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LPGA: Cristie Kerr – A Closer Look at the Player and Her Bag

By Elizabeth Bethel

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What did 11th ranked Cristie Kerr use to battle her way past Ha Na Jang and Gerina Piller to her 18th LPGA victory at the CME Group Tour Championship?

I wasn’t in the least bit surprised when 11th ranked Cristie Kerr battled her way through a field of powerful young golfers to take the top of the leaderboard at the LPGA’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship.  That’s the kind of golf I expect from Kerr, who could — if she were inclined — write the Essential Golf Competition handbook we’d all love to have in our bags for a handy reference when the going gets tough and the competition is fierce.

Kerr was typically casual after she posted a final round 4-under 68 and claimed the victory with a single stroke at 17-under par:

"“That’s what the year end is about. It feels pretty cool to win the last tournament of the year.”"

Anybody who’s ever watched Cristie Kerr play golf knows that she wields her sticks with a level of confidence, authority and aplomb that’s both enviable and standard-setting.

Others walk down the fairway to their balls but Kerr marches. Others set up their approaches with thoughtful calculation. Kerr fires her ball off her club face with aggressive defiance. Others stroke their putts toward the cup. Kerr sends hers down the putting line and then walks behind it as it rolls, because there’s no other destination in her mind than the back of the hole and the bottom of the cup.

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Kerr faced some determined and very good competition in Naples — Ha Na Jang, Gerina Piller, and her Solheim Cup playing partner Lexi Thompson — when she grabbed a share of the 54-hole lead last Friday.  But the 18-time winner didn’t flinch and certainly, in true Kerr style, didn’t back down.

Facing soft course conditions created by an overnight rain that continued into Sunday morning and delayed the start of play by one hour, Kerr’s final round got off to a slow start. I kept wondering when she was going to kick-start her round. She stayed on par for her first eight holes, getting a feel for the conditions, and then settled in to her rhythm with a pair of back-to-back birdies on the 9th and 10th holes.

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Then it happened. She pulled even with Ha Na Jang, who was giving the course everything in her bag as she chased her first tour win, with a spectacular 35-footer for birdie at the par 4, 15th. 

It was a critical moment for Kerr, who’d been working hard to adjust to the soft conditions.

"“I knew that I was leaving putts short and I knew I had to get it there. When it left my putter and it was going towards the hole. . . I was like ‘get there, get there, get there.’  It went in and I was like, this was the first bit of momentum I’ve had almost all day.”"

When the ball dropped Kerr knew she was in the heart of the hunt. Two holes later, on the 17th, she closed it out with an eagle, one shot better than Jang’s birdie, and claimed her 18th Tour victory.

Kerr’s tools of the trade? Here’s the list:

It was a fitting ending to a season that’s been packed with upsets and upstarts and some tremendously exciting golf.  We were all looking for a shootout between Inbee Park and Lydia Ko, but that didn’t happen in Naples.  They both came up short of that final win.  Still, they both went home with some new hardware.

Ko banked the $1 million dollar Race to the CME Globe pile of cash for the second consecutive year, snagged 2015 Player of the Year honors, and topped the Tour’s money list. That’s not a shabby ending for the teenager who’s kept the golf world in a state of perpetual awe all year.

Park captured the Vare Trophy for 2015 with the lowest scoring average for the season and with that achievement has earned the 27th final point needed to earn her way into the LPGA Hall of Fame. That hardly qualifies for a disappointing conclusion to the season. (Park will be eligible in her 10th active season on the LPGA Tour. This is her ninth season.)

Next: Avoiding Disaster on the Tee Box

And 38-year old Kerr? She’s gone home to Scottsdale to enjoy some time off, tend to her breast cancer charity work, oversee her business enterprises, and spend a bit of time playing with Mason before she tees it up again in January.

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