Gulbis gets it

SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. – Natalie Gulbis seems to have it all. She has appeared in her own reality series on The Golf Channel, posed for a calendar and made more than $2.5 million since joining the LPGA Tour in 2002. Yep, Gulbis has it all – well, except that she never has won a professional golf tournament.

Mind you, she has come close. Last year, she lost a playoff at Jamie Farr's event in Ohio to Mi Hyun Kim. She easily could have won it. The year before, she finished third twice. Still, no Ws in 144 starts.

It's one thing to be without a major, another to be without a victory. That sounds a lot like Anna Kournikova. Yet Gulbis is no Kournikova. She will win out here. It won't be this week – she ended Saturday tied for 35th at 5 over par – and it may not be soon. She is suffering from a disk problem that caused her to withdraw from two tournaments and miss another in the last month. If this weren't the U.S. Women's Open, there is no way she would be here. She is playing with pain.

Yet as long as she is here, she is fighting as hard as she can and enjoying herself. Gulbis does something more golfers, women and men, should be doing on a regular basis. She interacts with the gallery. When fans say hello, and a lot of young guys make it a point to do that, she says hello back. Saturday afternoon, when a few reached out their hands as she walked from one green to the next tee, she obliged. Even when she made a bogey, Gulbis smiled after the perfunctory applause she received once she had putted out.

After her round, I asked her why she is so cooperative. She said that if fans are going to root for her, they deserve her attention. Refreshing, isn't it?

So why hasn't she won yet? She blames it on driving accuracy, and the numbers support her. Since turning pro, she never has finished in the top 50 of that crucial category. This season, entering the Open, she stood at 49th, hitting 71 percent of her fairways. That's not nearly good enough.

Gulbis needs to get that figure up to about 73 or 74 percent. It may not seem like a big deal, but it is. She's working on it, spending as much as possible when she's home in Las Vegas with her coach, Butch Harmon. They also talk when she's on the road.

Some have speculated that Gulbis has allowed herself to be too distracted with the TV show and the calendar and all the other glamour stuff. Not true, she indicated. All the glamour stuff happens in the offseason. The game is what she focuses on during the season.

Gulbis has been dedicated for years. In 1997, at age 14, she became the youngest player (at the time) to Monday-qualify for an LPGA event. She won four tournaments in her freshman year at the University of Arizona and later qualified for the tour on her first try. She knew what she wanted and went after it.

Her first three years were solid, if not spectacular, finishing each time about 40th on the money list. Then, in 2005, she had what appeared to be her breakthrough season, finishing sixth with more than $1 million in earnings. She recorded an impressive 12 top-10s in 27 starts and was a member of the Solheim Cup team. Last year, she ranked 16th on the money list. Those are not Kournikova stats.

This week, Gulbis was paired in the first two rounds with Christina Kim, another crowd-pleasing performer, and Michelle somebody. Last name begins with a W, I believe.

Gulbis didn't mind the extra attention. The more fans, the better.

A successful Wie, instead of the version on display these days, would have provided a big boost to this tour. Lorena Ochoa and Annika Sorenstam are a lot of things, but they don't move the meter. Wie does. And so does Gulbis. If she somehow were to become a star, the tour greatly would benefit.

Will it happen? Hard to say. She definitely has to improve other parts of her game besides driving accuracy.

Yet she is only 24. There is time.

Michael Arkush is an editor for Yahoo! Sports. Send Michael a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

Updated on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 10:48 pm, EDT

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