JoAnne Carner just might be playing her final round in a USGA championship on Friday at the U.S. Senior Women’s Open. No woman has won more USGA titles than Carner, who has eight, and one would be hard-pressed to find a player more beloved in any field.
Leta Lindley’s goal this week is to have her picture taken with Big Mama at NCR Country Club. The women in this field are grateful that their careers have overlapped 83-year-old Carner’s. That she shared a laugh, a drink, a fairway, maybe even a tip or two.
“She was always one of my favorite to play with because she never laid up,” said Juli Inkster. “She was always just letting it rip. She was amazing out of the trees. All of a sudden, she’d be in the trees and all of a sudden this ball would be on the green. She had a great imagination, and she was fun.”
Everyone has a good Carner story. Here are some doozies:
Annika Sorenstam
“One of the things that I always think about is … I think it shows a different, what do you call it, just approaches to the game. I was in the trailer when I played on the LPGA, and I was in there stretching and doing some weights and getting loose.
“Here she comes in and she literally just kind of sits on a bench and is kind of like observing everybody. Then the trainer comes up and said, ‘What can I do for you? And she goes, ‘Do you have any Advil?’ She got like two or three, and that was it. That was her trailer fitness moment.”
Laura Davies
“When I won my U.S. Open in ’87, it was in a playoff against JoAnne and Ayako Okamoto. At that stage, Ayako was one of the best players. My first meeting with JoAnne was beating her in a playoff in her national championship, so I’m not sure she was that keen on me initially, but we grew to become good friends. I remember in Florida, my very first tournament when I got on tour the next year, I was just in the bunker and JoAnne sidles over, and she made me a few tips, and to me that was the best thing ever, someone that less than two years before I’d beaten her in a playoff and she had time for me and Trish Johnson who was there.
“So for me, JoAnne has always been one of my favorite, just the generosity. She’s just a unique of – a lot of the girls out here will give tips, but JoAnne is a genius in the short game area of her game, and she likes to spread that knowledge on. For me as a rookie that year, that was a lovely thing.”
Helen Alfredsson
“We were at Oakmont for the Open, the first one of the two that we played, and she’s up there in like this horrible lie, and I said, ‘You didn’t hit it there, did you? And she goes, ‘No, but you know what, if you find the worst lies, everything else doesn’t look as bad.’ So it was just – it’s just the way she’s so tough.
“We were joking when she was the captain for the Solheim Cup, and seeing her on the pool table with the bling-bling hat with the drink going. I still have that very vivid in my mind. It was fun. She is a unique character, and I told her today I feel so fortunate to have played in the time where she was, because she really was fantastic.”
Jane Geddes
“I don’t know where it was. I want to say Youngstown. I think it was Youngstown. It was somewhere, I think, in Ohio or something, and we had a rain delay, so we all come off the golf course and we come back out and I’m playing with JoAnne. She comes out on the tee, and we’re all there and we’re all getting ready and she goes to put her hands in her pocket and she’s got her shorts on backwards!
“And you know JoAnne, she’s like, ‘Oh, hang on a second.’ She goes in the Port-a-Potty … nothing fazes her. She’s like, ‘I didn’t put my shorts on the right way.'”
Leta Lindley
“I do remember Jackie (Gallagher-Smith) told me a story. She says, maybe two years ago, the last time JoAnne walked the Senior Open, and she says, my feet are hurting me, I’m tired, and I look across the fairway and I see JoAnne walking.
“She’s like, I stood up taller, and I just started walking. If JoAnne can walk this golf course, I can walk this golf course.”
Pat Hurst
“I remember playing in Youngstown with her. This is going way back, Youngstown. My ball ended up in a tree. It would be a baseball swing to get it out. Of course, I take my unplayable, and I want to say my husband was on the bag that week, and I think she told Jeff, ‘Back in the day I’d have hit that shot,’ and I totally believed she would have.
“To me, that is her to a tee.”
