With twilight falling and the golf course virtually deserted, Patty Sheehan, trying to make the moment last, gleefully tramped across the 18th green.
She paced off her "monster two-putt," then, with a small group of friends humming the theme from the movie "Rocky," Sheehan thrust her arms in the arm and did a triumphant jig.Still wearing the traditional Nabisco Dinah Shore winner's terry cloth robe that goes with the traditional winner's plunge into the lake encircling the 18th green at Mission Hills Country Club, Sheehan had good reason to savor the day.
Some three hours earlier, she coolly knocked in a 7-foot putt to win one special title that had eluded her during her LPGA Hall of Fame career.
Sheehan's scrambling par on No. 18, where she had to two-putt from 40 yards to avoid a four-way playoff, gave her a one-shot victory Sunday over Annika Sorenstam, Kelly Robbins and Meg Mallon.
Sheehan shot a closing 1-under-par 71 to finish 7-under for the tournament, the first LPGA major of the year.
Almost before her putt rolled over the lip and into the cup, Sheehan's celebration began. Although 39 and a mostly gray-haired veteran of 17 years and 34 other tour victories, Sheehan seemed a kid again as she sprinted across the green, bounded into the air, then did a picture-perfect cartwheel. Shorty afterward, she took her prescribed dip into the murky water.
"I wish Dinah were here for this," Sheehan said of the tournament's namesake, who died in 1994. "I had played with her in a pro-am. Her nickname for me was `Mighty Mite.' She would have gotten a kick out of this."
Sheehan, who now has six major titles to her credit, said the Dinah Shore always was the one she coveted.
"This was the tournament that introduced me to women's golf," she said. "I watched it (on TV) in junior high school and high school, then I came here when I was in college. This, more than any other, was the most visible tournament, the most prestigious. I just hoped one day I'd play here."
The three players who tied for second each finished in groups ahead of Sheehan, so they sat near the 18th green and watched her putt.
"Patty played great," Mallon said. "That was an awesome two-putt, considering there were three of us waiting for her to three-putt."
Robbins and Sorenstam bogeyed No. 18 and Mallon missed a 6-foot birdie putt. Sheehan, in the last group, needed to par the par-5, 526-yard hole to avoid a playoff.