On a whim, we decided to hang out around hole 9 for a while and walk it from tee to green a few times because several intriguing threesomes were moving through: Christie Kerr, Maria Jose Uribe and Lorena Ochoa, followed two groups later by Natalie Gulbis with two other players (Young Kim and Carin Koch, to be fair), followed later by Michelle Wie’s group.

That gave us the opportunity to see scores ranging from a 3 to a 9. Wha? Aren’t these professionals. Well, not exactly. You see, the one who carded the 3 was an amateur — Uribe, an 18 year old from Colombia who is quickly winning people over out here with her spirit (and perhaps her nontraditional bright pink — some would call it hot pink — golf dress). And the nine? Well, that was brought to you by Wie. As she duffed her way around the hole making pretty much every brutal shot imaginable, a woman turned to her (presumed) husband and said, “She needs a Dairy Queen.” Or a hug. Or a better strategy than hitting a drive into the rough, blading a chip, duffing a chip, putting from the rough, pulling a Mickelson by pitching back to her own feet and missing a 5-footer (and that wasn’t even all nine strokes).

Other highlights: The fan who asked us: “Where’s Lorena?” She thought Uribe was Ochoa — a simple mistake considering Uribe (now at 3-under) was playing like Ochoa, while Ochoa (now at 2-over) was busy mishitting a chip and carding a bogey on 9 to make the turn at 3-over. … Gulbis is a charmer. She smiled and amicably chatted with the gallery while walking between the ropes from the ninth green to the 10th tee — making everyone think, “Wow, that golfer really likes me.” Obviously, she’s also a golfer (1-under through 12).

True stories: there are a lot of straw hats being worn … everything out here smells green … we have yet to use our “inside the ropes” privileges.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 11:29 am and is filed under U.S. Women's Open. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.