ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Call her the last of the legends. With Annika Sorenstam 16 years into retirement and now Laura Davies missing from the AIG Women’s Open for the first time since 1979, Karrie Webb is the lone remaining player of the three who between them dominated women’s golf at various times for a 30-year period from 1985 and 2015. Actually, even the soon-to-be 50-year-old Australian has almost disappeared from view. Competing this week in the year’s final women’s major championship for the first time since 2019, Webb is in St. Andrews simply because, well, it’s the Old Course.

Which is not so say she is here because of past success at golf’s most famous venue. In 2007, Webb was a distant T-28, 12 shots behind the champion, Lorena Ochoa. And six years later, when Stacy Lewis marched to victory at the Home of Golf, Webb was already on her way home, having missed the cut by five shots. Only once in those six competitive rounds (the par was 73 in ’07; 72 in ’13) did the Hall-of-Famer not shot ever par.

“I have yet to figure out this place,” Webb said Tuesday. “But the whole town and the course is so special. It’s a ‘being here’ place. I always feel invigorated whenever I arrive. And it doesn’t change until I leave. Maybe I have tended to play the course quite conservatively. And I’ll probably do the same this week. So for me it’s all about executing better. A lot of the girls have played aggressively here in the past. I just haven’t wanted to take on certain challenges off the tee.”

The 16th hole is one example of that caution. Where Webb has watched other players launch drives into the gap between the out-of-bounds fence on the right and the cluster of bunkers known as the Principal’s Nose on the left, she has hesitated. And that won’t change this week.

“I didn’t see that drive for myself in 2007, so I’m definitely not seeing it in 2024 at age 49,” Webb, a three-time winner of this event (although only the third, in 2002, counts as a major), explains.

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What is going to be different the third-time round is Webb’s level of expectation. In what will be her first major start in more than five years, she is realistic about her prospects. Or lack of them.

“I do feel different this time round, if only because I have zero thoughts of victory,” she said. “Both times I’ve come here previously, I’ve been consumed by the notion that there would be nothing like winning an Open at St. Andrews. It would be impossible to top that with any other victory. So I always put a lot of pressure on myself. I was just too uptight. This week I’m just here to enjoy myself.”

That comes as no surprise. At her peak, Webb’s level of artistry was all but peerless, her range of shot-making admired on both sides of the gender divide. Not for nothing did five-time Open champion Peter Thomson think that Webb was the finest player to come out of Australia, man or woman.

“I love the creativity of links golf,” she said. “It takes me out of being too technical. I’m just hitting shots. Unfortunately, golf is more scientific than it has ever been. I feel lucky to have grown up in an era when it was more of an art than a science. That was how I learned. I didn’t have tons of technical thoughts, although I have added a few over the years, which is not necessarily a good thing.”

Webb does acknowledge she’s had her moments in links golf. “I won this event at Turnberry in 2002. I was second to Beany [Catriona Matthew] at Lytham in ’09. And I’ve had a few other top finishes on links. If you could guarantee me better weather, I’d be happy playing seaside golf for the rest of my life. I don’t mind a bit of wind. But when you add rain it’s not much fun.”

It might be best not to write off Webb completely though, even if she didn’t hit a shot in anger for four weeks before last Tuesday.

“Another thing I love about this course is that there are a lot of players here this week who have never been before,” Webb said. “So I feel a lot more comfortable than they do. Figuring out the lines off the tees takes time to adjust to. An unsettling part off this course is that it is counter-intuitive. It’s hard to make yourself aim where you know you have to aim. And there are pins you know you shouldn’t go at, then you go at them anyway. You have to fight your brain on the Old Course.”

Webb’s track record at the Old Course hasn’t been stellar, finshing T-28 in 2007 (left) and missing the cut in 2013. (Getty Photos)

Then there is experience. Perhaps nowhere else in golf does prior knowledge play a bigger part in identifying the line between success and failure. It is a fact Webb is well aware.

“I love the 12th hole,” she said by way of example. “In practice, the tee has been a long way back compared with 2013. That brings the two bunkers in the fairway into play. So now it’s ‘where do I hit it?” I’m going to lay-up to the right [Wednesday in practice] and see how that works out. At least you can see the green from over there. You can’t from the left side.”

All of which sounds like the way the Old Course is supposed to be played. There will be options and endless decisions to be made. Temptations will abound. And danger will be ever-present. It’s a stimulating blend, but also one aspect of the game that has been largely lost at the elite level in the men’s game. Not so for the women though. Perhaps the best aspect of what we will witness this week—weather permitting—is that the women will play the Old Course in the way the Old Course is meant to be played. Call it a step back in time.

“The 18th for the men is a long par 3 these days,” Webb said. “Not for us though. The standard of women’s golf today is, at least in terms of distance, pretty much what the men were doing in the 1960s and 1970s. We’re now as long as they were then. And playing pretty much the same length course too. Which is nothing but good.”

A bit like herself really.

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com