It’s Mother’s Day, and Laura Baugh plans to connect with her seven children via the Houseparty app to celebrate. Baugh has always been a gamer, becoming the youngest player to win the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 1971 at age 16.
The striking blonde beauty turned professional and joined the LPGA in 1973, earning Rookie of the Year honors. She gave birth to eldest daughter Chelsea nine years later and married PGA Tour winner Bobby Cole, the father of all seven of her children, twice, sometimes balancing it all on the road as a single mom. Though Baugh never won on the LPGA, she was immensely popular, appearing in ads for the likes of Ford, Wilson and Colgate. She also had a successful clothing line. Baugh was open about her struggles with alcoholism in her book “Out of the Rough.”
Golfweek recently caught up with 64-year-old Baugh, who now lives in Ponte Vedra Beach. Her seven children now range in age from 37 to 22. She’s single again and has two grandkids. Son Eric, 31, lives in Delray Beach, Florida, and competes on the Korn Ferry Tour.
With 15 moms currently competing on the LPGA, it’s a fitting time to talk to Baugh about lessons learned on her most unusual journey. Here are excerpts from that conversation:
• • •
I was told that I couldn’t have children. My plan in golf was to do my commercials and do my promotions – because I had some wonderful opportunities that other golfers didn’t have, I was really lucky – and then I was going to be serious about my golf and then adopt a couple children. That was my plan. I got pregnant and I had a baby, a little boy. He didn’t make it. At six months, I had a miscarriage. Two weeks later, I got pregnant with Chelsea. So I was pregnant for about a year and a half the first time.
I was really in love with being a mom. We traveled in a large van and had great times, saw the Smithsonian. But my golf definitely suffered. A single mom with seven kids playing the LPGA tour sounds bizarre, but at the same time, we had great times.
I homeschooled my oldest. There’s a six-year difference (between the two oldest kids), so I could continue to play the tour and be with her. I did it in a combo to where I had the same criteria. I went and got the same books, so that when I got back in the offseason, she could go ahead and be in school and be right there with the students. That gave me extra time.
Then, as the children got older, I thought, you don’t want to homeschool and play professional golf and travel. I did everything. At one point there, I hired a nanny. First time it was a woman, the second time it was a young man who was a friend of my eldest daughter. … When I went and played, I took the ones that weren’t in school and the ones that were in school stayed and attended school. In the summertime, they all came out. Even when I went to Sweden and different places, I would take the bottom two with me. I was very much a hands-on mom. I always had children with me. It was a gift and a blessing that I didn’t expect to experience in life.
I taught them all to play golf. One out of seven really found the passion. But tomorrow I’m playing golf with Haley (30). My kids now love golf in their own way. Haley plays a lot. She hits it a long way. I haven’t lost my distance, which is fun. We have driving contests. So for parents that teach their kids and think oh my kids are never going to play golf, you never know when they’re going to pick it up.
I probably hit it 260. I hit it plenty long. I don’t hit it short. When I played in the Senior Women’s Open, it was ‘My god, how did you bomb it so far?’ I run a lot. I’m really blessed that there’s nothing wrong with me physically. … Although my chipping and putting is where it’s all at, it’s still a rush to hit it long.
I will be sober 24 years on the 17th of May. During that journey, some of my relaxation was just to take a glass of wine, and I took that too far.
I’m very strong in my (12-step) program. I was beaten at one point. Not (by) the father of my children, but before that. I deal with abuse. I do speaking (engagements) in that realm. I do a lot of work for people in recovery. I do inspirational speaking for them. The reason I do that is to carry the message. But the main thing is to make what I did a good. In other words, if a woman that is being abused sees that there’s a way out, then my abuse was not all bad.
Or if I speak to sobriety, then some of the bad decisions I made while still drinking are not for all bad. There’s some good. I can carry a message of hope.
I’ve never missed a tee time. One time I was staying at a Residence Inn and for some reason my alarm didn’t go off. When I did look at the clock, I had 20 minutes before my tee time and I’m staying 25 minutes from the golf course. Well, you finally missed a tee time, Laura. Part of my dad’s deal was that you never give up, so we tried. I picked up the children, they were sleeping and I put them gently in the van, grabbed some clothes and drove to the golf course. I put on the clothes that I had worn the day before. It was the only thing I could find. I drove pretty much the speed limit but there must have been many people on the road. I drove to the course and the daycare was right across the street. I pulled in. There was a nice young lady standing there and I said ‘You know, I play in a couple minutes. My kids are asleep in the van.’ She said, ‘I’ve got them!” I went to the first tee, put my shoes on and actually made it. I shot 74.
Professional golfers, women, are very different than the men’s tour. If a great player, Tiger Woods, has a child, he goes out the following week and plays. Women have a child, they don’t go out the next week and play.
The soonest I played was less than a month after giving birth, many times. Jamie went into daycare about seven weeks out, maybe eight weeks. I’m lucky, my body kicked back quickly.
I was playing in the LPGA Championship. I was doing quite well. It was Saturday and pace of play had been quite slow. I was in the second to the last group and we were on TV. If you nurse your children, you get larger as you play. Sometimes in the gallery if there are children that cry, your milk kind of knows that. Going to the 17th tee there was a little baby crying and the front of my shirt got wet because I’m nursing. So now I’m going down there and I think NBC is televising and I’m in contention, so I don’t really know what to do. For some reason I walked to the back of the tee and there was a (cooler) of water. I just wet the whole front of my shirt, so that it didn’t stand out, and played the 17th and 18th holes. Those are things that happen!
Joanne Carner and I used to play practice rounds together. I was pretty long but when I was pregnant, I was 20 pounds heavier and hit it really big. We used to have driving contests. I never played after seven months.
Everybody always concentrates on the physical parts of having the baby. Although that is a challenge, that is, to me, the least of the challenges. The challenge is the mental part. I’d have been a better player and a better mom if I didn’t try to do everything. In other words, I would never work on my 5-footers as much as I think I should when I had children. I will never be there as much as I want to be around my children because I‘m working on 5-footers.
Just don’t be as hard on yourself. Practice your 5-footers if you’re putting badly. If you’re putting well, go home and really play with your children. Have a mommy-and-me afternoon. Do what your gut instinct tells you. Being able to hug your child does more for you mentally than being out there practicing.
[jwplayer 2p97uyt6-9JtFt04J]
[lawrence-related id=778042614,778037177,778021807]