The Telegraph
Rules official breathes sigh of relief as Annika Sorenstam makes cut
It is fair to say nobody was happier than Dan Maselli at Lake Nona that Annika Sorenstam made the cut in her first professional start in 13 years. Perhaps not even the remarkable Swede, herself. Maselli, a Tour rules official, suffered a nervous couple of hours on Friday as the Gainbridge LPGA tournament waited to see if Sorenstam, 50, had done enough with a two-over total to qualify for the weekend. Tiger Woods completed one of the greatest comebacks — can he do it again? Eventually, it was confirmed that the 10-time major-winner had scraped in by a shot. And Maselli exhaled a hefty sigh of relief. If she had missed out so narrowly, Maselli would have entered golf’s folklore as the referee whose erroneous decision had stopped history. On Thursday, Maselli – who doubles up as a teaching professional – informed Sorenstam on the fifth that she could not open an unlocked gate to play her next shot. Instead, he said that she had to take a penalty drop, two club lengths away, which Sorenstam did on the way to a double-bogey seven. However, unbeknown to Maselli, the rule had changed in 2019 – she could have opened the gate and would have had a stance to play without a penalty. Maselli was informed of his mistake on Friday morning and was distraught, particularly when his fellow officials confirmed they could not take the penalty shot off Sorenstam’s score. “The option to rescind the penalty is not available under the Rules of Golf,” a Ladies Professional Golf Association statement read. “The official met the player immediately following her second round to explain the mistake and apologise.” After her brilliant second-round 71, Sorenstam revealed quite how strenuously Maselli did apologise. “He told me, ‘This is going to hurt me – this is eating me inside,’, Sorenstam recounted. “I said, ‘Please, please don’t feel that way’. He replied, ‘I appreciate it and I won’t make that mistake again’. And then, I said, ‘Well, I won’t hit there again’. You know, those things happen. The rules have changed. That’s the way it goes.” Well, it obviously should not go that way when it is a paid rules official and Maselli was fortunate that Sorenstam took the bizarre scenario in her stride. As she did, the fact that she had left 45 of the best players in her wake – including the likes of world No 2 Danielle Kang and England’s Melissa Reid – in her first competitive event since retiring in 2008. It had been a hiatus of 4,479 days. “I was planning on taking Ava to volleyball tomorrow, but somebody else will have to take her,” Sorenstam said. “No, kidding aside, it’s just a bonus. It really is. It’s been a lot of energy put into these two days, so hopefully get a good night’s rest and see what happens in the third round.” Sorenstam’s laid-back persona was her staying true to her emphatic declaration before the tournament began that “this is not a comeback”. Sorenstam entered purely because she lives at Lake Nona and is thinking of playing in the US Senior Women’s Open at the end of July. But regardless of her long-term intentions, Sorenstam has, at the very least, provided a joyous trip down memory fairway, with her many admirers lapping up one stat in particular. This extended her official cuts made streak to 50 and that is the longest active cut streak on the LPGA Tour. Sorenstam missed only 10 cuts in her 308 career starts. The most recent was in May 2006 when she was ranked No 1. Current world No 1 Jin Young Ko is next in the consecutive-cuts-made charts with 35. Only Tiger Woods from this generation can compete with Sorenstam in the all-time stats and as a close friend of the 45-year-old, she will be happy with the news released on Friday night. Woods was transferred from Harbor-UCLA Medical Center to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for “continuing orthopaedic care and recovery”, hospital officials said. A night post on Woods’s Twitter account said: “Tiger received follow-up procedures on his injuries this morning. The procedures were successful, and he is now recovering and in good spirits.” Woods shattered the tibia and fibula bones of his lower right leg in multiple locations after crashing his car in LA on Tuesday. It is estimated that it will be another week until he can return to his Florida home.