One up for women as our man gets masterclass

Golf: In the week when Annika Sorenstam puts the reputation of women's golf on the line by taking on the men in Fort Worth, Texas, Greg Allen accepted the challenge to play professional Suzie O'Brien at Mount Juliet

The karma had all been negative even before a ball was struck. Not even my wife had wished me luck, so there I was, standing on the first tee at Mount Juliet feeling vulnerable and in need of just a little encouragement. I had reason to call the sports editor with one last query so I took a chance on his sense of humanity. After all, this had all been his idea in the first place.

"Strokeplay or matchplay, " I enquired. "Strokeplay," he offered in response somewhat hesitantly, but then he barked: "Whatever format is more likely to result in her winning and you losing!"

He chuckled happily to himself and before his increasing mirth developed into a deep horse-laugh, I hit the off button.

Watching as my expression sagged and waiting patiently in front of me was an ever-smiling Suzie O'Brien, who had, in her glowing amateur days, been the star turn of Britain and Ireland's Curtis Cup nearly team in 2000, when her remarkable 3½ points out of a possible four almost spirited the home side's second-day revival onwards to what would have been an unlikely victory.

Later that year, Suzie went on to add a World Cup bronze medal with Britain and Ireland in the Espirito Santo Trophy in Germany, after which she turned professional, gaining her card by finishing 12th at Tour School in Nov 2001 and retaining it last year.

But on this May day of strong winds and scudding rain and hail showers, her more modest task was to be my opponent in a match with both of us playing off scratch from the middle green markers on a course measuring 6,554 yards, which is about the norm for LPGA events in Europe. There I was, a six-handicapper alone with just a bag and trolley against a professional tour player, with her husband, Andre, as caddy and another prospective family member in tow as Suzie was four months pregnant.

I felt outnumbered, and frankly, after my ill-advised phone call to the sports editor, somewhat unsupported in what was increasingly appearing to be a no-win situation. Suzie, though, seemed to think it was a great laugh, especially as her old pal from her international days, Kate McCann, now marketing director at Mount Juliet, had left us with the final words: "May the best woman win."

Appropriately, I lost the toss and was put into bat first and my opening drive reflected my apprehension as it struck one of Mount Juliet's finest mature trees guarding the left side of the first fairway, with the ball coming to rest in rough just in front of it. Suzie languidly rifled her opening effort 245 yards down the middle with a little draw leaving her just 80 yards from the flag.

As I scrambled par from a greenside bunker, Suzie's eight-footer for birdie dived left just as it rolled out and we both walked off the green with par fours.

I settled a little after that escape and on the second I gratefully made a quite routine par to Suzie's bogey after her second shot into the trees pinballed around the branches before dropping back onto the fairway.

However, that was to be her only error on the front nine and after the next two holes were both halved in pars, I sensed we were involved in quite a keenly contested match, which was about to take on a whole new texture as we headed out of the shelter of the fourth and into a strong headwind as we approached the exposed fifth tee.

I was surprised at how well Suzie dealt with the onset of the much more testing conditions that were now facing us and her game shifted into high control mode as she went birdie, par, par against my par, bogey, double bogey into the strong wind facing us on the fifth, sixth and seventh holes.

A five iron approach shot from 130 yards on the par-five fifth to just eight feet had set up the birdie and then she hit driver 195 yards to 12 feet on the par-three sixth hole, following that with a drive and three wood arrow- straight just short of the front edge of the 388-yard seventh, where my badly pulled five iron approach off a drive fully 20 yards past hers ended up in a near unplayable lie, from where I eventually fiddled my way to an untidy six.

In the space of three holes I had gone from a stroke ahead to three behind and on the par-five eighth I only just managed to stem the bleeding after getting up and down from rough for my par while Suzie missed another 10-footer for birdie.

The only mercy she was offering me was on the greens and I was full of admiration for the quality of her ball-striking in the difficult windy conditions, which were exposing my amateur weaknesses. While my swing got faster and more flailing , she was just flowing along and staying within her rhythm.

Off the very back tee, we halved the 426-yard ninth in bogey five, with neither of us able to reach the green in two, leaving Suzie at one over par at the turn to my four over. I felt lucky to be still in touch.

On our way up the ninth fairway we began to chat about the supposed raison d'être of our match - Annika Sorenstam's appearance in this week's Bank of America Colonial tournament on the USPGA Tour in Fort Worth, Texas. I had admired the crispness and consistency of Suzie's ball-striking through the four windblown holes we had just played and asked her if that was a particular strength of her game.

"I think that's where women in general are good because we rarely get to play short iron approaches into greens on par fours with the same frequency as you see on the men's tour," she pointed out.

"Annika's consistent ball-striking right through to the long irons and fairway woods is going to mean she will still hit a lot of greens in regulation even on a course set up for a men's event," she added.

"And I have to add that she's in a completely different league to me. I remember last year at the Compaq Open in Sweden there was a space free on the driving range and I just took it and then I could just hear this sound of what sounded like perfect contact after perfect contact and I though to myself 'who's that?'. And of course it was her and I'll never forget the way she just ripped ball after ball straight out there," she recalled.

Down the 529-yard 10th, however, Suzie's own seamless striking for once deserted her and I pegged back a shot with a par 5.

On the par-three 11th, playing only 124 yards but again into the wind, I could only make the fringe with my punched nine iron while Suzie hit a perfect-looking seven iron straight over the flag to 15 feet, from where she inexplicably three-putted for bogey while I salvaged an unlikely par. I was now only a stroke behind.

That was how it remained after an undistinguished 12th hole, halved in bogey, but on the 385-yard par-four 13th Suzie hit her longest drive of the day, over 260 yards, from where she judged the carry over water with precision with an eight iron to leave herself just 18 feet for an easy par against my awkward bogey from over the back of the green.

The exquisite 155-yard par-three 14th played downwind and should have posed a clubbing difficult for both of us, but the value of having an experienced, intuitive caddy gave her a real advantage. Having left us to our devices on the 13th green, Andre had assessed the upcoming tee shot and as Suzie walked off with her admirable par, he handed her a club and simply said: "Don't look at it, just hit it." Obediently, Suzie struck what was a six iron to just 10 feet and I managed to follow with a nine iron to 12 feet. However, I missed and she holed for an exemplary two and her lead was back to three. We both parred 15 and after she found a fairway bunker on 16, I took my opportunity to reduce the deficit to two.

Then on the 494-yard 17th, after I had struck a decent tee shot, Suzie failed to settle over the ball properly and pulled her drive into the lake. As I missed a curling six-footer for birdie, she ran up a double-bogey seven and we walked to the 18th all square.

The final, 447-yard, hole in Mount Juliet is a serious test at any time, with the water on the left and the long green protected by a cavernous bunker. On this day as heavy dark clouds rolled towards us, it played straight into a gusting wind and Suzie, with two well struck shots, was still 20 yards short of the putting surface. After a safe drive to the right of the big tree I was 15 yards ahead of her and had 215 yards to the front edge.

Then I made a critical amateur error. Selecting a three-wood, which I felt would fade considerably into the wind, I aimed at the trouble and then hit a perfectly straight shot into the edge of the hazard beside the green. "Plop" went my final chance and I did well to make six to Suzie's conservative but winning bogey five.

In the end, our match had gone to the final stroke on the 18th hole and there had been only a stroke in it. Suzie's 79 included some superb, consistent golf until the squally gusty conditions took their toll on the back nine. There had even been just a little real tension throughout the match and I could see she was a little relieved, which might just be the way that Annika Sorenstam will feel next Friday if she should defy the exceptionally pessimistic Las Vegas bookmakers' predictions and make the cut in Texas.

"I think she can do it and I really hope she does because I think it will do wonders for the Ladies' Tour. As things stand, people in general tend to relegate women's golf into an entirely different category, while I actually think that the average golfer would learn so much more from watching women playing than men. I mean the top guys are so much stronger and they are hitting shots with hand speeds which the ordinary club player has no chance of achieving, while the women's game is mostly about good rhythm, which almost every golfer can realistically improve on," she pointed out.

"Annika is taking a risk though and I think it would be a much fairer assessment of her ability if she could play four or five men's events rather than all the emphasis being just on one tournament. But having said that, I think it's a risk worth taking and women's professional golf stands to gain more than it stands to lose by what she's attempting to achieve."