Green Leads Senior Women's Open with 68; Redman Is T20 with 75

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KETTERING, Ohio -- Tammie Green may not be the most familiar name on the leader board at the 2022 U.S. Senior Women's Open, but she knows how to win. She won four times in college, while playing for Marshall University, where she played both golf and basketball. Green didn't turn professional right out of college. Instead, she waited a couple of years, but once she joined the Futures Tour, she started racking up victories and won 11 times in two years (1985 and '86).

In those days, despite having all those victories on the Futures Tour, she still had to get through the LPGA Q-School, which she did in the fall of '86. She was the LPGA Tour's Rookie of the Year in 1986, and her first LPGA win was a major, the 1989 de Maurier Classic. Green won twice in 1993, once in '94 and twice again in 1997, and ended up with seven LPGA victories. 

Now the 62-year-old Green is in postion to win the Senior Women's Open, after putting together a bogey-free  first round of 5-under-par 68 Thursday on a difficult and tricky South Course at NCR Country Club. That has her one ahead of Catrin Nilsmark and Leta Lindley. Helen Alfredsson, who won this tournament in 2019, is two strokes back, at 70, in a tie for fourth, along with Pat Hurst. 

Laura Davies, who won the inaugural Senior Women's Open in 2018, is alone in sixth place at 71. 

Green started on the 10th tee and parred her first three holes. But then she ran off four birdies in a row, starting with the 127-yard, par-3 13th and ending spree at the 456-yard, par-5 16th. She made one more birdie, at the 510-yard, par-5 fifth hole.

"It's a lot of defense out there," she said afterward. "The greens are lightning fast. I'll tell you, it's a great championship course."

The biggest name in the field, defending champion Annika Sorenstam, who won by eight shots last year, hit only seven fairways and is at even-par 73, tied for 10th.

"It's a true test of golf," said Sorenstam, the winner of 72 official LPGA events, including 10 majors, and an LPGA record of more than $22 million in prize money. "I'm just very disappointed in my round. I came in here prepared. It just didn't turn out today. I'm going to hit some balls. I've got to start hitting the fairways, and maybe some putts will drop."

Someone who did hit fairways and greens, and definitely didn't get putts to drop was Juli Inkster, a winner of three U.S. Women's Amateur titles and two U.S. Women's Opens. She hit 16 of 18 greens, but needed 37 putts and shot 76, which has her tied for 28th. (Inkster has also won the first two Land O'Lakes Legends Classic tournaments at Mystic Lake Golf Course, the most recent of them 11 days ago, when she closed with 67 for a 36-hole total of 137.) 

Inkster is one behind Michele Redman, the former University of Minnesota golf coach who spent 20 years on the LPGA Tour (1992 to 2011), winnng twice. She had lots of circles and squares on her card Thursday, starting with a birdie on the first hole, followed by bogeys on the second and third holes. She bogeyed the 11th (354 yards, par 4), but birdied the 12th (344, par 4) to get back to even par for the day. But she had three bogeys and one birdie on the way to a 75. She's tied for 20th.

Lisa Grimes, one of the pioneers of Minnesota girls/womens golf, is in that 11-way tie for 28th at 76, along with Inkster. Grimes (when she was Lisa Kluver) finished third individually in the first Minnesota state girls high school tournament, in 1977, and led Alexandria to the team championship. She led Alex to another state title and won the individual championship by four shots the next year at Forest Hills, with a 36-hole score of 147. No one in Minnesota's large-school class bettered that score until Maggie Leland, also of Alexandria, shot 143 in 2010.

The Minnesota Women's Open didn't come into existance until 2001. Since then, Grimes has won it a record four times.  

On Thursday, she started at on the back nine. She bogeyed the 11th and birdied the 12th, then made nine pars in a row, before sandwiching one birdie between two bogeys on either side of it, beginning at the fourth, and then finishing with a par at the ninth.

One other Minnesotan, Barbara Moxness, broke 80. The former Minnesota Girls Junior champion (she won the tournament in 1970, as Barbara Kuhlman) shot 78. She parred all five of the South Course's par 5s and all four of the par 3s, but bogeyed five of the nine par 4s.     


U.S. Senior Women's Open

At NCR Country Club

South Course (par 73)

Kettering, Ohio

First-round results

1. Tammie Green                        68 (-5)

T2. Catril Nilsmark                      69

T2. Leta Lindley                          69

T4. Pat Hurst                              70

T4. Helen Alfredson                   70

6. Laura Davies                          71

T7. Catriona Matthew                72

T7. Judith Kyrinis (a)                 72

T7. Laurel Kean                        72

T10. Annika Sorenstam            73

T10. Trish Johnson                   73

T10. Audra Burks                      73

T20. Michele Redman             75

T28. Lisa Grimes                     76

T41. Barbara Moxness           78

T89. Kelley Brooke                 83

T95. Karen Weiss                   84

T105. Kristal Parker               85

T111. Kris Tschetter              86