For the sixth time in five years, JoAnne Carner has shot her age (or better!) at the US Senior Women’s Open
Imagine you’re in your 80s and you shoot a lower score than your age. Now imagine having done that six times in five years!
That’s what LPGA Tour legend JoAnne Carner has done, with the 84-year-old carding an eight-over-par opening round of 80 at the US Senior Women’s Open at Waverley Country Club.
“It felt good,” Carner said. “I’ve been practicing a lot and really kind of spinning my wheels.
“Then I started to get the move here and had it on the range this morning and the first hole, then I fought it. Once in a while I’d hit one. It was just work all day.”
She started on the back nine and bogeyed her opening hole, the 10th. She then made double bogey on 12 but was able to make the turn at just five-over-par.
Carner then bogeyed the opening three holes of the front nine. She regrouped, and was able to come home in level par over her last six holes.
‘Big Mama’, as she is affectionately known, made a sublime birdie at the 9th hole, her last of the day. She hit her tee-shot on the 123-yard par-3 to just a couple of feet, before sinking the birdie putt.
“No, my eyes aren’t that good, but I appreciated the applause,” Carner said on whether she saw how close she hit it. “I knew I could finally maybe make a birdie.”
“I missed a lot of greens. It plays long for me because I have a 9-degree driver and I’m driving right into those hills,” she added.
“I can’t adjust it, so I don’t get the carry, and I’m going in with long clubs all day, 3-woods all day long second shots, and then can’t get there.”
Carner is a two-time US Women’s Open winner and runner-up at seven other major championships. She is the only woman to have ever won the US Girls Junior Championship, US Women’s Amateur and US Women’s Open titles. Tiger Woods is the only man to have the equivalent triple in the men’s game.
Carner was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1982, and then captained the US team at the Solheim Cup in 1994.
Would you be able to shoot your age when you’re in your mid-80s like JoAnne Carner? Can she do it again on day two at Waverley? Let us know your thoughts with a Tweet!
More podcasts from National Club Golfer
