SOUTHERN PINES - After a week that saw as many lightning strikes as birdie putts, there were no complaints about the weather at the U.S. Women's Open on Sunday.

With clear blue skies and a light breeze, the conditions at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club were nothing short of ideal. So was the drama down the stretch as Cristie Kerr fought off Lorena Ochoa.

It was an oddly satisfying conclusion to what Pine Needles president Kelly Miller called "an awkward week," one full of weather delays and suspended rounds.

"This place is about as perfect as anything I've seen," said former USGA president Judy Bell, whose friendship with Pine Needles owner Peggy Kirk Bell (no relation) played a major role in the tournament returning to Pine Needles in 2001 after hosting the Women's Open for the first time in 1996.

"I was just amazed. There's no tearing it up. Look at the golf course. It's as good as it can be. It's just fabulous. This is the perfect place for the Open."

In 1996 and 2001, Pine Needles knew when the tournament would return before the current event was over, the agreement sketched out on a cocktail napkin in one case.

With the USGA now paying for the privilege of using courses, the bidding process has become more formalized and competitive, but Pine Needles hopes to host the Women's Open again in 2016, two years after the U.S. Open returns to Pinehurst No. 2.

"Some of the arrangements have changed a little bit, which I think is good," Miller said. "But we were never doing it for the money, or we wouldn't have done it the first time. We do it because No. 1 it's a great honor and it's also a great thing for the community and a great thing for the state."

Because of the weather, a USGA spokesman said no attendance figures were available for Thursday and Friday and was unable to provide a final figure Sunday night, but Saturday's crowd was 23,106. In 2001, the tournament drew more than 110,000 spectators.

Sunday was a great day for golf -- the first of the tournament, really. Even Saturday's attendance on a sunny day was compromised by the forecasted severe weather, which didn't arrive until shortly after play was suspended because of darkness.

Mike Davis, the USGA's senior director of rules and competitions, walked off the 18th green Sunday morning after supervising the final placement of the hole for the final round with a look of relief and satisfaction on his face.

After making allowances for rain and delays in the first three rounds, he was able to set up the course exactly how he would have imagined, exactly how architect John Fought drew it up when he remodeled the course in preparation for this visit.

It was what the USGA hoped for when it moved the tournament back a month from when it was held in 1996 and 2001 in hopes of playing the course under summer conditions -- with the summer bermuda grass fully grown in, instead of a mix of bermuda and winter rye, as was the case in the two previous Women's Opens at Pine Needles.

"I think two weeks later, even though we've had the weather that hasn't helped, I think the golf course is actually a lot better," said NBC analyst Dottie Pepper, who missed the cut in 1996 and finished third in 2001.

"When we played here in '96, the golf course was not in very good shape. It was very thin and the fairways were very shaggy. I thought 2001 was much, much better. But this is completely different."

In that sense, the USGA's gamble paid off. But it came at a cost: weather delays in all of the first five days of the tournament, forcing each of the first three rounds to be suspended and completed the next morning.

"If you looked over a 50-year period, I'm sure the risk of thunderstorms this week versus a month ago would have to be higher, but to some extent you're just dealing with luck," Davis said. "It was a tough, tough week weather-wise, but to get this in the final round is nice."

(Staff writer Chip Alexander contributed to this report.)