Meg Mallon is freckled and friendly but she has proved twice in three weeks she can be a nerveless, calculating competitor.
Mallon could lose her standing as the most popular player on the LPGA Tour if she keeps winning majors.The bubbly 28-year-old Mallon, who won the LPGA championship two weeks ago, handled 98-degree temperatures and two of the tour's toughest pressure players to earn the 46th U.S. Women's Open championship on Sunday.
"I can't believe I did it again," Mallon said. "I used my experience from winning the LPGA two weeks ago and it paid off. I stayed patient until my putter started working."
Young nerves beat old nerves on a physically demanding day which had a heat index of 105 degrees.
She did it the hard way by taming sun-seared Colonial Country Club's treacherous back nine with three brave birdie putts for a final round 4-under-par 67 and a 1-under-par 283.
Mallon said earlier in the week she was so tired she had no chance.
But she didn't give veterans Pat Bradley, 40, and Amy Alcott, 35, former U.S. Open champions, much of a shot with a putter that sizzled like the weather.
"My putter picked a nice time to get hot," Mallon said. "I didn't know I had the lead until I asked my caddy when we walked off the (final) green. Oh, I heard some kid whisper I had the lead on the 16th but I didn't want to hear it."
Alcott said Mallon has become the LGPA's brightest young star.
"She thinks she can win and her swing holds up under pressure," Alcott said. "It's her time."
Mallon has won $420,733 this year, second only to Bradley, and her name will go on Colonial's wall of champions along with such players as Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Jack Nicklaus.
Mallon, who played collegiately at Ohio State, seized the lead with an 18-foot birdie putt on the par-4, 400-yard 14th then knocked down a 20-footer on the 15th for another birdie. She had a 3-under-par 32 on the incoming nine to earn the $110,000 first place prize with a two-shot victory.Mallon, who had been a pro for five years, won her first LPGA tournament by taking the Oldsmobile Classic at Lake Worth, Fla., in the second event of the year.
"Once you get a winning feeling, you like to keep doing it," Mallon said. "I'm on a roll, that's for sure."
Bradley, the 1981 Open champion, began the day tied with 24-year-old Joan Pitcock. Bradley, winner of 27 tournaments, birdied two of the first three holes then bogeyed the ninth for a 1-under 35. Bradley finished with a final-round 71 and a 1-over total of 285.
Bradley was also second to Mallon in the LPGA, losing by a stroke.
"Meg is on a high, on a roll and she's riding it to the fullest," Bradley said. "I don't blame her. "
Bradley said she thought if she shot even par she would win.
"Par is usually worth something on the final round of the Open, but it wasn't today," Bradley said.
Pitcock, a non-winner from Fresno, Calif., shot herself out of it with a 2-over 38 on the front on the way to a 75 that left her at 289.
Alcott and 19-year-old Brandie Burton was just a shot behind the leaders when play began.
Alcott, who needs one more victory for automatic inclusion into the LPGA Hall of Fame, was out in 35, matching two birdies with two bogeys. She shot even-par 71 and finished at 286.