Kicking Off The 2009 Season: Who’s Got The Fire This Year?

By Lisa D. Mickey

A couple of years after I graduated from college, I was working for a newspaper in North Carolina and my editor asked me to cover an LPGA tournament in High Point (N.C.). I did, and I didn’t know then that that assignment would change my professional life forever. That was the week that I fell in love with the LPGA, and in general, women’s professional golf.

Just as other newspaper assignments with random sports had forced me to study the rules and basic objectives of such sports as rugby, polo, men’s college lacrosse, fencing and even once, a national table tennis championship, I knew more about golf because, at least, I played it. But that assignment at an LPGA tournament gave me the foundation of understanding that I still draw upon today.

I remember watching the pros at that tournament – both rookies and veterans – and paying close attention to how they prepared for the competition. In particular that week, I remember one player who was making her pro debut and I distinctly remember seeing something really special in her eyes. Was it fear? Was it hunger? Was it the anticipation of taking her first swings in a career destined for greatness? That was August 1983, and I’ll never forget seeing an intensity in her eyes that I could not define in words.

That player was Juli Inkster, and we both were rookies that year on the LPGA Tour. Twenty-some years later – and man, do the years fly by! – I have seen that same look so many more times. I saw it in the eyes of Betsy King, Patty Sheehan, Annika Sorenstam, Se Ri Pak, Karrie Webb, Suzann Pettersen and Lorena Ochoa. They all were young and hungry and so ready to get started. They all had it from the very start.

But what is it? What exactly is that flicker and who gets it? And who will get it and keep it in 2009? Who will become the game’s most motivated player who possesses the ability to rise and achieve and to never be satisfied with mediocrity? And who will step into the giant footprints left behind by Sorenstam after the 2008 season and signal to Ochoa and all others that a new contender plans to challenge?

Will it be Michelle Wie, who finally earned her LPGA card for 2009? Will it be Duramed FUTURES Tour alums Stacy Lewis or Vicky Hurst or Mindy Kim? And here on the developmental tour, who will step up to fill shoes vacated by Hurst and Kim? Will it be collegiate All-Americans Alison Walshe (Arizona), Maria Hernandez (Purdue) or Pernilla Lindberg (Oklahoma State)? And will UCLA alum Hannah Jun and former Florida Gator Hannah Yun challenge (and confuse us) all season?

Of course, there will be some returning faces in 2009 who are back to finish polishing the stone, so to speak. Mexico’s Violeta Retamoza and South Korea’s Seo-Jae Lee didn’t transition as smoothly to the LPGA in 2008 as they had hoped. They, along with former Duke standout Liz Janangelo and Taylor Leon of Texas, might return with their own agendas and pose the greatest threats to the younger soon-to-turn professionals. They already know what they need to do; now, they just have to get it done.

And then those players who earned 2009 LPGA status who will alternate between the LPGA and Duramed FUTURES Tour also will bring a combination of experience and hunger back to the Tour. Make no mistake, there is unfinished business for Canada’s Jessica Shepley, South Korea’s Song Yi Choi, Mexico’s Sophia Sheridan, Californians Kim Welch, Lisa Ferrero and Mo Martin, Sweden’s Sofie Andersson and Caroline Larsson, Scotland’s Vikki Laing and even Massachusetts native Briana Vega. If I had to pick a “dark horse” right now, it might be the highly fit and impeccably driven Gerina Mendoza, who hails from Roswell, N.M., which produced a certain LPGA Hall of Famer named Nancy Lopez.

It’s hard to predict greatness, but the telltale sign is that special spark that all great champions possess. It comes quickly and is irrepressible. It is as intense as the burning end of a rocket and if you are fortunate enough to see it and recognize its power, it is captivating with a magnetic pull in an inexplicable way. It is special, and that’s all you know.

While the intensity is often supremely polished by the time it reaches the LPGA, on the Duramed FUTURES Tour, it is developmental, though unmistakable. I saw it in 2003 with Stacy Prammanasudh, who just would not allow herself to lose. I saw it in 2004 with Jimin Kang, who won with such ease and extraordinary power, laughing along the way. I saw it in 2006 with five-time winner Song-Hee Kim and two hard-charging contemporaries, In-Bee Park and Angela Park, and again in 2008, with five-time champion Vicky Hurst, who made winning look easy and effortless. I also saw it in 2007 with Allison Fouch, who would grind herself into the dirt to close out a win, and with Thailand’s Onnarin “Moo” Sattayabanphot, whose eyes flashed with a deep intensity I had not seen in a while. It was there in each of these players.

So in keeping with the usual New Year’s mantra of “out with the old and in with the new,” let’s go ahead and say that the 2009 Duramed FUTURES Tour money list is officially wide open and ready for the taking, along with the 10 LPGA cards to be awarded for 2010. It’s going to be a real battle in 2009 on both the LPGA and the Duramed FUTURES Tour with arguably the best rookie classes ever assembled simultaneously on both tours. That’s great news for women’s professional golf. And I can barely wait to see who steps up this new season with fire in their eyes.

Contact: Lisa D. Mickey, Duramed FUTURES Tour, lisa@duramedfuturestour.com.