Golfing Disasters Part six: Gary Moran reflects on Betsy King's victory, or rather Patty Sheehan's loss, in the 1990 US Women's Open at the Riverside course in Atlanta
American golfers Patty Sheehan and Betsy King have an extraordinary amount of achievements in common. For starters they have both competed on the LPGA Tour in four different decades.
Sheehan's 35 career victories include six majors and she qualified for the Hall of Fame in 1993. King counts six majors among her 34 career wins and she reached the Hall of Fame in 1995. They have both won the Player of the Year award and the Vare Trophy for low-scoring averages.
They played together on the first four United States Solheim Cup teams, they both have career-low rounds of 63 and both have won the LPGA Skins game. The Golf Writers Association of America awarded Sheehan the Charles Bartlett Award for unselfish contributions to the betterment of society in 1988 and, as if not wanting to upset the balance, bestowed the same honour on King in 1994.
They would never do it officially, but some of the more cynical writers might well have offered Sheehan an award for a charitable donation to King at the 1990 US Women's Open. It was one occasion when their fortunes diverged dramatically. Patty was the hare who raced ahead only for Betsy the tortoise to reach the finish line in the lead.
The tournament was staged on the Riverside course at the Atlanta Athletic Club. For the academically minded, the river in question was the wonderfully named Chattahootchee. Sheehan opened with a joint best-of-the-day 66, six under par. Eighteen other players broke par prompting Sheehan to offer some opinions that would come back to haunt her. "We're not used to playing courses like this at the Open. I like an Open course to be tough. It sorts the good players out from the okay players. That's what you want."
Judy Bell, a member of the USGA Executive Committee, who was in charge of the set-up maintained that "school was still out" on whether they had got the set-up right. "It's inconceivable to me that the winner's going to be four times six-under," said Bell. She needn't have worried.
The weather helped to bail out the USGA. It took two rain-interrupted days to complete the second round. Sheehan's 68 was the only sub-70 score and moved her into a six-shot lead. King was nine behind.
The final 36 holes were scheduled for Sunday and with the more typical muggy weather returning to Atlanta, the tortoise rather than the hare prospered. Sheehan started the third round well enough with birdies at the second and third moving her to 12-under, three better than any player had ever reached in a Women's Open.
She led by nine shots with 27 to play and at one stage was 11 clear of King, but Sheehan hadn't prepared properly for the endurance test. "I had no fuel on board when I went out which was a huge mistake. I started losing it. I was dehydrated. I couldn't think properly and I had no strength."
Three dropped shots later she failed to make a 150-yard carry over water to the 18th green and ran up a double-bogey seven for a 75. That left her four ahead of Mary Murphy and five ahead of King with only a 35-minute break before starting her final round.
Sheehan was in trouble from the start and frittered away four shots on the front nine to fall behind. Level again with two to play, she bunkered her tee-shot at the par-three 17th. A bogey there and a par on the last meant a round of 76. Playing ahead, the steady King had already completed a 70.
The final reckoning showed that she had retained the Open with an aggregate of just four under par. That was 20 shots more than Bell had feared after the first round. Crucially it was one shot less than Sheehan who was in tears after letting the biggest tournament in women's golf slip from her grasp.
