Posted by Jason Sobel
Just call Brittany Lincicome the ultimate party crasher.
As if taking a cue from Zach Johnson's post-Masters comment about beating Tiger Woods at Augusta National -- "They say a giant has to fall at some point" -- Lincicome looked to one-up him on Sunday by attempting to take down two giants at the LPGA Ginn Open.
The final day was supposed to be a two-woman race, with Lincicome's playing partners each vying for their place in history. Entering the round, Lorena Ochoa and Laura Davies were tied atop the leaderboard at 14-under, four strokes clear of Lincicome, who was barely a footnote in the Union at Reunion.
Here's what was at stake: With a victory, Ochoa would surpass Annika Sorenstam as the only other player to be ranked No. 1 in the world since the Rolex Rankings were instituted on Feb. 20, 2006. Pretty big deal, huh? It actually paled in comparison to what a win would mean for Davies; she needs one more title to qualify for induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
I'll spare you the suspense. The third wheel put her game into drive on the back stretch and rode away with the victory. Or, more to the point, her fellow competitors pulled over to the side of the road with a flat tire before crossing the finish line.
As the three players made the turn, Ochoa led Davies by two strokes and Lincicome by five, but things got ugly in a hurry for the two history chasers. There were two weather delays earlier in the day for rain, but wind gusts of 20-25 mph toughened up the course during the later part of the afternoon. Ochoa made two pars, two bogeys and two doubles in her final six holes, coming in with a 6-over 42, and Davies finished double-triple on her last two to hit the same number.
Meanwhile, the 21-year-old local girl (she was born in St. Petersburg, Fla.) kept plodding along, playing the back nine in even-par to earn her second career LPGA victory.
"Tough conditions prove who's the best player," Ochoa said. "And today it was Brittany, for sure."
There's still good news for the second- and third-place finishers. With Sorenstam out for at least a month due to a back injury, Ochoa will have more chances to gain that top status. And after a two-week stint in Europe, Davies will return to the U.S. in search of LPGA win No. 21 at the SemGroup Championship in three weeks.
They can still chase history. But it was Lincicome -- the giant-killer -- who made a little history of her own on Sunday.
