The Sybase Classic teed off yesterday with a dominant round of golf, perhaps the best the sport has seen all year, and it didn’t come from phenom Michelle Wie or three-time champ Lorena Ochoa. It was Helen Alfredsson who had the best round of her life and of this year’s LPGA Tour.
Alfredsson finished the first day with a 10-under par 62 that broke the Sybase Classic record, and left her two strokes ahead of Brittany Lincicome and nine ahead of Ochoa. She couldn’t explain her great round, despite the wind and rain, tricky greens and tight fairways at the Upper Montclair Country Club in Clifton, N.J., and wasn’t about to try.
“When everybody has a good day, you’re like ‘Why can’t I bottle this?’ Why is it so hard to stay in the moment?” said Alfredsson, 44. “You wonder why you don’t do this all the time because it’s so easy. It’s not strenuous, your head isn’t going crazy, your body doesn’t hurt — and at my age, all that stuff usually comes along with it.”
After the Swede’s 2007 season was cut short by a herniated disc so severe she “couldn’t feel (her) right hand,” she was solid last year and spectacular yesterday, so accurate, seven of her nine birdies came from eight feet or less.
The Upper Montclair Country Club suited all the leaders, as she, Lincicome (8-under) and Suzann Pettersen (7-under) are big-hitters. There was Alfredsson, driving the ball long and talking to it — and herself — the entire time.
“I never say negative things,” Alfredsson said. “I’m not the type that says, ‘Get your (stuff) together.’ It’s not like you walk around and tell yourself, ‘You’re a piece of (garbage). Dirt-trash, cow.’ It’s just part of who I am.”
She likely had her foes talking to themselves, with Ji Young Oh sitting in fourth (6-under 66) after two bogeys, but a 140-yard hole-in-one. Wie, Paula Creamer and Natalie Gulbis were tied for 12th, all at 2-under. Ochoa sat at one-under, buried in 22nd, but hardly forgotten.
“As far as I know, this is a four-day tournament,” Pettersen said. And though Ochoa’s resume says she’ll be contending on Sunday, yesterday belonged to Alfredsson and Lincicome, who made eagle on the 18th hole.
After rebuilding her swing this year with new coach Craig Shankland, the once-errant Lincicome kept the ball on the fairway, and had 25 putts. On the last hole she chipped in from 17 yards out, her confidence buoyed by her Hamilton Farm win in Gladstone, N.J.
“Just to know I can hit that shot under pressure, it’s a huge confidence booster,” said Lincicome. “I definitely learned a lot from everything I went through last year, not knowing if I was going to be able to turn it around or if this is what I wanted to do. Good thing I stuck around.”
