U.S. Women’s Open 2013: Inbee Park’s dominance frustrates Stacy Lewis

Inbee Park could be the golfer who finally breaks the three-straight-major jinx when she takes the field at the U.S. Women’s Open.

With victories at the season’s first two majors, coming off back-to-back Ws (beginning with the Wegmans LPGA Championship), and with a stranglehold on the No. 1 ranking, the 24-year-old South Korean is certainly favored to pull off the hat trick that has eluded all contenders since Babe Zaharias won three major championships in a row back in 1950.

For sure, Park, who has won five times in 12 starts in 2013, speaks confidently about her chances to do what Tiger Woods, Annika Sorenstam, Pat Bradley, and Jack Nicklaus have failed to achieve.

“This is the best I’m playing in my career so far,” Park told reporters Tuesday, ahead of the grueling challenge that awaits the best in women’s golf at Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y., come Thursday. “I’m trying to keep this going.”

One player who will try to put a halt to Park’s dominance is formerly top-ranked Stacy Lewis.

Lewis, who lost her No. 1 spot to Park after the latter won the Kraft Nabisco Championship in April, noted her frustration with watching Park hoist all the hardware of late.

“It’s frustrating for the rest of us, that’s for sure,” Lewis said during a Tuesday press conference. “I know people like to see somebody make history and do all of that, but for players it’s frustrating to see someone sit there and win week after week after week. But she’s making good putts and she’s steady. Every time I feel like she may have an OK round and then the next day she’s up there on the leaderboard again.

“She’s just always there, always giving herself a chance, and nothing really seemed to faze her,” Lewis added. “That’s the big thing. She just makes putt after putt after putt, and she’s there at the end of the day.”

At first glance, Park may not appear to be the oddsmakers’ pick to win this week. She’s ranked 84th in driving distance, with an average of almost 248 yards off the tee, and 55th in driving accuracy.

But it’s the short game where Park excels -- and where U.S. Opens are usually won or lost. The eight-time LPGA Tour winner is 17th in greens in regulation, third in sand saves, second in putting average (28.43 per round), and No. 1 in putts per green (1.7 average).

“I’ve played very good golf the last two or three months,” she said. “Everything’s going the way I really want it to. I’m hitting the ball and striking it great and putting it very well.”

All of which is important, but what about the ever-critical psychic part of the game? Sorenstam, in a teleconference with reporters last week, recalled that she tried to disregard the hype and pressure building around her unsuccessful 2005 quest to join Zaharias in the record books after winning the season’s first two grand slam events.

“I’ve been in [Park’s] shoes. I had a chance to go for the third major in a row,” Sorenstam said. “It was a lot of pressure. I wanted to, you know, not necessarily ignore it, but I was trying to not let it get to me. I wanted to just focus. It’s another major. It’s the U.S. Open, and at the time, I had won two before, and I thought, you know, I can do this.”

Sorenstam, who will cover this week’s proceedings for Golf Channel, said she was eager to see how Park dealt with the tension and glare of the spotlight.

“She has major experience and she’s the No. 1 player in the world, so she’s not necessarily brand new in this role,” Sorenstam said. “We’ll see how she handles Sebonack and the conditions that await.”

Park was well aware of what could go awry between the ears, conceding that the stress and strain of expectations were very real.

“I think there is no way that you won’t feel the pressure, because you will always feel the pressure, but it’s just the more you experience it, you just feel it a little less and less over the time,” Park said. “Now when I’m in the position where I am and when I’m in the winning position, and I’ve been there a lot, so it’s just knowing what I have to do. I think that’s been a big help for me.”

As has Sookyung Cho, the mental coach Park has worked with since she became the youngest, at 19, to win the U.S. Women’s Open in 2008.

“I talk to her every week before the tournament, during the tournament and try to talk to her and try to get a little bit of the pressure off,” said Park. “She’s been helping me a lot.”

Park’s swing coach and fiancé Gi Hyeob Nam has also had a measurable impact on her game. Nam has tweaked a swing that is now more consistent and helped her relax outside the ropes.

Of course, it’s not just Park tilting against the course to become the first golfer in 63 years to notch three consecutive majors out of the gate. Several -- including Woods in 2002, Sorenstam in 2005, Bradley in 1986, and Nicklaus in 1972 -- have had the tools and confidence, only to come up short.

Facing Parks are several worthy contenders who hope to put a halt to their colleague’s torching of the history books. At least one, however, sounded as if she had already conceded the title to Park.

So Yeon Ryu won the 2011 U.S. Women’s Open and has another tour win on her resume. But she sounded a defeatist note after losing to her good friend in a playoff at last week’s LPGA NW Arkansas Championship.

”I think everybody’s scared of Inbee because she’s playing super well last 12 months . . . 14 months,” Ryu said after finishing runner-up in the event. “If her name is top on the leader board, she makes everybody really nervous.”

It remains to be seen how Park will handle her own nerves in the face of a daunting golf course and the chance to make history.