Geddes Defends Hard-Earned Title at Women’s Open

PLAINFIELD, N.J. — Unless there is a nearby train derailment that spews forth poisonous gas and forces evacuations, a moderate earthquake and three days of rain, Jane Geddes will have less to contend with in defending her U.S. Women’s Open title this week than she faced in winning last year.

Geddes withstood the week of calamaties, both natural and unnatural, at the NCR Club in Kettering, Ohio, to win her first tournament on the professional tour. She fired a one-under-par 287 in regulation and then beat Sally Little by two strokes in an 18-hole playoff.

“Winning the U.S. Open is what playing is all about,” Geddes said recently. “When I was practicing growing up it was always, ‘This drive is for the U.S. Open. This putt is for the U.S. Open.’ That was my dream.”

Geddes, 27, will try to become the first woman since Hollis Stacy in 1977-78 to win back-to-back titles in the U.S. Golf Assn.’s Open championship when play begins for 152 golfers Thursday at the Plainfield Country Club.

All of the biggest names in the sport--Pat Bradley, Nancy Lopez, Jan Stephenson, Ayako Okamoto, Betsy King and Patty Sheehan--will be competing in the fourth leg of the grand slam for a share of the $325,000 purse.

Bradley will be trying to win the only major championship she did not win last year. And Lopez is hoping to capture the only major title that has eluded her in a career that has earned her a place in the LPGA Hall of Fame.

Geddes, atop the LPGA Player of the Year standings, heads to central New Jersey as one of the favorites.

She followed up her 1986 Open victory with a triumph in the Boston Five tournament the next week and finished the year fifth on the LPGA’s money list. This year Geddes has established herself as one of Tour’s stars, winning four tournaments and ranking second in earnings to Betsy King.

“Each win, starting with the Open, has built my confidence and that gives me the little bit extra I need coming down the stretch,” she said. “I say to myself, ‘For one week I beat everybody in the world and I can do it again too.’ It gives you the confidence no other tournament can give you.

“I’m in contention all the time now and it’s all because of the confidence I gained in winning the Open.”

She has also changed her manner on the course. The metamorphosis began at the 1986 Open.

“I’d been playing horrendously and had to do something. The gist of what I said was: ‘You’re an easy-going person off the course, why not on the course?’ Grow up.”

Geddes has earned her the respect of her peers.

“She’s a marvelous golfer and perhaps the best athlete on the tour,” Jane Blalock said. “She’s going to be an all-time great.”

The Plainfield layout, a creation of noted architect Donald Ross, is hosting its first major professional tournament. In 1978, the U.S. Amateur was played at Plainfield and John Cook defeated Scott Hoch 5 and 4 in the final.

The par-72, 6,284-yard course is challenging, expecially off the tee. The ball can be driven out-of-bounds on nine of the holes and there is water on six holes.

So difficult is the course that only twice in championship competition--the 1963 Metropolitan Open and the 1968 New Jersey Open--has a golfer finished 72 holes with a sub-par score.

As usual, the USGA, which runs the Open, will make the course even tougher, narrowing fairways, deepening rough and speeding up greens. The severely contoured greens are guarded by steep-faced bunkers.

Even the simplest holes can punish players who mis-hit shots.

The 15th hole, the shortest on the course, measures just 130 yards and plays even shorter because of an elevated tee. But the green is an island surrounded by sand and the putting surface slopes sharply from front to back.