Quiet Please
July 13th, 2006 by Katie
As an unusual twist for glamourites everywhere, this was a weekend for inside-voices. No-tackle sporting enthusiasts, including myself, have been anxiously awaiting the tennis and golf face-offs of the year.
To get a closer look than ESPN2, Glamourite Lauren and I headed west on the NJ Transit to Gladstone for the HSBC Women’s World MatchPlay Championship. As the only MatchPlay (64 player, 18 hole event) on the LPGA tour since Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus, players came from near and far for a chance show their stuff.
Some players showed their style with all-pink attire, however the spectators showed up in white from top-to-toe and traveled in ghost-like masses from hole to hole. Lucky for us, the days were just as beautiful as the well-attended greens. Seventy-three degrees and breezy, I was suprised to find my hatred for New Jersey was fading.
Tennis fans were able to acheive satisfaction as Wimbledon top-seeds Federrer/Nadal played off in the final, but the hyped up Sorenstam/ Wie match-up never came to fruition in the Garden State. We joined the band-wagon fans in disappointment fans when Annika Sorenstam and Michelle Wie fell out in the Quarterfinals and gave way to Brittany Lincicome’s victory. With half a mil in the piggybank for Lincicome, the tournament was the third largest in women’s golf after the U.S. Women’s Open and Evian Masters.
Though an outlier from our usual events, it was pleasant to be in the suburbs for 48 hours. But to be honest, riding in cars for the first time since the New Year and eating at chain restaurants made us miss the humid subways and gyro-street-vendors we’ve come to know and love (shot out to Jason on Varick St. and Van Dam St.).
Three heel-clicks and one 6am train ride, we came back to reality.