Fresh from winning for the 39th time on the LPGA tour, Karrie Webb is confident her age is no barrier to adding an eighth major championship to her trophy case at this week’s LPGA Championship.
Webb, 38, has not won a major in seven years since the 2006 Kraft Nabisco Championship but she has the form to support her confidence as she eyes a rare achievement at Locust Hill Country Club in New York.
If she wins, Hall of Famer Webb will become the most successful major champion amongst active golfers, breaking out of a tie with American great Juli Inkster.
“I would like to add to that number just for myself personally,” Webb said.
“I hold the majors as the most important tournaments of the year and I want to add to those titles before I finish up.”
Webb broke a two-year LPGA Tour victory drought when she outlasted the field, including 2012 LPGA Championship winner Shanshan Feng, to claim the ShopRite LPGA Classic by two shots in blustery conditions on Sunday.
And she’s been further buoyed after learning her grandmother, whom she dedicated that win to, has recovered from a life-threatening ailment.
Webb said she’d felt the win coming after warming into the year with her eighth Australian Masters title in February.
“It was a great feeling obviously,” Webb said. “I felt like I was building. I won back in Singapore in 2011 and felt like it was a bit of a surprise, but I felt like it was coming (this time).
Webb says the influx of youngsters like 16-year-old Kiwi amateur Lydia Ko and 18-year-old American Lexi Thompson in the women’s game doesn’t faze her.
“I don’t really look at the age thing. I know what I’m capable of and I know that’s good enough to win out here,” Webb said.
“It’s more their ability to play the game and girls are coming out here at a young age and do have the ability to play at an elite level and win out here – but I still believe that I can do that as well.”
Webb leads a six-woman Australian tilt at Locust Hills, joining Lindsey Wright, Sarah Jane Smith, Katherine Hull-Kirk, Sarah Kemp and Julia Boland.
The women aren’t the only Australians looking for major success this week with Peter Senior and Steve Elkington lining up in the Regions Tradition at Shoal Creek in Alabama, the second of five majors for those over-50.
Senior was runner up in 2011, losing in a playoff to now two-time defending champion Tom Lehman and backing it up with a respectable tie for 11th last year, the same result he chalked up at the Senior PGA Championship just two weeks ago.
Elkington, the 1995 PGA Championship winner, is making his Champions Tour major championship debut after withdrawing from the PGA with migraines.
