Sometimes, it’s as simple as just tieing your shoes. Even amid a global pandemic, the little things count.
When Symetra Tour player Lakareber Abe finds herself quickly shoving her feet in laced-up tennis shoes, she tries to remind herself to stop, untie and retie them. This follows a theory she recently read about making time for the little things. It’s a lesson she learned in a book by John Wooden, legendary UCLA basketball coach.
“It’s the same as the make-your-bed theory,” she said. “Being really diligent.”
Concentration on the little things can take a golfer a long way. It was the big goal this season for Abe, a 24-year-old who was eager to start her second full season on the Symetra Tour.
And oh, how well she did start. Abe fired rounds of 70-74-71 at the Country Club of Winter Haven in Winter Haven, Florida, to tie for third in the Florida’s Natural Charity Classic, the kick-off event for the 2020 season. That means that while the Symetra Tour is dormant because of the coronavirus, Abe sits third in the Volvik Race for the Card standings.
It would be easy to be bitter about the season stopping so quickly after that performance, Abe’s best Symetra Tour finish to date.
“Every day I just try to tell myself, it’s one thing when it’s a ‘you’ problem you’re dealing with, but when you step back and look at it, this is like a global thing happening,” she said. “Me not going to the LPGA is a drop in the bucket compared to what other people are experiencing.”
Abe remains at home in The Woodlands, Texas, with her family. At first, she had a net set up for hitting balls but as things creep back to normal, she’s getting back to the golf course and the driving range. Abe loves to cook, so she and her mom Fiora tend to alternate making dinner during the week. Lakareber just whipped up a mean enchilada recipe the other day.
In some ways, it mirrors what she’d be doing if she were on the road.
“I don’t eat at chain restaurants,” she said. “I’ll try to find an interesting restaurant.”
Abe has never fancied herself much of a baker, mostly because she never felt like she had time for it. Time is one thing she has an abundance of now. She cultivated a sourdough starter and has made some type of bread every week, from donuts to cinnamon rolls to hamburger buns.
In a normal Symetra Tour season, Abe would travel by car, particularly through the part of the schedule that’s in the Midwest. She might fly to events on the West Coast.
Over the past season and a half, Abe learned how to manage her time on the road better and that she needs to shut it down after four events. She played 22 of 24 events on the schedule in 2019, making the cut in 12.
“If you can do three, that makes it easier,” she said. “Obviously it’s a bit harder on Symetra because you have to play so much. Most people play every week. Finding those breaks has been more difficult.”
Sometimes she takes a caddie and sometimes she’s on the course herself with a push cart. Sometimes, a family member will make a cameo. She had her mom on the bag for a few events in 2019, and older sister Tezira, a former University of Texas player who recently graduated from law school at the University of Michigan, took over caddie duties at last year’s tour stop in Albany, New York.
Abe works with instructor Justin Poynter of Crown Golf in Arlington, Texas. There have been many short-game conversations lately. Everything is so much more magnified in professional golf, Abe says (who had a successful college career at Alabama), that when it comes time to start shaving strokes, it’s the little shots that have to tighten up.
Overall, Abe thinks her self-awareness has gotten better on the golf course.
“It’s me having a better understanding of my body and my golf swing and how it moves and how I need to get to certain positions,” she said of the progress she’s made these past few years. “The best way for me to swing my swing and have it be repeatable.”
Last year ended with a trip to play the inaugural Magical Kenya Ladies Open on the Ladies European Tour as a sponsor exemption, where she finished T-16.
Abe’s family is from Uganda. An aunt and cousin in Kenya even helped set up a safari for after the event. It was a week she won’t forget.
“It’s really cool to see golf growing in that part of the world,” she said. “For me, playing as close to where my parents are from as I’ll probably get in my lifetime was pretty cool.”
They’re the kind of good memories that will carry her through until the season restarts.