Texas Children's Houston Open

Memorial Park Golf Course



The Loop

Davies still trying to earn her way into HOF

December 02, 2010

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Laura Davies' English lilt perfectly summed up her 2010 season on the Ladies European Tour. "It's lovely," said Davies, hoping some of the magic abroad will travel to the LPGA Tour Championship at Grand Cypress GC this week.

Although Davies has only two top-10 finishes this year on the LPGA Tour and hasn't won an LPGA event since 2001, at age 47 she has had a grand season on the LET with five victories, giving her 75 career worldwide tour wins.

"It's all about confidence for me," said Davies, who will be miked for Golf Channel's first-round broadcast Thursday afternoon. "If I lose that confidence, then I really start struggling. It's as basic as that. I really do feel good on the golf course. I'm putting well again. I'm driving it much better. It's a good snowball effect."

Putting has long been the part of the game to slow her down, but this season she has putted better. "I changed my technique," Davies said. "I stay down over the ball and I don't look up. I hit the putt and I listen for it to go in. Everything is the same apart from I keep my head down and listen. A lady at my club when I was a junior used to call it 'harkers,' which means listening for it. I remembered she told me that years ago and I had ignored her."

Davies' stellar season in Europe has revived talk that she should be in the World Golf Hall of Fame, even though she needs to win one major or two regular events to earn her way on points into the LPGA's hall. She remains adamant that she wants to qualify that way instead of getting voted in on the international ballot.

"I'm not interested in that," she said. "I've been on tour long enough to have accumulated enough points and I haven't done it. Sometimes if you're not good enough, you've got to doff your cap and say you're not good enough. It's a shame but that's the way it is. But that's why I'm still here playing -- I think I am still good enough and hopefully I'll do it. The LPGA Hall of Fame is all about being good enough on the course, not about popularity. One day hopefully I'll be in there."

-- Bill Fields