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After capturing the ANA Inspiration two months
ago, Lindberg will go for successive major titles at Shoal Creek
in Birmingham, Alabama starting on Thursday.
"The ANA is cool because it's the same course every year
(Mission Hills in California), it has tradition," the Swede said
in a telephone interview with Reuters on Friday.
"But if you mention the U.S. Open to anyone, people might not
follow golf but they understand it's a big event.
"The money is also the biggest," she added in reference to the
U.S. Open's purse of $5 million, more than $1 million than any
other LPGA event.
Lindberg's victory at the ANA, in a three-way playoff that
stretched into Monday, was a reward for perseverance for a
player who has never finished higher than 40th on the LPGA money
list.
This time last year, she was also going through a poor stretch
of performances missing five cuts in six events and starting to
doubt herself.
"I had a bit of a rough summer. I was putting a lot of pressure
on myself because I wanted to be on that Solheim Cup team," she
said in reference to the biennial team event against the United
States. She did not make the European team.
"Obviously it got to me. That's when I started to doubt myself
the most. I didn't see myself as belonging out there. I thought
my game doesn't match up."
Lindberg slowly played her way back into form and then found a
new sense of belief when she contended at the LPGA's
season-ending Tour Championship.
"That week was a turning point," she said.
"I proved to myself I could hang in there with a chance to win
and that gave me so much confidence."
Four months later she was a major champion.
Imbued with even greater self-belief after her ANA victory, and
at age 31 entering what should be the peak years of her career,
she is confident of a similarly strong performance at Shoal
Creek, though is not promising victory.
Lindberg skipped the LPGA event in Michigan that ended on
Sunday, preferring instead to prepare at home in Florida, with a
special emphasis on her short game because U.S. Open courses are
set up to exact a heavy toll on players who do not display a
deft touch around and on the greens.
"That's where you're going to be saving shots," she said.
South Korea's Park Sung-hyun won the U.S. Open tournament last
year by two strokes in Bedminster, New Jersey.
(Reporting by Andrew Both in Cary, North Carolina; Editing by
Greg Stutchbury)
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