Lorena Ochoa won the Safeway International on Sunday with the ugliest shot she hit all week, a drop-kicked three-wood that expired in a bunker 70 yards short and right of its target. That was her second stroke on the par-5 13th hole, and the feeble effort was indicative of what to that point had been a disastrous round.
Ochoa started the day with a four-stroke lead, but by the time she was playing the 13th hole, she was two shots behind a red-hot Suzann Pettersen, who torched Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club, outside Phoenix, with five birdies in the first seven holes. The reversal of fortune stirred memories of the 2005 Safeway, during which Ochoa blew a four-shot lead on the final three holes and then lost a playoff to Annika Sorenstam by dumping her tee shot into a lake on the first extra hole. That disaster was part of a string of disappointing finishes that had led to questions about Ochoa's fortitude. Her six-win season in '06 quieted most of that talk, but another Sunday collapse was the last thing Ochoa needed heading into the first major of the year, this week's Kraft Nabisco Championship.
But a funny thing happened at 13. Ochoa fixed her swing, and her head. "That shot woke me up a little," she said. "I tried to hit that shot too hard. I told myself to slow down and the birdies would come. This was my tournament, and I was not going to let anyone take it from me."
After saving par on 13, Ochoa birdied four of the last five holes to finish at 18-under 270, two shots clear of Pettersen, and roar to her 10th career victory and first in Arizona, where she starred as an undergrad. More important, it reaffirmed her standing as the favorite heading into the Kraft Nabisco, where last year she lost in a playoff to Karrie Webb.
"A major is everything for a tour player," says Ochoa, 25, who is looking for her first such win. "Hopefully 2007 is the year of the majors for me."
