last month it was announced Sorenstam had signed an agreement to design a new 18-hole project, the Olivion Golf Resort, in Belek, Turkey. Olivion is Annika’s first course design project in Europe and ninth worldwide.

When asked about her design philosophy, Annika has said, “As I approach a new design or redesign, I look to capture the natural character of the landscape.  I feel it is very important to preserve the environment, spirit, and traditions of the game.  My goal is to design courses that golfers of any age, gender or skill level can enjoy equally.”

Examples of her work can be found at Mission Hills in Shenzhen, China, Euphoria in Pretoria, South Africa, and the Golden Bay Golf & Resort which will open this year in TaeAn, South Korea.

David Fay, who represents the USGA for the International Golf Federation, confirmed the letter was received:

“It was a very nice letter,” he said. “When you get a letter from two Hall of Famers, that will get a lot of attention. But there definitely will be a process to go through. Sometimes there’s a feeling that you don’t want to Americanize the process. We’ve been very respectful of the fact, as we should be, that it is an international game.”

Olympians and mere mortals would be honored to play a course designed by this dynamic duo.

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