JoAnne Carner shoots better than her age at US Senior Women’s Open – AGAIN!
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!
Matt Coles
Mention a European country, and Matt will tell you which resorts make the National Club Golfer Top 100s: European Resorts list. He might even throw in who designed the golf course and how many rooms the hotel has got at each one…
Matt got into the game of golf from a young age, following his old man to the local golf club. He fell for the sport, and now can’t seem to go a day without thinking about how to improve his game (Thanks Dad!). Matt has been a member of Howley Hall GC in Leeds since 2020, and is just about managing to maintain a single-figure handicap. He likes to remind people that he once broke 75, but won’t tell people that it was on a shortened course during the winter.
He moved to Leeds after graduating from the University of Central Lancashire with a First Class Honours degree in Sports Journalism. Matt joined NCG after almost five years travelling the world with the Professional Squash Association, working on events in all four corners of the globe.
Matt currently plays a Cobra King LTDx driver and RadSpeed 3-wood. TaylorMade monopolise the rest of his bag, with a SIM UDI, M5 irons and both Milled Grind and HI-TOE wedges, along with a Monza Redline putter. He uses a Vice Pro Plus golf ball, because he’s a bit different…
Away from golf, Matt is a Manchester United fan, and a keen runner, having ran the Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon (his first and possibly last), in May 2023.
