honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted at 2:50 p.m., Saturday, October 13, 2007

Golf: Pettersen ties Ochoa for Samsung World lead

By Thomas Bonk
Los Angeles Times

PALM DESERT, Calif. — What looked like a runaway came to a screeching halt Saturday at Bighorn in Palm Desert, where Suzann Pettersen birdied the last four holes, Lorena Ochoa bogeyed the 18th and they wound up tied for the third-round lead of the Samsung World Championship.

Ochoa, who has played the 18th in a combined 3 over, knocked her drive wide to the right and into a bush, took an unplayable lie, hit her third shot into a bunker and then wound up making a 15-foot putt to salvage a bogey.

Afterward, Ochoa refused to say she was glad that wasn't a double bogey.

"I am not happy, no," she said.

And Sunday, when she plays the 18th hole again, with memories of hitting her driver to the right on Thursday for double bogey, Ochoa said there's no way she's hitting that same club.

She just doesn't know what.

"Anything, but not a driver," she said.

Ochoa finished with a 3-under-par 69 and was caught at 12-under 204 by Pettersen, who had the tournament's low round with an 8-under 64.

It's hardly a two-horse race, with four other players within three shots of the leaders. Jeong Jang, Mi Hyun Kim and Angela Park are one shot back at 205. Paula Creamer is sixth at 207.

Ochoa began the day with a one-shot lead over Park, Creamer and Angela Stanford, but by the time she made the turn, her lead was up to four over Creamer, her closest pursuer.

Ochoa birdied three consecutive holes on the front and then the ninth to reach 13 under, but played the back in 1 over, including a three-putt bogey at the 11th. That's where Ochoa said she lost her momentum.

Park, 19, and the LPGA Tour's rookie of the year, put herself in position for her first victory with a 69, despite a pair of three-putt bogeys. She said her game plan today is to post a low score and hope.

"Seeing that, hopefully they'll get nervous," she said. "I feel like every week is the week that I could get my first victory. I'm only one stroke back. There are 18 more holes to go. You never know what they're going to do. They played well today. It's kind of hard to play well again the next day."

Pettersen got off to a semi-slow start and was even through four holes, but she certainly closed fast with four birdies in a row.

At the 538-yard, par-five 15th, she hit a wedge from 100 yards to four feet. At the par-three 16th, Pettersen made a 20-foot birdie putt from the fringe and she then birdied the 17th when she hit an 8-iron to 20 feet.

A tap-in birdie at the 18th was the finishing touch.

"Some shots are good and you make the putts," Pettersen explained after moving into position to face off with Ochoa for the second week in a row.

Last Sunday at the Longs Drugs Challenge, Pettersen beat Ochoa on the second hole of a playoff.

Ochoa said last week wouldn't matter. "Each day is a separate thing," she said.

Second on the money list, with Ochoa in the lead, and a career best fourth in the rankings, with Ochoa safely entrenched at No. 1, Pettersen has had a breakthrough year.

She has won three times, including her first major, at the LPGA Championship. Pettersen had a good shot at the Kraft Nabisco but blew a three-shot lead with four holes to play, and Morgan Pressel won.

Pettersen said she has no fear about another head-to-head showdown with Ochoa, but she said last week's victory doesn't mean much.

"Every week is different," she said. "Different course, different weather, different atmosphere. You still swing the same. You try to dig deep and go low."

But Ochoa is the standard, Pettersen admitted.

"Obviously, this year, winning six times," she said. "She's the world's No. 1 right now and you always try to chase the No. 1.

"May the best one win," said Pettersen, who was headed to the swimming pool "to get the batteries loaded."

Ochoa is buoyed by the knowledge of her closing 65 at Bighorn a year ago that pushed her past Annika Sorenstam. But Ochoa was still angry at herself for her bogey at the 18th and said she was going to punish herself. No dessert, she said.