Cristie Kerr held off a strong field, being locked in the bathroom on hole 5 during round 3 and her own negative self talk to win the Lorena Ochoa Invitational Presented by Banamex and Jalisco. Kerr has not been in the winner’s circle since 2010 and has been working hard to keep her self talk positive and in the present for every shot. In other words, she would keep her demeanor on the course even emotionally and never get too up when things are going really well and never too down if it is not going in the right direction.
This is Kerr’s 15 LPGA Tour victory and the $200,000 winning prize money puts her career earnings at $14,340,645.75 with over $800,000 this year alone. This also improves her Rolex Player ranking to 15th.
Kerr’s entered the final round 2 shots behind the leader, Angela Stanford. She carded a nice round of 69 to take home the victory. “It feels amazing,” said Kerr. “You know, coming in those last couple of holes it didn’t feel like I had won before. I kind of just squeaked in. I won by a shot, that’s all that it takes, I’ve lost plenty of tournaments by a shot, but winning by a shot feels a lot better.”
Nervous??
When Kerr was asked if she was nervous going into the last round and really the last few holes, her reaction was ‘absolutely’! “Yeah, I was nervous,” said Kerr. “I haven’t been in this position to win in a while. You know, to even have one putt to win, or two putts to win, I wasn’t nervous for messing up but it was hard to control the amount of adrenaline that was in my system. So I just tried to take some breaths and calm myself down and I still can’t believe how hard I hit that first putt. I gave the fans and myself a heart attack, but you know what I stayed in there mentally until the end you know, I tried to give it away but I wasn’t going to.”
Even the best in the world can be nervous. It simply shows how much Kerr cared and how badly she wanted this! Hats off to Kerr for conquering her mental game and getting back into the winner’s circle. Are we going to watch Kerr may waves next season for Player of the Year?? I think we can all agree she is back. Congrats Cristie!
By Kate Hughes
“keep smiling and always believe”
Follow Kate on Twitter @hugapar
