Inkster hopes to make last round an old story

SUNNINGDALE, England -- It’s some sort of mystical golf-geezer summer here in the motherland, and so for the second Saturday in the past three, a person raging against the onset of decrepitude walked up a British Open 18th fairway waving to applause from the inspired.

As Greg Norman did in first place at age 53 at Royal Birkdale, so did Juli Inkster in hot contention at 48 at Sunningdale Golf Club on Saturday, both weekends alive with the question, Could he/she become the oldest to win a major?

Then Inkster muffed her 3 1/2 -foot birdie putt and grew miffed -- well, being Inkster, graciously miffed.

Asked if aware of the age record she might set (Fay Crocker won the 1960 Titleholders Championship at 45), Inkster said, “Yeah, I am, every week. Every time I tee it up.”

Like just about any major, this Ricoh Women’s British Open teems with subplots, including the continued cementing of Korean fabulousness, that country of 49 million holding down 12 of the top 25 slots heading into today, including 20-year-old Ji-Yai Shin in second at 12 under par.

Suddenly there’s also Japan with three of the top 12, including third-place Ai Miyazato, and the leader at 13 under, Yuri Fudoh, who won 45 Japanese tournaments and six consecutive Japanese money titles, and who proved too shy to admit she’s wildly famous in her home country, so her Japanese-English interpreter did it for her.

And it’s the farewell major for Annika Sorenstam, and it has contention from major winners Cristie Kerr (tied for fourth with Inkster at 10 under) and No. 1-ranked Lorena Ochoa (tied for 10th, five shots off).

Still, only one story stretches outside golf toward something as universal as age, given a 48-year-old still out there reassessing some haunted drive into a right fairway bunker (No. 7 tee), letting out some sort of guttural gasp upon coming over a ridge and seeing her ball in sand under a lip (No. 9), or trying to compete with pups while trying to retool her swing.

“It’s very mentally exhausting,” Inkster said.

Seven major titles and all these years later -- she was Golf Digest’s top rookie of 1983 -- she still could feel preoccupied by a round that began with eagle, saw her lead the tournament for a while and then ground down into a grind and, well, “I’m just struggling with my swing.”

Norman? She didn’t get to see much of Birkdale, but said, “Yeah, he was fabulously good, he seems in a good place and he’s happy and enjoying what he’s doing, he has a brand-new wife and he seems to be in a really good place. I have the same husband, but I feel like I’m in a pretty good position too.”

Then she hastened out to the putting green and found Brian Inkster, her husband of 28 years. “Hey,” he said, and, “Hey,” she said, and they kissed on the cheeks, and walked out to where Juli knocked in a series of what looked like 3 1/2 -footers.

As Brian, the golf pro at Los Altos Golf and Country Club in Northern California, and Worth Blackwelder, Inkster’s caddie, gave advice, a 48-year-old still kept waving her arms, looking peeved in the evening sun. As she kept on trying to figure it out, it was possible to forget she occupied a British Open top five against four women a collective 88 years younger than herself.