ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Stacy Lewis is again sitting on the prime desk of the media room, answering a belated query from somebody too shy to shout over the gusts of wind through the press convention.
Her five-year-old daughter Chesnee desires to know if she will be able to get a swimming pool — “a big one” — if her mum wins right here, as she did in 2013.
“I think I might be able to sort you out, girlie,” says Lewis.
Eleven years have handed because the Texan shot birdie-birdie on the ultimate two holes to clinch the Ladies’s Open by two pictures. The second shot into 17 stays the perfect of her profession, a lot in order that the 5-iron is the one membership she has stored for her workplace.
However in that point, as motherhood has usurped golf in her checklist of priorities and made her much less tunnel-visioned, the calls for of the LPGA Tour have turn out to be much more all-consuming.
This 12 months’s tour began with two Florida occasions and ends with one other three within the Sunshine State. The intervening 10 months? A map of tangled zig-zags throughout the US, Canada, Europe and Asia that might not look misplaced in Chesnee’s faculty jotter.
This week’s Open is the fifth main in as many months, not together with the Olympic Video games at France’s Le Golf Nationwide earlier this month. St. Andrews closes the majors season, however with the Solheim Cup in September and one other Pacific leg this fall visiting China, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan and Hawaii within the house of simply 35 days, the schedule is rammed and never ending anytime quickly.
We solely ask a very powerful questions on this press convention!!!
Chesnee requested mother @Stacy_Lewis if she may get a swimming pool 🥰😂 pic.twitter.com/bhqgapR1Yz
— LPGA (@LPGA) August 21, 2024
Throughout the 33 mixed LPGA Tour stops and majors this 12 months, there are greater than 215 hours of pure flying time. The general mileage provides as much as greater than three journeys around the globe.
This isn’t a brand new drawback — final 12 months’s schedule included a record-breaking 18 events with greater than 2,000 miles between tour stops. This season there was the journey to China and intra-continental visits to Thailand and Malaysia; criss-crossing from west coast Los Angeles to east coast New Jersey in Might; June’s see-sawing from Michigan to the PGA Championship in Washington state and again once more to Michigan, two six-hour flights with simply 4 days relaxation in between every.
Eight-and-a-half months into the season, with winds of 40-45 mph forecast for Thursday and plenty of gamers having not been in a position to play the Scottish Open to reacquaint themselves with hyperlinks golf, can it’s anticipated that any participant is on the prime of their sport? “Probably not, no,” stated Lewis, who’s Staff USA’s captain for the Solheim Cup in Virginia subsequent month. “Those that performed the Olympics, you speak to most of them and it’s simply emotionally so taxing that week. So no, our schedule, particularly Olympic years, is basically, actually powerful.
“There’s been a lot of talk of schedule lately but also at the same time, I’ve been doing this for 15 or 16 years. You learn how to deal with it, and you learn how to be ready in those moments and really just do the best you can.”
GO DEEPER
The Ladies’s Open is at St. Andrews. The Previous Course is able to problem the sector
Since 2009, the purse on the Ladies’s Open has elevated from $2.2 million to $9 million, a 409 per cent improve — tripling since AIG began sponsoring the match in 2020.
Lewis described the development in infrastructure and amenities on the Ladies’s Open as “night and day” in comparison with 2013 however believes their arms are tied in terms of discovering methods to ease the gruelling schedule.
“I think that’s the ideal but a lot of it is when do sponsors want to play and when do we get the golf courses?” she stated.
“We don’t have the posh of the PGA Tour that claims, ‘We’re supplying you with X quantity of {dollars} and we’re enjoying this week.’ We don’t have the cash to only throw round.
“We’re type of on the mercy of sponsors. We’re on the mercy of golf programs and it’s the character of the place we’re. Would we prefer to be higher? Yeah, completely. I believe our group behind the scenes works like loopy on it however we’re a worldwide tour, and I need to compete in opposition to the perfect gamers each week.
“So to do that, we’ve got to go play in Thailand because we have players from Thailand. We’re going to go play in Korea because we have players from Korea. I think that’s just the nature of it. It’s more getting into your head, to me, that this is a global tour. You say you’re going to go play on the LPGA Tour, this is also what you signed up for.”
World primary Nelly Korda, having received six tournaments in seven begins between January and Might, together with the Chevron Championship, has earned greater than $3 million this 12 months in prize cash.
That enables her the posh of skipping the total Asia swing, a seven-week lay-off early within the 12 months that was sandwiched between her profitable streak. However even the two-time main winner needed to withdraw from the JM Eagle LA Championship in April, citing exhaustion.
Nelly Korda has taken frequent weeks off this season, a luxurious not all LPGA professionals can afford. (Michael Reaves / Getty Photos)
Lexi Thompson opened up the dialog across the psychological and bodily calls for of the LPGA Tour in Might when she introduced she was retiring on the finish of the season, aged simply 29.
She spoke about how “lonely” and all-consuming life on tour has been since she certified for her first U.S. Open at 12 however believes there are methods the load might be lessened.
“The schedule for sure,” stated Thompson. “I believe all of the journey will get so much. I believe the circulation of schedule might be higher. Sure occasions might be back-to-back which can be shut to one another. We journey so much in another country however it’s a world tour in order that comes with it, and we’re very fortunate for the sponsors that we’ve got exterior the nation.
“There is a little less weight on my shoulders after the announcement because it has been on my mind for a few years, so it’s something that’s been inside that nobody really knew about or what was going to happen.”
Catriona Matthew claimed her solely main on the Open in 2009, profitable at Royal Lytham & St Annes simply 11 weeks after giving start. Now 54 years previous and making her final look at her house match, Matthew doesn’t understand how she managed to tour together with her two youngsters within the following years.
To maintain chasing one other main in a discipline so deep Lewis counts 60 per cent as having the potential to win requires supreme resilience.
Lydia Ko is seeking to finish an eight-and-a-half-year main drought this week however the Australian is available in sizzling after profitable gold in Paris, turning into the thirty fifth lady to be inducted into the LPGA Corridor of Fame.
She stays the youngest feminine to ever win on the LPGA Tour after her triumph at 15 years previous, however 12 years later there was a right away dose of realism about how lengthy she is prepared to beat the sore backs she experiences within the morning — and whether or not she could carry ahead her deliberate retirement at 30.
“In ways, it can be scary because I’ve played golf since I was five,” stated Ko.
“That is my life whether or not I prefer it or not and golf has given me a lot for me to be grateful for on and off the golf course.
“As much as we are very grateful to be able to do what we love and compete at a high level, I think there is the other side of things that you have to consider. As someone that’s maybe closer to that point in my career than when I was a rookie, you come to realise all of these things, and you respect the player for the decision that she came up with.”
There are gamers nonetheless decided to affix the majors membership, most notably England’s Charley Hull whose angle in direction of a current shoulder harm captures the mindset wanted to deal with this relentless schedule.
“My shoulder just got a little bit tight so I have acupuncture in it every other day because when it’s cold, it can play up a bit,” she stated.
“I’ve obtained degenerate arthritis in it, as properly. So when it does get chilly, it will get a bit stiff. I simply attempt to maintain it heat.
“Apart from that, I’m healthy and ready to go.”
(Prime picture: Luke Walker / Getty Photos)
