CROMWELL, Conn. -- The following is a running account of how Suzy Whaley's big, impossibly wide public day at the GHO went. Hint: She had a lot of fun. A LOT.
|  | | Besides her smile, the other constant presence around Suzy Whaley was the huge gallery. |
Prelude: It was only 10 months ago, but Suzy Whaley will tell you it feels like years since she shot 68-72-71 to win the PGA Connecticut Sectional last September.
She became the first woman to qualify for a PGA Tour event since 1945 and, in the bizarre process, became so much more to so many.
A 36-year-old club pro from Farmington, Conn., suddenly was thrust into the same sentence as Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Annika Sorenstam, not to mention Jackie Robinson. Did someone say Joan of Arc?
The Greater Hartford Open was quick to seize upon the marketing possibilities. You can buy a "Suzy Ticket," which sends $10 of the purchase price to junior golf in Connecticut.
"She's a hero to golfers, women and now, kids," the ad copy in local newspapers read. "Someone get this woman a cape."
By the time they teed off on Thursday, it was beginning to feel like a crusade.
By chance -- or is it something more? -- Whaley's husband Bill is the general manager and director of golf at the TPC at River Highlands. In the barrage of publicity that attended her arrival here, he said he had only one fear.
"That Suzy doesn't have fun," Bill told Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant.
On Wednesday, Whaley, understandably, sounded weary.
"The hardest part this whole week is getting ready for it, not being here," Whaley said. "Being here is the enjoyable part. Yes, I'm thrilled to be here. It's the opportunity of a lifetime.
"I refuse to let it be anything else but that."
12:26 pm ET: Whaley saunters, almost too casually, down the stairs from the clubhouse to the putting green, wearing a winning smile. She signs a few autographs.
12:36: She doesn't look nervous, but if short and midrange putts are a window to the psyche, she's gripping. She misses her first nine putts -- they have this maddening habit of drifting left at the last second -- before she jars a 6-footer. David Duval, the former world No. 1, walks over, introduces himself and tells her to enjoy herself. If only he knew.
2:12: Her driver off the first tee is tentative but straight, and draws a roar from the big crowd. She stays in the fairway, barely.
2:22: Whaley hits the, literally, perfect pitch with her third shot. It stops inside five feet from the hole and par seems imminent.
2:25: Her par put skitters slightly to the right and goes three feet by. A mildy disappointed-sounding "oooh" escapes from the crowd.
2:26: Inconceivably, Whaley misses the comebacker inches to the left -- this time, the audience emits a sad, pathetic sort of "aahhhhh," -- before tapping in for a double-bogey six. "I hit a great shot, a fabulous chip to about four feet," she will say later. "I thought I had it totally under control until I put one foot on the green and it sucked the wind out of me. I was extremely nervous. I just knew it was nerves and wasn't my stroke. I just kept going."
She has three-putted inside five feet, confirming all the ominous predictions of all those back-stabbing, woman-hating, beer-drinking knuckleheads. One of her two playing partners, Anthony Painter, of Tamworth, Australia, takes a triple-bogey. A local sportswriter, one of about 45 media types following the group, is moved to observe: "Any score with a nine in front of it won't look very good."
2:39: In a pattern that will repeat itself again and again, Whaley hits a solid but short drive on No. 2, a terrific second shot nearly hole high and misses a birdie putt by inches. In a pattern that also will repeat itself, Whaley's incandescent smile never wavers. It only gets brighter when she starts holing some putts.
2:52: A 14-foot putt for par on No. 3 (an easy second-shot chip was short) is on line but stops short and Whaley is 3-over for the first three holes. That won't produce a score with a nine in front of it, but 88 is pretty close.
|  | | Suzy Whaley was looking at a sure bogey on No. 6 -- until she made a 28-footer for an unlikely par. |
3:42: Whaley gets in trouble on the par-5 sixth hole, the sandiest hole on the PGA Tour. She finds one of the 15 bunkers in the middle of the fairway and is forced to lay up. Her long wedge leaves her 28 feet short and she's looking at another bogey. But then she rolls in the downhill, curling putt and the sizeable gallery explodes. This is quite possibly the biggest roar ever for a par putt. Ever. Whaley high-fives her caddie, Bucky McGann -- the father of LPGA golfer Michelle McGann, a good friend of Whaley's.
4:30: With legendary basketball star K.C. Jones watching from the gallery, Whaley drops a six-foot putt for par at No. 9 to finish the front nine in 4-over 39. This matches her 4-over 39 shot in Wednesday's rain-shortened pro-am. As Johnny Miller would say (not referring to his son Andy's 75) -- good stuff.
5:02: With the wind whipping in her face, Whaley gets "a little worked up" on the tee box at No. 12. It's hard enough for her to reach these greens -- she will wind up hitting irons into only six greens; fairway woods consistently bail her out -- but with the wind and the rain-soaked fairways, her drives are in the low 200s.
5:11: After her chip dies on the fringe, you can see her eyes smoldering. The two television cameras, which sometimes hover within 10 to 15 feet, don't give her much space. Whaley lines up the 25-foot putt for par and -- again -- it drops in. This time, she pumps her fists. The crowd roars. Considering that it is approaching cocktail hour and the fans are getting, well, more into it all, OK, this is the loudest roar ever for a par putt.
5:34: Whaley drops in another short par putt on the par-5 13th. The condos that line the fairway along the Connecticut River are full of Suzy fans and they scream quite shrilly. Suzy smiles and acknowledges them. They come back with "Whoo, whoo!"
6:50: Whaley goes way left off the 17th tee and has to lay up. Her pitch from 46 yards actually hits the cup on the fly and stops about eight feet away. As she reaches the green, she waves to the crowd and claps. "I can hear you over there (the distant 16th tee) louder that that," Whaley says, tweaking the gallery.
6:58: As Whaley walks off the 18th tee, those wearers of the "Fore Suzy!" buttons are threatening to get unruly. One instigator in an orange argyle outfit is starting with that "Whoo, whoo!" and Whaley laughs when she walks by. It is her sister, Tracy, who is one of more than 100 friends and family on hand. The chant goes up: "Su-zy! Su-zy! Su-zy!"
7:00: Whaley has about 205 yards to the hole, and she drills that 7-wood hole high, just into the left fringe. She's got about 37 feet to go with her ninth birdie putt of the day.
7:06: It's a downhill tester that speeds up lethally when it gets past the hole, so Whaley considers the safe, short putt for par. Nah. She guns it right at the hole, sweeping left to right and disappearing into the cup. The modest gallery around the Pete Dye-designed amphitheater 18th green roars again. Whaley raises both arms and pumps her fist. She hugs her caddie and flashes a thumbs-up to her family. The smile, if this is possible, broadens.
It's her first birdie of the day and it gets her back to 5-over, a robust 75. Any number that starts with a seven, given these conditions -- social and barometric -- has to be considered, well, ridiculous.
Post-round: Whaley is still jazzed 40 minutes later when she sits down in the media center to describe her feelings.
"I never in my life ..." she began in an attempt to describe her entrance on the first tee. "It was the most unbelievable moment walking up on that tee and having that many people cheer for me and supporting me and so many kids out there yelling my name, wishing me well.
"It was just an incredible, incredible moment."
Let the record show that Whaley's 75 placed her in exquisite company. Five other players shot 75, six posted a 76 and no fewer than seven scored a 77, including 1987 U.S. Open champion Scott Simpson.
And what of David Duval, the 2001 British Open champion who wished Whaley well? He fired a searing 83. In fact, Duval was the same number of strokes over par on a single hole (he made a 9 on the 12th) as Whaley was for her entire round.
Was it everything she imagined?
"It was more," Whaley said. "I had more fun than I thought I would. It was harder than I thought it would be, which is hard to believe. Because I certainly didn't come into this naively."
Whaley's 8-year-old daughter Jennifer is the one person who convinced Whaley to take a swing at history. She was one of the few close to Whaley who wasn't in attendance Thursday. Her camp was going to a local amusement park and she didn't want to miss it.
"We talked about it, and that's what an 8-year-old should be doing today -- and that's what she did," Whaley said. "She will be here tomorrow."
Ultimately, Whaley said, she was proud of staying the course.
"It was something I will always be proud of," she said. "I didn't let the first hole get me. I stayed with my plan. Everything I wanted to happen today, as far as my course management, I did. And that's just a huge leap for me in competitive golf. Before, you know, I used to -- still, even last week I would go at the shots that probably I shouldn't have, and today I didn't.
"Wasn't it great?" Whaley asked of that last flourish. "I wanted to make a birdie so much today. I really had some good opportunities and they didn't go in. That putt -- I played this golf course enough -- that putt is brutal. I had a fleeting moment to feed it up there, and get it close and get your par and get out of there. You know what? I'm a little too competitive for that. So I decided to go ahead and hit it on the line I wanted to. When I saw it fall in, I knew I had it."
Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
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