Ochoa's Goes to 11

by Mulligan Stu on Mar 2, 2008 10:31 AM EST Comment 2 comments

As in, an 11-stroke victory in Lorena Ochoa's season debut at the HSBC Champions. Eleven strokes better than runner-up Annika Sorenstam, 13 shots better than third-place Paula Creamer, the winners from the two previous weeks. Ochoa was the only player double-digits under par, and she was twenty under.

The golf media and blogosphere had a buzzword when Sorenstam won in Week 1: "statement." As in, "Annika made a statement." Well, if Annika made a statement in her Week 1 victory, what did Ochoa make at the HSBC with an 11-stroke win?

It wasn't a statement. It was a ransom demand. And like any good ransom note, Ochoa's has three demands:

At least 10 wins
At least 2 majors
$5 million in earnings

Will Ochoa's demands be met? Sorenstam will surely try to negotiate a cut of the action for herself; Creamer - and perhaps Suzann Pettersen or Karrie Webb or someone else - will try to diminish Ochoa's returns.

And we shouldn't just coronate Ochoa. While she's earned many comparisons to Tiger Woods and to Sorenstam she trails both those players in success in majors. And in closing the deal.

Will this be the year Ochoa really does start looking more like Woods and Sorenstam than Phil Mickelson? (Hey, it's not a bad thing to look like Phil - you'll win a lot, after all; you'll just blow a few tournaments here and there, too.) She needs to win majors, and to win the close ones, too - assuming anyone gets close to her, that is.

Addendum: Here are the first eight places on the leaderboard, sans scores:

Lorena Ochoa
Annika Sorenstam
Paula Creamer
Laura Diaz
Stacy Prammanasudh
Karrie Webb
Ji-Yai Shin
Christina Kim
Morgan Pressel
In-Kyung Kim

Good Lord, that's a great leaderboard! Until you remember that Ochoa was 11 strokes ahead of the pack.

0 recs | Comment 2 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Lindsey Wright and Emily Bastel

Wright was the only person to beat Ochoa--she shot a 66 to Lorena's 68 Sunday. If she orders t-shirts saying, "I Beat Lorena at the HSBC and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt," you can give her the Adam Scott treatment.

I forgot to check if Ueda blew up bad enough for Bastel to beat her. All I know is I didn't win our little prediction contest!

Seriously, a lot of people have a lot of practicing to do before they head to Ochoa territory in 2 weeks!

by The Constructivist on Mar 2, 2008 1:57 PM EST reply actions 0 recs