Lorena is making her first LPGA Tour appearance since a lackluster effort at Interlachen in the Women’s Open. In the Evian Masters, she leads after round one with a round of -7 (65). She leads by a shot over Angela Park, Sun-Ju Ahn, and Candie Kung. Five golfers are two back on -5.

Lorena has a solid history in this event, never finishing outside of the Top 5. The day did not begin that swimmingly, though. She struggled for the opening nine holes with a lone birdie at the first. Coming home, though, she made six birdies on the back side to surge in with 30 and take the lead.

“I had a break on 10 and 11. I got a really good confidence, and started feeling good over the ball and the putting,” said Ochoa, explaining how she turned around the day. “And I finished making six birdies on the back, so I have no complaints. I’m really happy. I didn’t make birdie on the last hole, but I made a long putt today, so it’s fine.”

Scoring conditions are likely to remain perfect. Angela Park, sitting in second, said, “This year the greens are more soft. I like the greens.” Likely, this will become an event won by making lots of birdies.

At GNN: http://www.thegolfnewsnet.com/progolf/lpgatour/lpgatour072408.htm

Also, check out the Constructivist’s first round recap over at Mostly Harmless. It has more details on the good rounds from Angela Stanford, Linda Wessburg, and a respectable open to Natalie Gulbis’ defense.

Dan O’Neill writes for the St Louis Post-Dispatch and offers a column that responds to the question with a decisive maybe.

First, the no way:

The idea that media outlets might funnel monies earmarked for covering Woods toward covering the women is a leap.

“Not a chance in hell,” said Len Shapiro, a longtime golf writer for the Washington Post. “I don’t think more people will gravitate to the LPGA because of (Woods’ absence). But there are very compelling stories out here, including (Annika) Sorenstam’s last year, (Lorena) Ochoa becoming the Tiger of her own tour and Michelle Wie mounting a comeback from her disastrous 2007.”

The core audiences for the PGA Tour and the LPGA Tour are far from identical. With a thick roster of Asian and European players, the LPGA’s market has a distinctly global character. With or without the presence of Woods, the picture frame for the women has been steadily expanding. In fact, Sorenstam sees no correlation between Woods’ circumstances and LPGA prospects.

“When it comes to the LPGA, … — we don’t compete against Tiger by any means,” Sorenstam said. “I think we stand on our own legs and we have some great golfers out here, and in our own tournaments. I would hope that the interest would be there whether Tiger is playing or not.”

Then, the cheerier, “Hey, we’re getting more exposure anyway, so this just may help” part:

[Connie] Wilson agreed the LPGA has enjoyed a modest but discernible increase in exposure over the last three years. She saw it in last Sunday’s New York Times, which featured a sports-cover feature on LPGA star Ochoa. She saw it in Time Magazine’s recent listing of Ochoa among its “100 most influential” people.

She sees it in this year’s 46 percent hike in viewership of the LPGA on ESPN2 and 7 percent rise on network television.

And then Lorena takes a stand and says that perhaps it is possible:

“I think it’s a good opportunity for us to get more fans so they can really see what we are all about,” said Ochoa, 26. “There are still people out there that … they don’t believe we have the game, or the shots, or the excitement.

“I think (with Woods out), they turn their TVs to women’s golf and they will find us.”

The pairings have been out for several days now, but wanted to get them in a post on here for reference’s sake. The US Women’s Open begins in Minnesota at Interlachen on Thursday. Cristie Kerr is defending champion, Paula Creamer already labeled the great American hope, and the media seems to expect another showdown between Ochoa and Sorenstam. All that said, here are some of the important Thursday/Friday pairings.

No pairings by the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, btw.

First, the traditional pairing:
7:33 a.m. – 1:03 p.m. — Cristie Kerr, Miami, Fla.; A-Maria Jose Uribe, Colombia; Lorena Ochoa, Mexico

Then the “model” pairing”:
7:55 a.m. – 1:25 p.m. — Natalie Gulbis, Las Vegas, Nev.; Young Kim, Korea; Carin Koch, Sweden

How about the youth movement?
8:17 a.m. – 1:47 p.m. — A-Kimberly Kim, Hilo, Hawaii; Julieta Granada, Paraguay; Michelle Wie, Honolulu, Hawaii
1:36 p.m. – 8:06 a.m. — Brittany Lang, McKinney, Texas; A-Amanda Blumenherst, Scottsdale, Ariz.; Na-Yeon Choi, Korea

There’s something about this dynamic that could be hilarious, or at least very entertaining:
7:33 a.m. – 1:03 p.m. — Karrie Webb, Australia; Yani Tseng, Chinese Taipei; Christina Kim, San Jose, Calif.

Two (EDIT: Nay, all three) players in this group are having solid years:
1:14 p.m. – 7:44 a.m. — Angela Stanford, Saginaw, Texas; Lindsey Wright, Australia; Jeong Jang, Korea

If Lorena had not won the Women’s Open, she’d be in this pairing:
1:14 p.m. – 7:44 a.m. — Annika Sorenstam, Sweden; Paula Creamer, Pleasanton, Calif.; Suzann Pettersen, Norway

Should be a good couple of days!

Since my last 10 posts were probably about Tiger Woods, let’s try to talk about something else – namely the Tour that people may care about more with Woods gone for the entire season. The LPGA Tour is at Rochester for the Wegmans LPGA and Lorena Ochoa is T37 after day one. What got her? Puttin’.

Her reaction:

“Frustrated,” Lorena Ochoa said. “It was a tough day for sure.”

“I had trouble with my putting,” the Mexico native said. “I had a bad day on the greens and missed a few short putts.”

“I’ll just try to make the right club selection and make birdies [on Friday],” she said. “I’ll be ready.”

Michelle Wie fired a 71 and seems to be on the right track these days after a T6 on the Ladies European Tour and qualifying for the US Women’s Open.

I found this part of her game story ridiculous and simultaneously interesting:

She is still protective of her mending wrists — she signed dozens of autographs Thursday but won’t sign golf balls — but says she is gaining confidence with each passing week.

“I can’t look back,” she said. “I have to move forward.”

Asked if she has anything to prove to critics or fellow golfers, Wie shook her head.

“The only one I have to prove anything to is myself,” she said.

And who leads this thing? Cristie Kerr, with six others, on -4.

As you probably know, Lorena Ochoa is not in the field this week at the LPGA Corning Classic in New York. For those of you even more astute, you would know that this violates the LPGA’s once every four rule which states that every player must participate in each event once every four years – though they get one CAREER exemption from the rule.

Well, Lorena paid the price for not participating this week.

Lorena Ochoa earned $300,000 for her sixth victory of the year at the Sybase Classic, which should help her pay a $25,000 fine for skipping the Corning Classic this week.

The LPGA Tour has a “1-in-4” rule, meaning players must compete in every full-field event on the schedule at least once every four years. Ochoa has not played Corning since 2004, when she tied for 19th.

The Mexican star felt she had no choice. She is defending champion at eight tournaments this year, the LPGA Tour added another tournament in Mexico and Corning is right before a buildup into the majors.

I cannot exactly blame her for having to defend so many titles and participate in the new event in Mexico with her name on it, as well as the HSBC Women’s Champions event earlier this season. Still, a huge disappointment for the fans in Corning – especially with such a paltry fine in relationship to Lorena’s back account.

Lorena Ochoa won the Sybase Classic in New Jersey for the third consecutive year on Sunday. It is her sixth win of the season. Before that, Annika Sorenstam had won two of her last three starts including a seven shot thrashing at the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill. In between the Sorenstam victories, Paula Creamer won her second event of the season – with Lorena Ochoa in the field – at the SemGroup Championship in Oklahoma. Before all of that, Ochoa reeled off four consecutive victories.

On the season, only one person other than these three players has won an event on the LPGA Tour. That person is Louise Friberg and she won in Mexico at the Mastercard Classic. Other than that, no LPGA player has won. A limited few have sniffed victory. Juli Inkster lost in a playoff in Oklahoma for the second consecutive year, but this time went down to Creamer instead of Mi Hyun Kim.

The domination of three players over this tour is staggering. It is something that is reminiscent of the Big Three of Nicklaus, Palmer, and Player in their run of trading major championships – particularly the Masters – over a nine year period. The fact that it is happening in a single season is equally as impressive as that feat. Venues change from week to week, so do the players, as do the playing conditions. Despite all of that, Ochoa, Sorenstam, and Creamer still seem to find a way to win between the three of them.

Even when the three of them are not winning, they are still playing excellent golf. Creamer is the lagger of the three. In her nine starts this season, she has two wins and two other top 3s. The rest of the finishes are outside of the top 10. Again, that makes her the worst performing player of the three. That would be a career season for 90% of golfers on any professional tour.

Sorenstam has just two finishes out of the top 10 and three out of the top five, including a T11 this weekend in New Jersey. Ochoa has finished outside of the top 10 only once this season – at Kingsmill. She is winning at a 67% rate, a stunning and unheard of rate, even if down from the 80% winning percentage she had earlier in the season.

The interesting part about the dominance of these three players is that it can be spun into a negative thing.

Barker Davis of the Washington Times wrote a piece on April 25 in which he claimed, “[T]he fact that two players have dominated the LPGA to such a degree almost concurrently says nearly as much about the lack of depth in the women’s game as it does about their individual greatness.”

On the Golf Channel’s Golf Central program last night, the topic of conversation switched to the same subject matter. Brandel Chamblee disagreed with Davis’ premise that this is a potentially bad thing. He claimed that sponsors love superstars, not parity. (That is not universally true. See the NFL for details.) In golf, that is true. The PGA Tour really only has two or three superstars and sponsors fawn over them.

The LPGA Tour may be able to experience the same kind of rub from the Big Three. That makes this year particularly critical for Commissioner Carolyn Bivens on multiple fronts. The Tour needs to close the deal on a television contract that is as beneficial as possible in 2008. Also, the Tour needs to sure up events that may be losing sponsorship or ending altogether – particularly the Ginn events and the event at Superstition Mountain.

With Annika’s announcement of stepping away from the game at the end of the season, the LPGA Tour will be hard pressed to be in a better position to negotiate with all parties come 2009. Yes, Ochoa leads a pack of next generation players and she seems poised to become one of the all-time greats. But, the position of strength for the Tour today is that there are two all-timers in the midst of an amazing season with another potential great joining in on the fun.

The fact that more writers appear to be covering the LPGA Tour in Tiger’s absence is telling. Quite possibly, the LPGA Tour has never enjoyed a window this large through which the game can grow. It must take advantage of this situation.

With the news that Annika Soresnstam was leaving professional golf (not retiring, per se), I devoted an entire segment of this week’s 19th Hole Golf Show to it. Check it out on the sidebar if you don’t want to read what my thoughts are because you can hear the same thing, more or less.

Let us be clear: Annika Sorenstam said nothing about retirement in her press conference and statement yesterday. Read what she said, courtesy of LPGA.com:

“After much consideration, I have made the decision to step away from competitive golf at the end of this season,” said Annika, who has added three more victories to her career total so far in 2008. “Because I love the game so much, this is obviously a hard decision to make, but it feels like the right one. I made this decision because I have a number of other priorities in my life, including starting a family, that I want to be as dedicated to as I have been to playing golf and it was always important to me to go out on my own terms.”

Two things stick out to me here. Of course, the “step away” phrase is very vague. It does not indicate finality in any sense. I should know as a fan of the Green Bay Packers, what with all of the talk about Brett Favre’s daily statements that indicate that he could return if new QB Aaron Rodgers turns out to perform poorly. When people are vague, they usually are on purpose. Step away can leave room for an eventual comeback effort. It could also actually mean that she is done for good. Honestly, though, I don’t think she knows whether or not she is truly done. She does know that she is done for now.

She is done for now for all of the reasons that you and I know. Annika will be married in early 2009, wants to start a family, and has about a dozen side businesses that will keep her challenged, busy, and rich. Basically, she is at the next stage of her life – committing to being a wife, mother, and a businesswoman – and needs to lay the groundwork for that. After she does that and she decides that the fire still burns to play golf competitively, then she’ll come back and do that.

If she doesn’t, though, the LPGA is not in bad hands. That is probably why Annika had no problem announcing the beginning of her farewell tour yesterday. Between Lorena, Paula, and a host of up and coming players, the LPGA Tour has a very bright future. Annika can walk away knowing that the house is in order and that she has nothing left to teach the kids. The Tour is hosting events all around the world (even if several are struggling here). A real television contract may be in the cards for the first time in the Tour’s history. Purses have never been higher. The ladies played St. Andrew’s at the Open for God’s sake. Between 1994 and 2008, a lot has changed – much thanks due to Annika.

Despite all that she has achieved, Annika has not done all that she wants. While many women on the LPGA Tour play while pregnant, take a break to have a child, and return, it appears Annika does not want to do that. She said that she wants to be as committed to the next phase of her life as she has been to golf. That is her option. Annika has more than earned the right to do what she pleases.

Sorenstam has never been one to carry much about records. Kathy Whitworth’s 88 victories are within reach with 4 or 5 more normal seasons for Annika of 4-5 wins. If this season is the end, though, will anyone really doubt that she is the best LPGA Tour player ever? Jack Nicklaus does not own that record on the PGA Tour and Woods is shy of the mark by almost 20 wins yet they are still 1 and 1a in the conversation for best male golfer ever.

Fortunately, though, the announcement in May gives us an opportunity to see her final season through a different lens. It gives us an opportunity to remember what she did so well, how she has remained humble throughout all of her success, and see how far she has come. But it also gives the apparent battle for domination between Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa some extra meaning. This is Annika’s last stand, so to speak, and Ochoa will be the survivor no matter what. Still, Annika can prove to those who doubted her after her 2006 neck injury and 2007 season that she is still the best in the world. She can deliver a message to Ochoa that she is letting her off easy and that she could come back and do the same thing anytime that she wants. For me, that makes the rest of this season even more exciting.

Annika really stuck it to everyone this weekend at the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill. She won by seven, a record for the event, on -19. Seriously, she put on a beatdown of epic proportions on the field. It was never in doubt on Sunday – or really on Saturday.

Now everyone is talking about how Annika is back. To be frank, though, Annika has been back since the opening event of the season. Yes, the two wins she had notched up until this weekend were without Ochoa in the field. Still, Annika had been finishing strong in events during the Ochoa winning streak. She had two runner up finishes, a tie for 9th, and then a not-so-good 44th at the Ginn Open. Overall, though, 8 events, 3 wins, two runner ups, and 7 top 10s. She has been back.

The real question was when she would stare down Ochoa and beat her like Paula Creamer did in Oklahoma. It took one week. Things are starting to be put into perspective in the last two weeks. Lorena can be beaten. She is not going to win 20 events this year. She still could win 10. But, she is going to have some serious competition for the titles that she earns this season. Ochoa may be playing incredible golf, but she has two ladies that are on her heels.

The LPGA Big Three is real, alive, and well. And that can mean nothing but good for the Tour.