Come watch: you will be 'astounded'

JOE.BRYKSA@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Enlarge Image

Michelle Wie lets it rip off the first tee during Wednesday’s pro-am at St. Charles. The 72-hole tournament begins today.

LPGA and World Golf Hall of Famer Judy Rankin is the authority of women's golf on the airwaves. The regular Golf Channel, ABC and ESPN analyst and on-course reporter will be in the broadcast booth this week for CBC, covering the CN Canadian Women's Open at St. Charles.

A 26-time winner on the LPGA Tour, its leading money winner in both 1976 and 1977, player of the year in 1977, she was also the first-ever female player to cross the $100,000 earnings mark in one season.

Enlarge Image

Judy Rankin (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES)

Rankin gave Free Press golf writer Tim Campbell some time at last week's Safeway Classic in North Plains, Ore., and here's her take on several issues pertinent to the Tour today.

-- Free Press: The LPGA Tour has had a couple of tough blows in recent times in the retirements of No. 1 players Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa. How is it surviving?

-- Judy Rankin: "I think they were both very difficult blows. And back-to-back, one after the other, and particularly at Lorena's age, 28, really hard. Annika had become very comfortable in her role as No. 1 in the world and I think if we all look back, she started out not very public and seemingly very shy and she had grown through all of that to where she was doing a tremendous amount of good for women's golf and for the LPGA and golf in general. Then we have this young woman come along who is so appealing, who handles stardom in a way that we rarely see any great athlete do. As good a player as she was and as much as that meant to the LPGA I think the loss of Lorena and her persona and the way she dealt with people was a huge loss out here. Will (the LPGA) survive it? Yes it will. Has it survived to date? It's been hard and I think there are quality, really good players and we are very possibly seeing some great players in the making but there isn't somebody who can just walk into those shoes."

-- FP: Is the current discussion over the No. 1 ranking a positive for the tour?

-- Rankin: "I think the thing that would be the best for the LPGA would be out of these four or five people for there to be one great rivalry. It seems that one great rivalry has made so many sports and brought it to the top of the sports pages over time."

-- FP: As a commentator, what's your style? We think of Johnny Miller on one side as pretty harsh and Lanny Wadkins, maybe, on the other as too nice.

-- Rankin: "My hope is that I present a player fairly and in a particular shot situation, that I can paint a picture for you and you can see the options they have. I might be able to tell you what I think is the best option but I really like to leave that to 'let's see what he or she does.' It's very easy in the television role, particularly in women's golf, where you're sitting in the booth and you're the analyst, it's easy to make judgments. Hopefully, I can spotlight what is the best of a lot of these players and give you a fair picture of what I believe they're seeing and of the choices they have."

-- FP: In the last few years, there's been some controversy surrounding the influx of international players, Asian players, the language issue, for instance. What's your view?

-- Rankin: "It has been a difficult introduction. It has been very difficult to get the people in the United States and possibly Canada to associate themselves with a name that's very foreign to them and to want to open the sport page and see what that person has done. That's all part of what professional golf is about. You're trying to get fans to have a mini-emotional involvement with a player they don't know but somebody that has attracted them to watch and root for them. With the rise of some really great players from the around the world, it's already is a big part of men's golf but one of the differences is, if the names are recognizable and easy to pronounce, like Stuart Appleby or Geoff Ogilvy, well, nobody talks about all the Australians on the PGA Tour. When it's your language you don't think of them as foreign players. But it is reality and I must say if you ever get the opportunity to know some of the people who seem very foreign to you, if you ever get the opportunity to visit with them or get to know them, there are an awful lot of really charming young gals out here and probably a few who are going to end up bridging that difficult time. And because of the makeup of the LPGA Tour, I believe it has to become even more of a global playing tour than it already is. I think that's inevitable."

-- FP: "OK, there's a fan who's on the fence about going to St. Charles for the CN Canadian Women's Open. What would you say to try to convince them to go?

-- Rankin: "They will be astounded at the quality of golf at the upper part of this tour. At the top half of this tour, they will be stunned at how good these players play. I really think people who have not seen this for themselves, think that these are very nice women golfers. It's a whole lot more than that. I was a pretty good player and the way these players play at the top of the game today is foreign to me, the physical strength of their game and the things they're capable of doing. I would say some of the hardiest, crustiest men who play the game four or five days a week would stand on the practice tee and I'd need to come by and pick a couple of jaws up off the ground. Often times I tell people if you really love this game, there are a few things you should see one time in your life. And everybody should see Tiger Wood strike a golf ball. And I really think everybody should see Michelle Wie strike a golf ball when she's on. And there's a whole list right there with her who are stunning ball-strikers."

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 26, 2010 C6