LPGA Shootout : Nancy Brown Sees Victory That’s as Lovely as a Tree

POWAY —  When Nancy Brown’s tee shot lodged in a tree off the 11th fairway Tuesday at StoneRidge Country Club, victory was the farthest thing from her mind.

Brown was playing the second hole of a five-hole shootout, a preliminary to the LPGA Tour’s Red Robin Kyocera Inamori tournament, and she was in deep trouble. With two of the 10 entrants to be ousted on each hole, her chances of staying afloat seemed nonexistent.

Somehow, though, the fifth-year pro from Centralia, Ill., came out of the mess with a par four, sinking a 40-foot putt. She then stayed in the hunt by surviving a chip-off and went on from there to win the $3,000 first prize in an 18th-hole showdown with Martha Nause of Sheboygan, Wis. Nause earned $1,000.

“I couldn’t believe where that drive landed,” Brown said afterward. “It was right in the middle of a bunch of leaves, about eight feet above the ground. I took a drop and put my next shot on the green. Then I figured maybe I’d get lucky and get it done, and the putt went in.”

Nause also had to scramble to save par on No. 11, but not to the extent that Brown did. She drove into a bunker, then came out so well that she wound up with a two-foot putt for a par. Then, like Brown, she averted elimination in the chip-off.

By the time Brown and Nause walked to the 18th tee, eight golfers had tried and failed to keep up with them. Cathy Morse and Rosie Jones had bowed out on the 10th, Allison Finney and Penny Hammel on the 11th, Ayako Okamoto and Alice Ritzman on the 12th and Cindy Rarick and Danielle Ammaccapane on the 17th.

Okamoto, the native of Hiroshima who has won the regular tournament here the past two years, was bumped out of the competition in a weird manner. With no tape measure available, officials had to take the flag that marks the hole and place it on the green to determine that Okamoto’s chip-off shot was two inches farther away than Rarick’s.

Brown and Nause played almost identically on the final hole, a 175-yard par three. Brown had a 20-foot putt for a birdie, Nause a 25-footer. Both barely missed, and both had tap-ins for pars. Finally, in the shoot-off out of a bunker, Nause’s shot landed 20 feet away from the pin. Brown beat her by coming within five feet.

“It was good for me that we shot out of a bunker,” Brown said. “I told my husband (Gary) that I wasn’t chipping well, and I’d be better off with a bunker placement. I was just lucky.”

Nause said she also thought shooting out of a bunker was a break--until the ball left her club.

“I like getting out of bunkers,” she said. “I was thinking about making it, and I guess I should have concentrated harder.”

This was the first shootout for Brown, the second for Nause.

“It was fun,” Nause said. “I was more nervous on the first tee than the last one, with all those people standing there. We had a real nice gallery.”

Nause, 34, who finished fifth here last year, has one tour victory in 11-plus seasons, that in the Planters Pat Bradley International last year. Brown, who will turn 28 on April 26, has yet to win but earned more in 1988 ($96,846) than in her three previous seasons combined.

“My game improved tremendously last year,” Brown said. “I had five top-10 finishes, which was a real bonus. Now I want to break through and win one.”