| Candid Talk: Donna Andrews Wows Tin Whistles The Pilot April 2003 |
BY HOWARD WARD: Golf Writer
The setting was the annual Tin Whistles banquet and awards dinner at Pinehurst Country Club, but the star of the show was
LPGA Tour President and player Donna Andrews.
Andrews, who has shown signs recently of regaining the form that allowed her to win six LPGA tournaments, wowed her
adopted hometown audience with a candid conversation that covered everything from the Augusta National-Martha Burk
fiasco to 13-year-old Michelle Wie to her longtime friendship with fellow horse-lover Cricket Gentry.
Andrews was taking a short break from the rigors of the Tour after the Kraft Nabisco Classic to stop by Pinehurst and spend
a few days at her horse farm, Serenity Stables. It was a relaxing break, despite having to learn that one of Cricket’s horses
had passed away a few days earlier.
“Cricket and I became friends long ago,” Andrews said. “We shared a love for golf and horses.”
The friends shared a scary experience in 1999, too. They were riding one day when Andrews’ horse fell, resulting in a
dislocated shoulder for Andrews that put a serious crimp in her golf career.
“Fortunately, Cricket is a paramedic and she knew what to do until we could get help,” Andrews said.
Andrews, whose last LPGA win came prior to the injury in the 1998 Longs Drugs Challenge, was introduced at the dinner by
former CBS-TV sportscaster, author and newsroom legend John Derr, Gentry’s father. Derr told of an incident that happened
on Tour in the 2001 Williams Championship that he felt defined the kind of person Andrews is.
“Donna was on the 18th green with a short putt that would have given her a 61,” Derr related. “She lined up the putt and
stroked it into the hole. Everyone was cheering, knowing that she had just shot 61. Everyone but Donna. She felt she had hit
the ball twice with her putter and called a penalty on herself for a 62. No one else saw it. Television replays couldn’t detect it.
But Donna called it.”
It was a decision Andrews had to make.
“In my heart of hearts, I felt I had hit the ball twice,” she explained. “I knew I had to call it on myself if I was going to live with
myself and go out and play another day. Part of why you play this game is integrity.”
Andrews had an almost surreal experience in the recent Kraft Nabisco, a “major” championship she won in 1994 when it
was known as the Dinah Shore.
“It was just one of those days,” she said. “I shot a 43 on the front nine that had a little of everything, including a ball hitting a
tree in the fairway and staying in it. I was just praying, ‘Lord, give me patience,’ because I knew my tournament was over. But
on the back nine, I had four birdies in a row and shot 32.”
Andrews was playing with Annika Sorenstam and the teen-ager Wie in the first two rounds and was impressed with the
wunderkind.
“Michelle played wonderfully,” Andrews said. “She doesn’t look 13 to me. She’s taller than I am, she has longer arms and
she hits the ball a lot farther than I do. She has a wonderful golf swing that’s very fundamentally sound.”
Andrews has no doubt that Wie, who contended well enough that week to be paired in the final group on Sunday, will one day
be a star on the LPGA Tour. She’s just happy that won’t be happening anytime soon.
“Fortunately, Michelle wants to go to college and get a degree,” Andrews said, laughing. “If she does that, by the time she
gets on Tour, I’ll be retired.”
Andrews was speaking on the Monday prior to the Masters, but she made it clear that she wasn’t taking the side of Martha
Burk in the dispute with Augusta National chairman Hootie Johnson on women becoming members of the club.
The Pilot April 2003
