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ST ANDREWS, Scotland — Stacey Lewis returned to the top table in the media room, answering a late question from someone too shy to shout through the wind during a news conference.
Her five-year-old daughter Chesney wants to know if she can get a pool — a “big pool” — if her mother wins here, as she did in 2013.
“I think I might be able to help you, girl,” Louis says.
It has been 11 years since the Texas player made a par-two on the final two holes to win the Women's Open by two strokes. The second putt on the 17th hole remains the best of her career, so much so that the No. 5 golf club is the only one she has kept for her position.
But by then, with motherhood taking over golf and making her less narrow-minded, the demands of the LPGA Tour became more time-consuming.
This year’s tour began with two events in Florida and ended with three more in the Sunshine State. What about the intervening 10 months? A map of squiggly lines across the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia that wouldn’t look out of place in Chesney’s school notebook.
This week’s Open is the fifth major in two months, excluding the Olympics in France earlier this month. The St Andrews Championship closes out the major season, but with the Solheim Cup in September and another Pacific tournament this fall that will visit China, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan and Hawaii in just 35 days, the schedule is packed and won’t be ending anytime soon.
In this press conference we ask only the most important questions!!!
Chesney asked her mother @Stacy Lewis If only she could have a swimming pool 🥰😂 pic.twitter.com/bhqgapR1Yz
— Ladies Professional Golf Association (@LPGA) August 21, 2024
With 33 stops and major tournaments on the LPGA Tour this year, there are more than 215 hours of pure flying time. The total distance traveled is more than three flights around the world.
This isn’t a new problem—last year’s schedule featured a record 18 tour events that spanned more than 2,000 miles. This season, there was travel to China and domestic visits to Thailand and Malaysia; a May West Coast trip from Los Angeles to the East Coast of New Jersey; and a June trip from Michigan to the PGA Championship in Washington State and back—two six-hour trips with just four days of rest in between.
Eight and a half months into the season, with winds forecast to be 40-45mph on Thursday and many players unable to play the Scottish Open to reacclimatize, can we expect anyone to be at their best? “Probably not, no,” said Lewis, who will captain the U.S. team at the Solheim Cup in Virginia next month. “People who have been to the Olympics, you talk to most of them and it’s very emotionally draining that week. So no, our schedule, especially the Olympic years, is very tough.”
“There's been a lot of talk about the schedule lately, but at the same time, I've been doing this for 15 or 16 years. You learn how to deal with it, you learn how to be prepared in those moments and really do the best you can.”
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The Ladies Open is being held at St Andrews. The Old Course is ready to challenge the field.
Since 2009, the Women’s Open has grown from $2.2 million to $9 million in prize money, a 409% increase — three times more since AIG began sponsoring the tournament in 2020.
Lewis described the improvement in infrastructure and facilities at the Women's Open as “like night and day” compared to 2013 but believes their hands are tied when it comes to finding ways to ease the gruelling schedule.
“I think that's the ideal situation, but it's really about when do sponsors want to play and when do we get the golf courses?” she said.
“We don’t have the luxury of the PGA Championship saying, ‘We’ll give you a certain amount of dollars and we’ll play this week.’ We don’t have the money to spend that way.
“We are at the mercy of our sponsors. We are at the mercy of the golf courses and that is the nature of the place we are in. Do we want to be better? Yes, absolutely. I think our team behind the scenes work very hard but we are a world tour and I want to compete against the best players every week.
“And in order to do that, we have to play in Thailand because we have Thai players. We have to play in Korea because we have Korean players. I think that's the nature of it. It comes to my mind more that this is a world tour. When you say you're going to play on the LPGA Tour, that's what I signed up for as well.”
World No. 1 Nelly Korda has earned more than $3 million in prize money this year after winning six tournaments in seven appearances between January and May, including the Chevron Championship.
That allows her the luxury of skipping the entire Asian Tour, where she will take a seven-week break early in the year, sandwiched between her winning streak. But even the two-time major winner had to pull out of the JM Eagle LA Championship in April, citing fatigue.
Nelly Korda took several weeks off this season, a luxury not all professional golfers can afford. (Michael Reeves/Getty Images)
Lexi Thompson opened up about the mental and physical demands of the LPGA Tour in May when she announced her retirement at the end of the season, aged just 29.
She has spoken about how “lonely” and time-consuming life on the tour has been since qualifying for her first US Open at the age of 12, but believes there are ways to lighten the load.
“Definitely, the schedule,” Thompson said. “I think all the travel gets a lot. I think the flow of the schedule could be better. Certain events could be back-to-back closer together. We travel a lot overseas but it’s a world tour so that comes with it, and we’re very fortunate with the sponsors we have overseas.
“There was a bit of a weight off my shoulders after the announcement because it had been on my mind for several years, so it's something that was inside me and no one really knew about it or what was going to happen.”
Catriona Matthew won her only major Open title in 2009, winning at Royal Lytham and St Annes just 11 weeks after giving birth. Now 54 and making her final appearance in her home tournament, Matthew doesn’t know how she managed to tour with her two children in the years that followed.
Continuing to chase another major title in such a deep field, which Lewis estimates has a 60% chance of winning, requires a tremendous amount of resilience.
Lydia Ko is looking to end her eight-and-a-half-year drought this week, but the Australian is coming off a strong start after winning gold in Paris to become the 35th woman inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame.
She remains the youngest woman ever to win a LPGA Tour event after triumphing at 15, but 12 years later there was an immediate dose of realism about how long she wants to beat her morning back pain — and whether she might bring forward her planned retirement at 30.
“It can be a little bit intimidating because I've been playing golf since I was five years old,” Ko said.
“This is my life whether I like it or not, and golf has given me a lot to be thankful for on and off the golf course.
“As grateful as we are to be able to do what we love and compete at a high level, I think there's another side to things that we have to consider. As someone who is probably closer to this point in my career than I was when I was a rookie, I realize all of those things, and I respect the player for the decision she made.”
There are still players determined to join the big club, most notably England's Charlie Hull whose attitude towards a recent shoulder injury reflects the mentality needed to deal with such a busy schedule.
“My shoulder gets a little tight, so I do acupuncture every other day, because the pain can get a little worse when it's cold,” she said.
“I also have degenerative arthritis. So when it gets cold, he gets a little stiff. I just try to keep him warm.
“Apart from that, I'm healthy and ready to go.”
(Top image: Luke Walker/Getty Images)
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