For Bailey Tardy, she hopes this is only the beginning.
Tardy picked a good time and a beautiful location to play her best golf. The 26-year-old LPGA rookie made eagle on the par-5 sixth hole for the second straight day and finished with a four-under 68 and a two-shot advantage.
Now she has the 36-hole lead at the biggest event in women's golf. Adding to her good timing was being the first one out, before the wind was strong enough for Pebble to start showing a nasty side.
Most of the attention on Friday afternoon, though, was on two players who had no chance of making the weekend.
Sorenstam, the 52-year-old Swede with 72 wins who retired in 2008, accepted an invitation because it's the first US Women's Open at Pebble Beach, the most iconic of US Open courses.
A three-time Women's Open champion, she hit her final drive onto the rocks left of the 18th fairway and finished with a double bogey for a 79 and 15 over.
"It's been a great week in so many ways," Sorenstam said afterwards, her son Will by her side, and her husband/caddie Mike McGee and daughter Ava sitting just a few feet away.
"Of course I wish I would have finished a little better, but this course kind of kicked my butt this week, but in a good way.
"It's a true test in so many ways ... It just wasn't meant to be, but everything else was meant to be, and I'm just thankful for having the opportunity to be here."
Wie West, a dynamic figure known as much for competing against men as a teenager as her Women's Open title at Pinehurst No.2, could only laugh as her 30-foot par putt dropped on the final hole. Neither of them made a birdie in two rounds.
Asked to describe her legacy, the 33-year-old Wie West, who was holding her three-year-old daughter McKenna, said she hopes it was to inspire girls to make fearless decisions.
"If it feels right to do, go ahead and do it, and live out your wildest dreams," she said after a 79 left her 14 over.
"It was really an emotional day, all the way to the end. It was such a strange feeling. And now that it's over, it's an even stranger feeling."
