Boone and Nichols have chatted inside LPGA media centers for years. Here’s what they’ve been saying.
For years, Grant Boone and Beth Ann Nichols have chatted inside LPGA media centers, sharing insider tidbits about the top tier of women’s professional golf.
Boone, who has been on-air for more than two decades and now handles LPGA play-by-play for NBC Sports and Golf Channel, has come to trust Nichols as a confidante, knowing he could bounce ideas off his friend when needed.
And Nichols, the first female president of the Golf Writers Association of America and a longtime Golfweek senior writer who is the only full-time independent LPGA beat writer, has done the same.
So, why not get two of the most important voices on the LPGA beat together?
That was the thought behind Golfweek’s newest venture, “The Big Pickle,” which will run on our YouTube channel as well as all podcast platforms.
Once a month, Boone and Nichols will dig deep into the women’s game, welcoming some of the top names to speak their minds about the direction of the LPGA and the season’s finest moments. For the podcast’s debut, World Golf Hall of Famer Judy Rankin hopped on with the duo, discussing this week’s first major of the year, the Chevron Championship, as well as Nelly Korda’s incredible run.
Aside from the monthly deep dive, on other weeks Grant and Beth Ann will drop an audio-only “Emergency Nine,” a 9-minute recap of the weekend’s events, to keep listeners up on what’s shaking inside the LPGA ropes and everything in women’s golf.
As for the name? Grant and Beth Ann will have to divulge that info.
Subscribe, comment and tell a friend. As the women’s game continues to gain momentum, “The Big Pickle” will be sure to keep you informed, enlightened and entertained on everything LPGA.
Given that Thompson is in the midst of a four-year winning slump on the LPGA and only recently began to find some form, why in the world would she step into a potential cauldron of criticism by taking up a spot in a PGA Tour event? Furthermore, if she struggles at the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas, why risk tearing apart the confidence she’s built up since the Solheim Cup?
One week later, however, after several conversations with folks far wiser and more experienced, I’ve come to view Thompson’s decision in a different light.
I’ve since concluded that the reward for Thompson and golf is greater than the risk.
For starters, this is nothing like Annika Sorenstam’s appearance at The Colonial 20 years ago. At that time, Sorenstam was the best player in the women’s game. She wanted to test herself and push herself beyond anything she’d ever experienced. And while that was her personal goal, Sorenstam carried the weight of the tour and women’s golf on her shoulders. The sports world literally stopped to see how she fared.
There was great risk in Sorenstam’s decision to play, and even though she didn’t make the cut, it paid off handsomely. The Swede left Texas an even bigger force in women’s sport.
Thompson is far from a dominant figure on the LPGA, but she is the most well-known and most popular U.S. player, as much for her triumphs as her crushing defeats. If Thompson doesn’t play up to her standards at the Shriners, the LPGA won’t take a hit.
The 28-year-old isn’t expected to become the first player since Babe Zaharias in 1945 to make a cut on the PGA Tour. If she does, however, it will be her most well-known accomplishment – far more than winning a major.
The untimely shank on the 18th on Friday at the Solheim Cup – coupled with the media debacle that followed – harkened back to those fragile times.
But there’s a resolve inside Thompson that’s undeniable, even if she’s reluctant to let the world in on her pain.
Lexi Thompson of the United States hits from the bunker on the 18th hole during the final round of the 76th U.S. Women’s Open Championship at The Olympic Club on June 06, 2021, in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
Not long before the U.S. team left for Spain, captain Stacy Lewis told Thompson that she wouldn’t be playing foursomes in the Solheim Cup.
“I think she could have taken that a number of ways,” said assistant captain Angela Stanford, “and instead she was a great teammate. … She put her head down and worked.”
Thompson wasn’t gifted that opening shot on Friday foursomes. She had to prove herself on site that week to Lewis, and the captain responded to what she saw.
Thompson’s 3-1-0 record was a personal victory and a sign of good play to come.
Since the Solheim, she’s posted a pair of top-10 finishes that include four rounds in the 60s. While she’s still not inside the top 60 to qualify for the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship, she has moved to within striking distance at No. 82.
While there are many women in the world playing better golf this season, it’s hard to believe that any woman other than Thompson should tee it up against the men. Few women have the physical aspects of Thompson – the spin, the strength, the length. Even fewer, however, would benefit at all from competing on the PGA Tour at this stage in their careers. The risk simply isn’t worth it.
Even though she hasn’t won a major championship in nearly 10 years, Thompson is battled-tested when it comes to disappointment. Most players on the LPGA haven’t come close to experiencing the amount of scrutiny Thompson has faced.
She’s also been in the spotlight since the age of 12 and on the LPGA more than a decade. If it’s a tough week in Vegas, the outcome won’t define her.
Perhaps the biggest element that shifted my thinking should’ve been the most obvious: the kids.
Lexi Thompson of Team United States signs autographs for fans during a practice round ahead of the start of The Solheim Cup at Inverness Club on September 02, 2021, in Toledo, Ohio. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
Thompson is, without question, one of the best on tour when it comes to fan interaction. It could be the absolute worst day of her career – as it seemed to be in Rancho Mirage six years ago – and she’d still stand there with tear-stained cheeks and sign autographs with a smile on her face.
For a kid, watching a woman compete in a man’s world hits differently. Maybe a little girl sticks with golf even when she’s the only girl because of Thompson. Maybe a little boy invites a girl to play in his group because he watched a woman play on the PGA Tour.
Maybe Thompson’s presence brings in more fans and raises more money for Shriners patients all over the country.
No matter what happens on Thursday in Vegas, Thompson will give kids of all ages and abilities a day to remember.
When I see a young girl on her dad’s shoulders at a tournament, my heart sinks and swells. This game will bond them for life.
My dad liked to warm up on the range with his hybrids. Whatever it took to build confidence before a round. A disciple of Ben Hogan, he left behind stacks of spiral notebooks filled with untold secrets. In retirement, he grew a fondness for martini tees and went through a period where he only hit yellow golf balls. Dan Baldry was a chronic tinkerer. He loved to build clubs in the garage, convinced that a new shaft would change everything.
He died of cancer in February at age 77.
The first time I went to the range after he died, I put on my Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons “Anthology” and sat down on one of the plastic lounge chairs and cried. We’d spent countless hours on that range together searching for answers. Going there now still feels like being wrapped in a warm blanket and stabbed in the heart all at the same time.
Dan Baldry, Beth Ann Nichols and Wanda Baldry at the 2013 GWAA Annual Awards Dinner. Dan and Wanda were married for nearly 52 years. (Photo courtesy Beth Ann Nichols)
I played my first round of golf after he died on what would’ve been his 78th birthday. Nothing could’ve been more fitting. My father taught me a game that led to a college scholarship and a career that has been more fulfilling than I ever could’ve imagined. But more than that, golf gave us a lifelong connection, something we could share in big ways (Pebble Beach!) and small.
No one in the world will ever care about the details of my rounds like my dad. He wanted to revel in the good and commiserate with the bad. When I see a young girl on her dad’s shoulders at a tournament, my heart sinks and swells simultaneously. This game will bond them for life.
Basketball was my dad’s first love. He grew up in Rising Sun, Indiana, and watched Milan, the real-life “Hoosiers” team, take on his beloved Shiners. My grandmother taught him Latin, but all he wanted to do was play ball. He was a three-sport coach for much of his teaching career in Lakeland, Florida, marrying the beautiful elementary P.E. teacher who lived next door. My mom, Wanda, incidentally, leads the family with two career holes-in-one.
The first time I played a round of golf after he died on the local muni where I grew up, I pushed my approach shot on the opening hole. My ball had settled down on a bare patch of dirt, and I could hear him say, “Get yourself a lie, Beth Ann.” So I did, and I chipped it in.
He sees even more of my shots now.
Golf has been hard this year. My grips were tattered, and the shaft on my beloved old wedge broke in Michigan. Earlier this month, I finally got around to getting it fixed at the local golf shop where my dad spent so much time. The golf shop’s owner was one of several friends who spoke at his funeral.
I regret not spending more time with my dad in the garage at his workbench. There was so much left to learn, none of it from a book.
Dan Baldry helps his daughter Beth Ann Nichols fish out a ball at Butternut Creek in Blairsville, Georgia. (Photo courtesy Beth Ann Nichols)
My dad always went big at Christmas, and, as an adult, I loved few things more than watching him light up over a new Masters shirt under the tree. He had thick, calloused hands and a soft heart. When I was sick, he’d stay home with me and eat chicken noodle soup and watch “Bonanza.”
I never fully appreciated the depth of my father’s love until he got really sick. Never believed he wouldn’t beat cancer until the day he asked me to call hospice and take him home.
We said everything there was to say. And then we held hands and waited.
Helping usher my father into the presence of Jesus was the hardest and most sacred time of my life. I was sitting on the floor in the living room next to his bed with my mother, going through a box of old family letters and photos when his breathing changed. As “How Great Thou Art” filled the room, he went with the angels. I truly believe that the sound of our laughter and talk of loved ones long gone allowed him to let go.
As my friend Grant Boone texted, “Never has that space between heaven and earth been thinner.”
My dad is everywhere here. This house was his labor of love every summer. Felt close to him all week. ❤️ Time to drive mama back to Florida!
My father didn’t have an email account or a smartphone. He kept up with friends the old-fashioned way – in person. Few things in life are more precious than listening to a friend of 50-plus years say goodbye. My mother and I had the privilege of holding the phone to my dad’s ear in those final days.
Since he died, I’d often wake up at 3 a.m. and lie in bed and write versions of this column in my head. Stories and memories that I didn’t want to die, too.
In the end, he looked so peaceful. The pain that had wrinkled his face and haunted his eyes disappeared. The hospice nurse helped me dress him in one of his favorite golf shirts, reserved for Christmas Eve services, and a pair of his signature grey coaching shorts.
My best friend since the seventh grade made it over to the house first. She held my hand as we sat on the couch. I commented on how much my dad looked like himself again.
“The reason I play golf is because of him,” she Mehaffey.
Philip Mehaffey hadn’t gotten out of bed in months, but that didn’t stop him from having a motorized scooter delivered to his house in the small village of Scarva, Northern Ireland. His only daughter, Olivia, was set to make her LPGA debut at the ISPS Handa World Invitational about 50 minutes away, and he wasn’t going to miss it. Never mind the terminal cancer diagnosis.
Philip put on six layers and a wooly cap and embarked on what he’d later call the best week of his life.
Olivia, 24, thought she might see her father on the first tee, and maybe a few of the finishing holes at Massereene Golf Club. But every time she looked outside the ropes, there he was.
“He did not miss one shot,” marveled Olivia, who tied for 17th at her home LPGA event.
Olivia Mehaffey’s cheer squad at the ISPS Handa World Invitational. (courtesy photo)
Father and daughter were partners in mixed events at their golf club, Tandragee, and often had to tell mom to keep the Sunday roast warm because they had to stay longer for the prize-giving ceremony. Philip was a big believer in his daughter’s talent, and while she rarely made a decision without him, Olivia said he was never a pushy parent.
She began to understand the true depth of her father’s love and pride when she held his hand day after day in the final months of his life.
“The reason I play golf is because of him,” she said.
Olivia, one of three four-time All-Americans to come out of Arizona State, makes her first start of the 2022 season at this week’s Carlisle Arizona Women’s Golf Classic on the Epson Tour, where she’s competing close to her second home on a sponsor exemption. The top 10 on the Epson Tour at season’s end earn LPGA cards for 2023.
A strong finish this week would go a long way toward better status after the tour’s first reshuffle. She tied for sixth at the event last year.
Olivia was in the U.S. when her father was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2020. The surgeon said it was the worst tumor he’d ever had to remove. Her mother Evelyn asked head coach Missy Farr-Kaye to deliver the news so that Olivia, a fifth-year senior, wouldn’t be alone.
In November of 2020, Farr-Kaye, who had twice battled breast cancer, received her own colon cancer diagnosis.
“The last person I wanted to tell was Olivia,” said Farr-Kaye, who is like a second mom to the Irishwoman.
AUGUSTA, GEORGIA – APRIL 03: Olivia Mehaffey of Northern Ireland plays her shot from the 12th tee during the final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur at Augusta National Golf Club on April 03, 2021 in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
At the 2021 Augusta National Women’s Amateur, Olivia found out from her mom that the cancer had spread, and that her father’s condition was terminal. She cried for about an hour, and then decided that she needed to play her best golf so that he could see her on TV. She finished ninth.
Mehaffey struggles being vulnerable, calling herself a closed book. Last season, she said, was mentally the worst year she’s ever had.
Rounds of 80-74-72-78 put her toward the bottom of the field at Stage II of LPGA Qualifying School in October and miles away from an LPGA card. She immediately went home to Northern Ireland to be with her dad.
“I knew she was devastated,” said Farr-Kaye, “but looking back on it now, she was supposed to be home.”
Mehaffey stayed by her father’s bedside for weeks.
Philip had plans for her though, and he told everyone who would listen that she was going to Spain for Ladies European Tour Qualifying School.
“He looked me in the eye and said, ‘You’re going to Spain,’ ” said Olivia, who insisted that she couldn’t leave him.
Philip died on Friday, Dec. 3 at age 59, and the family held his funeral service that next Sunday. Olivia honored her father’s wishes and flew to Spain on Monday. Few people outside of Northern Ireland knew of her loss. Olivia just wanted to go out and play for dad.
“I think it taught me how strong I was,” she said. “To be in the space I was mentally and kind of it aside and try to hit shots.”
A tough Mehaffey secured Category 15 membership on the LET for 2022.
Earlier this year, Leona Maguire became the first Irish player to win on the LPGA. The pair are close friends and talk to each other most days. After Maguire won, she told Mehaffey that her LPGA title will come “sooner than you think.”
“That meant a lot to me,” said Mehaffey. “We go so far back.”
Olivia Mehaffey gives her ball to a girl on the 18th hole during the final round of the ISPS HANDA World Invitational at Galgorm Spa & Golf Resort in Ballymena, United Kingdom. (Photo: Oisin Keniry/Getty Images)
Farr-Kaye calls Mehaffey one of the hardest, if not the, hardest-working players she has ever coached. One of her strengths is being able to put up a solid score even when she’s not playing well, a strong recipe for a tour player.
Mehaffey returned to Arizona on Jan. 7 and tried to immerse herself into practice and not think too much about the pain.
In time, however, she realized that wasn’t a healthy approach. She talks to Farr-Kaye every day and sometimes practices with her old Sun Devil team. In Farr-Kaye, she has a warm and compassionate confidant. Swing coach Jorge Parada tackles things logically and calmly. They are people she can open up to and unburden herself.
Farr-Kaye said the best advice she can give Mehaffey is to embrace the present, even when it doesn’t look like what anyone wanted.
“Sometimes when you have to work a little harder for something,” said Farr-Kaye, “it means a little bit more.”
Luna Sobron Galmes couldn’t have dreamed that a tie for 28th could be so eventful.
Luna Sobron Galmes couldn’t have dreamed that a tie for 28th could be so eventful. One day after the 27-year-old Spaniard watched her push cart roll into a water hazard at the Epson Tour season-opener, she aced a par 4 at the Florida’s Natural Charity Classic.
Sobron Galmes didn’t see her ball roll into the cup on the par-4 fifth at the Country Club of Winter Haven. But she heard the cheering after her beautifully struck 3-wood found the bottom of the cup from 247 yards out.
“It’s impossible to make it from that distance,” said Sobron Galmes, “it’s crazy.”
The early ace, her second in competition, propelled Sobron Galmes to a final-round 71. She finished 2 over for the tournament, 11 back of winner Kum-Kang Park. Sobron Galmes tied for eighth last month at the Magical Kenya Ladies Open on the Ladies European Tour.
Sandwiched in between Sobron Galmes’ two 71s was a soggy second-round 76. On the par-4 eighth hole Saturday, Sobron Galmes parked her push cart in front of the green while she finished up her par. While she stood at the back of the green, a gust of wind pushed her trolley into the nearby water. Sobron Galmes played the two back-to-back par 5s that followed in four over.
“What do you do after playing the worst day in your life in a golf course all wet because your trolley and clubs (fell) into the lake,” Sobron Galmes wrote on Instagram, “and after your ball hits a tree and doesn’t come down? Two birdies for making the cut. Never surrender!!!”
Little did she know that it would only get more interesting from there.
The Duke star earned her LPGA card at Q-Series but just because a player has a card doesn’t guarantee starts.
WINTER HAVEN, Fla. – Gina Kim was 14 years old when she got her picture taken with Laura Davies in Evian, France. At 21, Kim finds it hard to believe that she’s now a card-carrying member of the same tour as the World Golf Hall of Famer.
The Duke star earned her LPGA card at Q-Series, but hasn’t yet teed it up in an event. Just because a player has a card doesn’t guarantee early starts. Which is why Kim, who is currently 174th on the LPGA priority list, makes her professional debut this week on the Epson Tour.
“I’m trying to be kind to myself and realize that this is a long-term investment,” said Kim. “God knows how many rounds are in front of me.”
Had a blast today in the pro-am with former Duke star Gina Kim, who makes her pro debut on the @EpsonTour this week. I expect her to reshuffle early and spend a good deal of time on the LPGA this year. pic.twitter.com/dA64DIeAkL
This kind of well-beyond-her-years perspective flows as beautifully as the rest of her tidy game. Kim is already an A+ pro-am player, conversing easily with tour officials, sponsors and the media at the Florida’s Natural Charity Classic like she’d done this sort of thing 1,000 times before.
But this is all learned behavior, a byproduct of 3 ½ years of college, where she outgrew a self-described “hot-headed” temperament that could send her to tears at a moment’s notice. It was at Duke, she said, that she learned how to value a big-picture mindset.
In 2019, Kim played a pivotal role in helping Duke win the NCAA title and then later that same summer, she contended over the weekend at the U.S. Women’s Open in Charleston, South Carolina.
“After the 2019 U.S. Open, I thought I was ready,” said Kim. “I thought I was ready to go out and kill it.”
But she needed more time to develop the intangible skills, to appreciate the value of a par and the need for life balance. There was physical work, too. The gutsy Kim reconstructed her swing with the help of Ted Oh, learning how to compress the ball to gain more consistency.
Kim has worked hard toward a life on the LPGA for a long time, but even before it begins, she knows that she’ll probably retire in her mid-30s to start a family. And then what?
“You’ve got more than half your life ahead of you,” she said. “What do you do after that?”
While Kim decided to forgo her final semester of golf at Duke, she’s still a student there with a 3.79 GPA and one class left: sports ethics. She’ll have to rush back to be there on Monday afternoons until mid-April and will graduate in early May. Kim went to Duke despite both parents being professors at the University of North Carolina.
“I think people underrate the college experience because that’s where you really do a lot of maturing as a person,” she said, “and not just as a golfer.”
Kim plans to play in the first two Epson Tour events and will then try to Monday-qualify for the JTBC Classic at Aviara in Carlsbad, California. She’s hoping her status will get her into the Lotte Championship in Hawaii without having to qualify.
The LPGA’s first reshuffle is after the Cognizant Founders Cup in mid-May, and one good week on tour could score her a boatload of starts.
The goal, of course, is for Kim to play a few early on the Epson Tour and never go back.
𝗧𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄 @gina_kim0504 makes her pro golf debut 🔵😈⛳️
Kim begins her pro career with a familiar face on the bag in Ben Sorrells, who first caddied for her at the 2019 Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Sorrells has caddied on the PGA and Korn Ferry Tours for seven years and loved Kim’s attitude right from the start.
“Her bubbly personality, the smile on her face,” said Sorrells, “it got me.”
If all goes to plan, much of the world will soon see it, too.
Stanford’s white-hot season went to another level in Sacramento on Tuesday.
Stanford’s white-hot season went to another level at the Gunrock Invitational when the Cardinal set the NCAA scoring record for 54 holes. Their 50-under 814 total beat LSU’s previous record of 46 under and shattered Stanford’s previous school-best by 22 strokes.
The Cardinal beat Washington by 35 strokes, the largest margin of victory in program history, at Del Paso Country Club in Sacramento.
“I don’t even have words for this,” said head coach Anne Walker. “It’s so exciting and this team deserves it. We have so many great players top to bottom so to come here and set this record, I’m excited for them, excited for Del Paso the course. I don’t have great words for it but I’m really proud of them. It feels great to bounce back after San Diego State.”
Rachel Heck during the final round of the NCAA Stanford Regional at Stanford Golf Course on May 12, 2021 in Stanford, California.
Sophomore Rachel Heck captured her eighth title. Andrea Lee owns the Stanford career record of nine victories. Heck’s 18-under total also set a school record. The NCAA record of 19 under was set by Ohio State’s Jaclyn Lee in 2018.
Freshman Rose Zhang, the No. 1-ranked amateur in the world, finished runner-up to Heck at 14 under, while sophomore Sadie Englemann finished a career-best fourth.
Stanford has now won five titles in six team events this season. Zhang has three individual victories, and Heck has now claimed two in a row.
“It’s great to see the Rachel Heck that we had here last spring,” said Walker. “She’s so happy. She’s hitting every shot very loose and confident and relaxed. She’s having a great time with the game. To see her get her eighth win today, and I know there’s plenty more ahead, I’m excited to be part of this.”
In this edition of the Forward Press Podcast, Golfweek‘s David Dusek chats with Beth Ann Nichols about Nelly Korda becoming the new world No.1 in women’s golf and what expectations she now has with that title. Also, the exclusive Pine Valley Golf Club is allowing women to be members at the historic club.
In 2020, the LPGA staged 18 tournaments, including four majors, and every sponsor that didn’t hold an event in 2020 is coming back in 2021.
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Covering golf, at every level and on every tour, in 2020 was unlike anything our writers have experienced. Through the end of the year, our staff is looking back on what will forever stand out from the season of COVID – a season during which every aspect of the game we love was impacted by a global pandemic. Read the whole series here.
The first day back after the LPGA’s 166-day break from tournament golf, my head swiveled back ’round to the 10th tee at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, after spotting Sophia Popov carrying Anne van Dam’s staff bag. Popov had been lighting it up on the Cactus Tour, a women’s mini tour in Arizona which never stopped throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. I made a mental note. Times were tough for everyone, but especially for those who had lost their LPGA cards.
The next week, still in Toledo, it was the sleek, minimalist pull cart van Dam sported at the Marathon Classic that caught my eye. The story got even better when I discovered that it was actually Popov’s high-end pull cart, and that she was using it for the afternoon wave.
Two players, one pull cart.
A fun sidebar to the story of Danielle Kang sweeping the first two events back.
Sophia Popov from Germany brought a juCad pull cart with her to the Marathon LPGA Classic at Highlands Meadows Golf Club. (Photo: Marc Lebryk-USA TODAY Sports)
Popov was a Symetra Tour player who got into the Marathon Classic because the LPGA couldn’t fill the field. The Marathon also happens to be a qualifier for the AIG Women’s British Open, and by now, if you’ve paid any attention to women’s golf at all this year, you know how this story ends.
Popov, the 304th-ranked player in the world with no LPGA status, won the first women’s major ever held at Royal Troon. It was precisely the kind of hope-filled, against-all-odds story we all needed. One that inspired countless players whose dreams had been delayed that they too could pull a Popov.
“I almost quit playing last year,” said Popov. “Thank God I didn’t.”
It’s still quite stunning that the LPGA bravely took its tour bubble overseas for a two-week stint in Scotland after only a fortnight of testing its pandemic procedures in northern Ohio.
But it proved a raging success, much like the remainder of the year, when it comes to what matters most: health and opportunity.
LPGA commissioner Mike Whan found himself complaining about something to his wife, Meg, during the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship, and she quickly shut it down.
Mike, stop it. You didn’t lose a single employee in 2020; you didn’t have one hospitalized player, staff member, volunteer, local official; and you didn’t leave one venue in a worse situation than before you got there.
Bold it, shout it, repeat it. The 2020 LPGA season was an absolute triumph.
The tour faced $3.5 million in unplanned expenses, but Whan had the tour financially prepared for such a crisis with a robust rainy-day fund. There were 7,200 COVID-19 tests given since late July and a total of 42 came back positive, with only 15 coming from tournament sites (and some of those were later found to be false-positives).
There were 18 tournaments staged, including four majors, and every sponsor that didn’t hold an event in 2020 is coming back next year.
Even more impressive, the 2021 schedule will consist of 34 official events and a record $76.45 million in official purses. (And that number is expected to rise.)
“I think a lot of us thought the year might get scratched,” said Sarah Schmelzel.
That was the greatest fear.
Then the fears morphed into test anxiety, getting stranded overseas and testing positive at the majors, which Charley Hull, Andrea Lee and Charlotte Thomas know all about.
Mel Reid got fined for celebrating her maiden LPGA victory at a restaurant, even though it was a private party with her partner and caddie. The LPGA became a take-out tour, and while players were happy to stay safe, the lack of host-housing and social dinners took its toll.
Mel Reid holds the trophy after winning the ShopRite LPGA Classic in Galloway, New Jersey. (Photo: Michael Cohen/Getty Images)
“It really heightened the sense of loneliness out here,” said Schmelzel, “where you’re just in a hotel eating take-out every night. It makes you feel even more separated from home than usual.”
And yet, every hardship was met with an even bigger dose of gratefulness. For the safe flights, the committed volunteers, the loyal check-writers and the fans (television viewership up 30 percent!).
There was much to celebrate: PGA Tour players engaged in an unprecedented #womenworthwatching campaign during the U.S. Women’s Open that hopefully yields more long-term allies. A Lim Kim birdied the last three holes at Champions Golf Club to author one of the greatest finishes in major-championship history. Mirim Lee chipped in a mind-blowing three times to take the ANA Inspiration. (We won’t talk about the blue wall here or Popov’s controversial absence.) Cristie Kerr became the third player to cross the $20 million mark in career earnings, joining Annika Sorenstam and Karrie Webb.
And in the final event of the year, the top two players in women’s golf split the money and the hardware. Sei Young Kim took Rolex Player of Year honors; world No. 1 Jin Young Ko won the CME and the money title after only four starts, and went off to pick out furniture for the house she’s looking to buy in Frisco, Texas.
The LPGA staged 14 events during a global pandemic across nine states and Scotland, putting that first Drive On tournament together in only six weeks.
Take a bow, Mike Whan and team. Not the 70th anniversary season anyone had planned but, fittingly, a Founders-like example of what it means to be tough.
In this edition of Forward Press, Golfweek’s David Dusek chats with Beth Ann Nichols about the upcoming U.S. Women’s Open this week in Houston, how the media would perceive Michelle Wie and Paula Creamer if they hadn’t each won a U.S. Women’s Open title, Lexi Thompson’s incredible U.S. Women’s Open active streak and much more.
