The numbers and the commissioner of the LPGA are in complete agreement: The best female golfer in the world is England's Laura Davies.
Davies pulled out of the pack atop the leaderboard with a torrid back nine Sunday to win the LPGA Championship, her second major title. Her 5-under-par 279 was three strokes better than Alice Ritzman, who told Davies afterward, "You were just too tough."Davies leads the LPGA this year in scoring average, top-10 finishes and most importantly, victories. Her third win this year, along with the $165,000 check that went with it, gave her a tour-best $467,628 in earnings.
Upon handing Davies the championship trophy, LPGA commissioner Charles Mechem Jr. called her, "The greatest female golfer in the world."
Davies reluctantly concurred.
"On paper, I suppose I am just about the best," she said later. "But it just depends who plays well each week. Whoever wins next week will be the best for that week."
It very well could be Davies, who now brings a two-tournament winning streak into the Lady Keystone Open.
"I've had a really good run and things have been going my way," Davies said. "Who knows what's going to happen next week?"
It won't matter to Davies, an avid gambler who figures she's playing the rest of the year with the house's money.
"If I missed every cut from here to the end of the year it would still be a great year," she said. "If I win again it would be great, but if I don't I won't be complaining, especially considering the luck I had on the back nine today."
Luck? Perhaps. After all, Davies managed birdies on Nos. 14 and 15 despite hitting both tee shots well left of the fairway.
"When I hit bad shots, I wasn't punished for them," she said.
Davies distanced herself from the field with birdies on Nos. 11, 12 and the two after missing the short grass. She then made three straight pars, capping the day with a 1-foot putt on 18 to finish a 3-under 68.
"I was dead nervous when I went out there today," she said. "I was pretty calm in the middle of the round, and after I made the birdie on 15, the last three holes seemed to take forever."
It was a lot worse for the rest of the field. After Davies surged into the lead, the only remaining question was who would finish second.
Ritzman, bidding for her first win in 402 events, bogeyed two of the first three holes but recovered to shoot a 70 for a 282. It was the eighth time she finished second in her 17-year career.
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In Charlotte, N.C., Lee Trevino finally beat the back-nine blues at the PaineWebber Invitational.
For two days, Trevino had labored over the final nine holes at the TPC at Piper Glen and managed even par. In Sunday's final round, he got two birdies on the back side and finished at 4-under-par 68 for a three-day total of 13-under-par 205 and a one-shot victory over Jim Colbert and Jimmy Powell.
It was Trevino's third victory in 1994, and his first PaineWebber championship. Although he was in contention from first tee to final green, there was a host of challengers ready to take over. None did.
Jerry McGee, Graham Marsh finished at 11-under-par 205 after a third-round 66. Butch Baird was at 206, defending champion Mike Hill and Dick Lotz came in at 9-under-par 207, and Ray Floyd was one of three golfers at 208.
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In Dallas, Neal Lancaster won the largest sudden-death playoff in the history of the PGA Tour on Sunday, beating five others for the title in the storm-shortened GTE Byron Nelson Classic.
Lancaster won for the first time in his five years on the tour when he sank a four-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole at the TPC at Las Colinas.
He beat David Edwards, Japanese rookie Yoshi Mizumaki, Tom Byrum and Mark Carnevale, all having completed one round on each of two rain-soaked courses in 9-under-par 132. The tournament was reduced to a 36-hole format following a series of rainstorms.