Tag: Drive On

Madelene Sagstrom opens up about past sexual abuse in new LPGA Drive On feature

In the LPGA’s latest Drive On feature, many in the golf world will hear how Madelene Sagstrom overcame past sexual abuse.

Madelene Sagstrom doesn’t cry about it anymore. The sexual abuse that she suffered at the age of 7, that she buried deep within for 16 years, no longer keeps her in hiding in plain sight.

“Every time I open my mouth and say some words that I thought were hard to say a while ago,” said Sagstrom, “it becomes easier and easier, and I think that every day that I go up and I own my story, I own my history and I own who I am, I’m growing.”

On Thursday, the strong and brave Sagstrom, 28, will begin her title defense at the Gainbridge LPGA in her adopted hometown of Orlando, Florida. But on Monday, many in the golf world will hear of Sagstrom’s painful yet triumphant journey for the first time as part of the LPGA’s Drive On campaign, a series that highlights many of the tour’s inspirational stories.

Sagstrom’s abuser was a family friend who lived nearby in the Swedish countryside about an hour outside of Stockholm. She went home afterward and acted like nothing ever happened.

Fast forward to 2016, when the Symetra Tour rookie told her coach, Robert Karlsson, on the way to practice that she needed to tell him something. Later that evening in a hotel room in Greenwood, South Carolina, Sagstrom told her story to Karlsson and broke down crying.

“I had no idea how being sexually abused by a man I trusted affected me,” Sagstrom penned in a first-person story on lpga.com. “All those years, I blamed myself. I hated myself. I despised my body and hurt myself both mentally and physically. That day haunted me. I had nightmares about it and did everything I could to escape.”

Madelene Sagstrom and her mentor Robert Karlsson (courtesy LPGA)

Karlsson, an 11-time European Tour winner and former Ryder Cup player, met Sagstrom through the Swedish National team. It was Karlsson who encouraged Sagstrom to dig deep to try to understand why she was having trouble controlling her emotions on the golf course.

As she started to look inward, she began to understand that the abuse she’d suffered all those years ago had changed her. And that if she wanted to grow not only as an athlete but as a person, she’d have to confront the past.

Once she’d shared her darkest secrets with an empathetic and shocked Karlsson, Sagstrom felt an immediate release. She felt an overwhelming sense of freedom.

“I just literally grew overnight,” she said, “and I felt like I can take space.”

The woman who constantly searched for perfection and criticized herself in every way, began to put her life, and her golf, into perspective.

“When I walked off the golf course after a bad day,” she said, “my whole world wasn’t falling apart anymore.”

On the golf course, Karlsson saw her grow more comfortable within herself. She appeared lighter.

“Especially when she was under pressure,” he said.

She won three times that season on the Symetra Tour, setting a record for single-season earnings and finished in the top five in 11 of her 15 starts.

Young Madelene Sagstrom (courtesy LPGA)

At age 7, Sagstrom was a loud, lively, straight-forward kid who knew what she wanted.

Over time, after the abuse, she crawled into a hole and wouldn’t allow herself to make a mistake. She didn’t like herself as a person, but she did like herself as a golfer. If she could immerse herself in golf, she reasoned, maybe it would all be OK. In a sense, golf saved Sagstrom, but ultimately, she began to equate good golf with being a good person.

Sagstrom no longer defines herself by golf scores. And while telling her story of sexual abuse will put a label on her in the eyes of the public, she wants the focus to be on the steps she has taken to grow out of that darkness and into a place where she can spread light, “because I’m so much more than just this story.”

The process of working with the LPGA to share her journey on a massive scale began one year ago. Sagstrom admitted to shaking when she met with the media via a Zoom call on Sunday afternoon to talk about her story. She’d written about the abuse in a Facebook post four years ago, but this was the first time she’d taken questions about it.

Sagstrom knows there will be other victims who watch the video or read her account. Whether they choose to talk to someone or not, she knows that many will at least feel a little less alone.

“It’s easy to feel like you’re the only person in the world,” she said.

Roberta Bowman, the LPGA’s chief brand and communications officer, said the tour hopes Sagstrom’s story can be a resource to start conversations with LPGA/USGA Girls Golf leaders who connect with close to 100,000 girls a year across the country. Statistics show that 1 in 9 girls under the age of 18 is sexually abused at the hands of an adult.

“For years I told myself that it didn’t happen,” said Sagstrom, “but I think that me wanting to go in deeper, wanting to learn about myself and become a better version of myself, I just understood this is a part I have to deal with. I can’t unlock my potential and my freedom if I don’t deal with this.”

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At Lydia Ko’s Drive On press conference, a junior reporter stole the show

Claire Hollingsworth, an LPGA-USGA Girls Golf participant, became the first non-tour player to star in an LPGA Drive On spot.

The first question Lydia Ko fielded during a pre-tournament press conference for the LPGA Drive On Championship came from 14-year-old junior reporter Claire Hollingsworth. The ninth grader had just competed in the Tennessee State High School Championship and realized that she needed more distance.

What advice would Ko give, she asked, to a petite player looking to get stronger?

It’s a fitting question given Ko’s recent efforts to pack on muscle. The 15-time LPGA winner’s lengthy answer included a shout-out to 5-foot-1-inch Mo Martin, who won a major and goes by the nickname “Mighty Mo.” Ko also noted that she’ll be competing alongside Lexi Thompson and Austin Ernst in the first two rounds of this week’s event, and that she’ll be the first to hit on every approach shot.

“If you play within your strengths,” Ko told her, “you’re still able to compete at a very high level.”

Ko headlined this interview session, but Hollingsworth stole the show. Earlier on Wednesday the LPGA rolled out its latest Drive On spot starring Hollingsworth, an LPGA-USGA Girls Golf participant.

The powerful 30-second spot is narrated by Hollingsworth, who says that two days after she was born in China, she was left outside an orphanage in a small wooden box. Nine months later she was adopted by an American family that happened to love golf. She has an important story to tell.

“I may be small,” said the 4-foot-9-inch teen, “but I am mighty.”

Last year Hollingsworth went to China with her family and visited the orphanage she came from in the Hunan province. The family donated box fans because the building still doesn’t have air-conditioning.

“They turned it into a special-needs home,” she said, “and that was really nice to see.”

A young Claire Hollingsworth (courtesy LPGA)

With the LPGA’s fall Asian swing canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the tour scheduled a second Drive On tournament to help fill a five-week gap. The tournament, held over the Great Waters Course at Reynolds Lake Oconee, has a field of 108 players and a purse of $1.3 million.

The first Drive On event, held at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, in July and won by Danielle Kang, ended a 166-day break in competition for the LPGA. Money from a number of sponsors who weren’t able to host events, in addition to funds from the Aon Risk Reward Challenge, were put together to make these crucial events happen.

Lydia Ko poses with The Robert Cox trophy after winning the 2012 U. S. Women’s Amateur Championship at The Country Club in Cleveland, Ohio. (Golfweek/Tracy Wilcox)

The tournament’s Drive On title highlights the LPGA’s commercial campaign that tells the stories of grit, determination and inspiration on the women’s tour. Haley Moore, Mariah Stackhouse and Gerina Piller are among those who have been featured. Hollingsworth is the first golfer to be part of the series who isn’t a member of the tour.

Ko, 23, was born in South Korea but grew up in New Zealand and now lives in the United States. Even though she enjoyed unprecedented success as a teenager, Ko said that like any other girl her age, she had insecurities.

“I feel like I was very fortunate to be involved with two amazing cultures, and now three cultures being here in the U.S., but I think outside of all that, as a teenage girl or in your young teens, you all feel insecure about a few things,” she said. “Like, man, I don’t belong at times, or I wish I had this, and I don’t. Other people just look bigger and better than you.

“Yes, I’ve definitely been in that position before. I think the more time that went by and the more time I kind of got to spend on tour with the other ladies, I think I was just able to embrace – I’m still in the learning process – but be able to kind of understand and embrace myself. No one is perfect. All you can do is be the best version of yourself and that’s it and have fun during that process.”

It’s a message that’s bigger than awards and titles. Events like Drive On and 70 years of LPGA golf have given so many women the platform to pass it on.

Mighty Claire is now a part of that legacy.

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In latest Drive On spot, Mo Martin presents a lifetime of perseverance

LPGA player Mo Martin shares her inspiring story of being a young golfer with a dream as part of the LPGA’s Drive On series.

Mo Martin will never forget the times someone told her to never give up.

Whether it was a golf star like Chi Chi Rodriguez, a donor who helped start her professional career or a family member.

Martin followed that advice all the way to the 2014 Women’s British Open title and a successful LPGA career.

All of it started without many of the luxuries some associate with golf and continued through her journey as a walk-on at UCLA, to six years on what is now the Symetra Tour, and eventually to the regular tour.

The 37-year-old’s never-give-up attitude has been tested yet again, with a back injury that has kept her off the tour for over a year. She has played one event since the ANA Inspiration in April 2019 but said Tuesday she plans to return to play in the Cambia Portland Classic from Sept. 17-20.

Martin’s story still relates, to the degree that she is being featured for the second time in the LPGA’s Drive On campaign. Her first-person story was posted on the LPGA Tour website on Tuesday, along with a video on its social media platforms.

“I think the story resonates with people, just this human part of the story I think we all want to feel connected,” she said. “There’s so many different parts of that, the friendships, the fortuitous meetings along the way to hard lessons that everyone can relate to.”

Martin, who has been staying in California full-time and recuperating since the coronavirus pandemic in March, added more layers to her already inspiring story.

In the Drive On piece, Martin is shown as a youngster with her little golf bag, and then with her tour professional bag.

“I loved seeing my little bag; it’s the first camera it’s ever seen,” she said. “I remember just carrying that around as a child so proudly and you know it didn’t have any zippers, so I had to put my golf balls right down the top and I remember times that they would spill out.

“But I was just so very proud of that bag, and then to have the split image of the staff bag and the first just mailer tube. It’s full circle and there’s just a lot of validation that comes along with it.”

That little golf bag and Martin went through a lot, with her father playing a big role. Her older brother first motivated her to play, but her dad was the one who did whatever it took. Sometimes it was a lot. And sometimes there was somebody else looking out for her.

Martin shared that going to the Junior World Championship in San Diego, her sister’s car (the most reliable, as she put it) had the transmission belt snap. Martin and her dad went to a department store, bought some pantyhose, and her dad used that in place of the belt, which was good enough to get the car to the golf course. They didn’t have money for a hotel room, so they slept on lounge chairs by the pool, and Martin got dressed in a bathroom at the course. Her dad would gather up stray golf balls, so she’d have a bucket to practice with.

“At the time, it was what we had to do,” she wrote.

Martin finished in the top three in the Junior World Championship, and that meant an all-expense-paid trip to Japan. Organizers were giving away bags of bread, and her dad asked if they could have any leftovers. It wasn’t for them. He had noticed people sleeping on the streets near the train station. They went out at midnight and left bags of bread for the people.

“He didn’t say much and just held my hand on the way back,” she wrote.

Martin played in the Southern California Junior Association and said most events cost $20. But her family wasn’t always covering that. An anonymous donor was.

Martin didn’t get a college golf scholarship. She was a walk-on at UCLA. Martin remembered running on a treadmill, and the thought crossed her mind, what if she had more resources like many others did growing up.

“I stopped the treadmill and I just started crying, and I thought, ‘Is that the way this story ends?'” she said. “I think at that moment, I turned it around and thought, ‘How about because of x, y and z then my story is written.’

“I think it was a simple change in perspective, and I think that’s when I really started to believe we start from our strengths and we take whatever cards are dealt and we make the most of them. No matter what walk of life you’re going to come from, you’re going to have your challenges. I think sometimes the more you have, the easier it is to look for more instead of being grateful for what you have, and looking for your strengths and looking for the reasons why instead of why not.”

Martin eventually did get put on scholarship at UCLA, but during her senior year, her father died of a heart attack. She moved back in with her mom and got a job at Annandale Country Club in Pasadena, California. She’d get up and practice at 5:30 a.m., open the shop at 7, and if she worked until close, she’d practice more. Some members noticed. They got together and loaned Martin $40,000 to start her professional career.

“When I saw that lump sum on a check, I was so surprised and asked how anyone could have so much money in a bank account,” Martin wrote. “One of the members who had contributed walked past me chipping in the rain one evening and said, ‘You’re going to win an Open one day.'”

They were right. Eventually.

After turning professional, she had to grind through six years on the Symetra Tour before finally getting her card in 2012. She did not have a win in 63 events entering the Women’s British Open in 2014.

Before leaving for England, Martin went with her mom to the zoo in Naples, Florida. They were sitting on a bench, Martin remembered.

“My mother, a strong but quiet person, sensed I was going through a down time,” Martin wrote. “… She grabbed my hand and looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Don’t you ever doubt yourself.'”

Martin shot a pair of 69s to lead, then stumbled to a 77 in the third round. But she battled back into contention in the final round.

And then her version of the shot heard ’round the world happened. On the par-5 18th hole at Royal Birkdale, Martin hit a 3-wood. The ball hit the green, rolled on, and struck the flagstick, stopping 6 feet away. Martin, who danced a jig in the fairway after seeing the shot, drained the putt for an eagle, then had to wait for an hour, as the other contenders faltered.

Mo Martin 2014 Women's British Open
Mo Martin won the 2014 British Open.

“(I remember) standing by the scoreboard afterwards and calling my mom and hearing her say ‘Do you believe me now?’” Martin said. “Those are the moments that are so powerful and burned into your memory. It’s always that happy place that you go back to and remember the sights, the sounds, the smells.

“I don’t think you’re going to find somebody who loves golf more than I do. Golf being the great equalizer, the game itself in so many ways, I’m a huge fan of it.”

Martin has been reduced to being just that, a fan, since the back injury. The pandemic, which halted the LPGA season for months, has alleviated any desire to try to return too quickly.

“It’s difficult when you’ve got aches and pains, as an athlete you need every inch of your body and I’ve seen a lot of people try to play through injuries and I don’t think that’s ever been successful,” said Martin, who didn’t share specifics of her injury other than taking anti-inflammatory medication. “I’ve been real clear that I didn’t want to play hurt. I didn’t want to do that to my body and didn’t think that was good for my game or the purposes of why I want to play and get back.

“I’ve had my ups and downs, but it really has made me miss golf even more. I miss the outdoors, miss the fairways, miss the trees, miss my fellow playing partners. I’m still here, still going and I feel great. I’m really thankful for the people who have helped me, it’s been a journey with my back and a lot of diagnoses but again that lesson is in and out of every aspect of life – just to find the positives and keep going.”

Martin closed her Drive On story by remembering returning from a Japan trip and having a chance meeting with Rodriguez, the World Golf Hall of Famer who also called Naples a part-time home at one point. Martin had a trophy box, and Rodriguez opened the lid and wrote with a Sharpie “Never Quit.”

Keep going. Not quitting. Not giving up. Believing.

“I believe we were all born perfect for what we were meant to accomplish in this lifetime,” she said during the piece.

Martin still believes, and when she hasn’t, others did.

“Everybody I’ve met I feel like has something incredibly unique, that is his or her own, no matter what, it’s a valid contribution,” she said. “Finding what that piece is and what your gifts are is such a wonderful part of this life. It’s something I truly believe. Where did that come from? Maybe that was a gift to me to understand that, and my parents also just seeing value in everyone.”

Greg Hardwig is a sports reporter for the Naples Daily News and The News-Press. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter: @NDN_Ghardwig, email him at ghardwig@naplesnews.com. Support local journalism with this special subscription offer at https://cm.naplesnews.com/specialoffer/

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Haley Moore overcomes bullying, becomes face of LPGA’s Drive On series

LPGA rookie Haley Moore is reflecting on being bullied in her past as she excels in professional golf in her first year on tour.

TOLEDO, Ohio – Haley Moore’s Apple watch buzzed throughout her pro-am round on Tuesday at the Inverness Club. The LPGA had launched Moore’s story of overcoming childhood bullying on every one of its social media platforms that morning, and Moore’s wrist was feeling the love.

“My story is truly powerful,” she told the media after the round, “and I want to help every young girl and boy.”

When middle school bullies filled Haley’s backpack with water and threw it in the boys’ bathroom, ruining her favorite Justin Bieber book, Haley called home sobbing. Her mother, Michele, went down to the middle school and let administrators know that “enough was enough.”

“The school could handle this, or our family would,” Moore penned in a first-person essay for the LPGA. “Either way, the pattern of abuse of our daughter was going to end right then and there.”

Now a rookie on the LPGA, Moore is the latest subject of the tour’s Drive On series, a campaign launched last March aimed at highlighting the stories of grit, determination and inspiration on the women’s tour.

Young Haley Moore regularly collected junior titles. (Photo courtesy of Michele Moore)

On Tuesday at the Marathon Classic, the second event of the tour’s restart and Moore’s third tournament as a rookie, the LPGA unveiled a 30-second video spot along with first-person accounts written by Moore and her mother.

“Being bigger, stronger and better than boys on the soccer field didn’t make me popular when I was a kid,” Haley wrote. “Continuing to grow didn’t put me in the popular girls’ club, either. Throughout my school years, I heard every taunt and laugh; I endured every insult and rejection. I tried to brush it off.”

Michele cried herself to sleep many nights, wishing that she could take away her daughter’s pain but also knowing that she couldn’t possibly protect Haley from all the ugliness in this world.

“Three words that we’ve kind of used throughout this process are dream, believe, achieve,” said Michele. “It doesn’t matter how different you are, everybody has a dream. You believe in it and then you go out and achieve it, and don’t let anybody stop you.”

Moore’s parents met as freshmen at Ohio State. Mom played tennis and dad was recruited as the short and long snapper for the football team. Moore’s father, Tom, grew up in Orrville, Ohio, which is situated about 2 ½ hours east of Toledo. Family members had planned to watch her compete at this week’s Marathon Classic, but players are only allowed one guest on the course.

Moore teed it up in 11 tournaments during the LPGA’s 166-day break, winning three times on the Cactus Tour. She closed out her latest victory with a 10-under 62 on a day when no other player in the field broke 70 at Troon North.

“She’s the real deal,” said fellow Arizona alum Alison Walshe. “She’s got a lot of talent.”

Haley stands at nearly 6-foot-2 and graduated from Arizona at age 20. As a junior, her teammates rushed to embrace her on the 18th green at the 2018 NCAA Championship, when she lifted the Wildcats to the national title by draining a 4-foot birdie putt on the 19th hole to defeated top-ranked Alabama.

It was a deeply emotional moment for the Moore family, and one that put the spotlight squarely on a player who felt left out for much of her life

Haley Moore hugs the NCAA trophy. (Photo courtesy of Michele Moore)

She grinded through all three stages of LPGA Q-School last year to earn her card, relying on the kindness of friends and strangers to help cover costs. Nearly 300 donors raised more than $40,000 on GoFundMe to help get Haley to the LPGA and allow her to compete. Now she wants to start a foundation to help kids who’ve been bullied.

“Depending on the statistics you read,” Roberta Bowman, LPGA Chief Brand and Communications Officer, “thirty percent of young teens worldwide experience bullying.”

Despite Haley’s first season on tour being interrupted by a global pandemic, she’s enjoying her new job, noting that former top-ranked Americans Stacy Lewis and Cristie Kerr went out of their way to welcome her.

She’s ready to pay it forward.

“Just don’t let those cruel people who are telling you stuff, judge you,” said Moore. “Just go on and do what you want to do. If it’s playing golf or playing any sport that you want to do, just go out there and keep doing you. You’ll get looked at, but try to wipe it away from your mind and keep going.”

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Lydia Ko displays a wisdom beyond her 23 years in LPGA’s latest Drive On spot

Lydia Ko is the latest LPGA player to tell her story for the tour’s Drive On campaign.

Lydia Ko takes to heart the good advice she’s gotten from Stacy Lewis over the years.

“You can’t try to be someone that you were,” Ko said in reciting a line delivered from a former World No. 1 to Ko, who had come to occupy the position for the first time as a 17-year-old.

“I think that really resonated with me, and that made me realize, you know what, I can’t try and be somebody who I was before, and I’ve just got to be the best possible person of me today.”

Ko is the latest LPGA player to tell her story for the tour’s Drive On campaign. She has arrived at a beyond-her-years wisdom when it comes to pleasing others and trying to recreate the magic of the early, teenage years of her golf career.

“One thing I’ve learned throughout the journey these last few years,” she says in a short video, “is that you can’t make everyone like you. All you can do is make the best decisions you think at the time for yourself.”

In a corresponding letter the now 23-year-old Ko wrote to her 15-year-old self, Ko reveals an interaction between herself and Lewis at the CP Canadian Women’s Open, which Ko won as an amateur. It was her first of 15 LPGA titles and one of two she would win as an amateur, both in Canada.

Ko recounts Lewis walking beside her at that event telling her, “You’ve got this. You’re playing well. Now, finish strong.”

She encourages her former self to soak up that moment and to remember, “you’re a kid.” The moment will take your breath away, Ko tells her younger self.

These past few years, Ko has felt more than ever that she has the ability to take a step back and see the bigger picture. The tough moments – the ones that have forced her to grow – have also created a turning point.

“Your golf swing may come and go, but your family and friends, the people who care about you, will love you no matter what you shoot,” Ko wrote farther down in the letter. “Trophies are symbols of what you’ve accomplished in the past. Your family and friends represent who and what you can be in the future. Their hugs, their presence, their laughter is life’s greatest victory.”

At 15, Ko also won the U.S. Women’s Amateur, and even now names that as a career highlight. Asked at what point she began to soak in her many accomplishments as an adult, rather than a kid, Ko pointed to a recent coming-of-age moment: getting her driver’s license. Ko took the test just last week, in fact, in Orlando, where she lives.

Drive On thus has taken on a different meaning lately. Ko spent the down time forced by a global pandemic taking driving lessons. The test itself brought a familiar kind of pressure.

“I was very nervous,” she said. “I was like sweating, getting really sweaty in my hands.  It kind of felt like what it feels like on the 18th hole when you’re coming in with like a one‑shot lead.”

Otherwise, Ko’s social media during the LPGA’s long break has featured plenty of sports content, if not always golf content. She’s kept herself occupied with other hobbies, like tennis. Rock climbing has always been a way to stay active while offering fitness benefits for upper-body and grip strength.

Filling her platforms with the good things in life has become a way she feels like she can make a difference. Her Drive On campaign spot furthers that effort.

Suddenly, it’s not just time spent atop the Rolex Rankings that puts her in the same category as players like Lewis.

“I want to be the next Se Ri Pak or the next Annika Sorenstam, the next Brooke Henderson,” Ko said. “But at the end of the day all you can do is really, like I said earlier, be the best version of you.”

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Gerina Piller’s Drive On story pays tribute to her mother’s sacrifice

For Gerina Piller, telling the story of where she came from and how her mother sacrificed caused the tears to well up in her eyes.

BOCA RATON, Fla. – Gerina Piller teared up seconds into the airing of her Drive On commercial. She’d seen the clip before. Lived it. But telling the story of where she comes from, what she’s done, how her mother sacrificed to make it happen, well, the appreciation welled up in her eyes.

The LPGA launched its new brand positioning last spring, and Piller is the latest pro to tell her story. It’s a unique story. One that the LPGA hopes will give new fans a reason to connect.

“I’m just hoping to get one little girl, one little boy, one woman, one mom, one athlete,” said Piller, who begins her 10th year on the LPGA this week at the Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio.

After her parents got divorced, Piller’s family relied on welfare to get by until her mother, Rita Stevenson, enrolled in Eastern New Mexico University. She wanted to be a P.E. teacher, and the closer she got to finishing her degree, the family moved into a dorm room to be closer to her student teaching. Piller was 9 years old at the time and remembers that one of her mother’s three jobs was at a doughnut shop, a real treat.

“I thought that was like the thing you did was you went to college with your parents,” said Piller. “To this day it’s so special. When my mom graduated, at the top of her graduation cap she put ‘We Did It.’ As a kid, you’re just like, ‘Good job, Mom,’ like where’s the cookies or are we going to get some cake?”

Now that she’s approaching 35 and is a mother to her own son, A.J., Piller is beginning to fully grasp the road her mother paved for her family.

Piller, an all-round athlete in Roswell, New Mexico, didn’t pick up the game until age 15, and knew that the only way she could get to college was if she landed a full scholarship. Her stepfather got out a video camera and they made VHS tapes to send to schools as she was still an unknown junior player. Piller ultimately landed an opportunity at UTEP, where she won four times her senior year and was Conference USA Player of the Year. She earned a degree in mathematics.

Gerina Piller with her son, A.J., at the 2019 Bank of Hope Founders Cup in Phoenix. Photo by USA TODAY Sports

Roswell already boasted one of the most beloved golfers of all-time in Nancy Lopez. Piller’s elementary school was named after the icon and her high school, Goddard, had a wooden blue sign in the cafeteria that read “Nancy Lopez ate here.”

Piller couldn’t possibly have known back then that she’d grew up to sink the winning putt for Team USA in the greatest comeback in Solheim Cup history. Or that the next year she’d represent the U.S. in the Olympics.

Her mother used to tell her P.E. classes that two kids out of each class might one day be Olympic athletes. Piller teared up again as she noted that for three years her mother had the chance to tell her classes that her daughter is an Olympian.

Rita retired last May and now travels with Gerina to most domestic events to look after A.J., whose dad, Martin Piller, bounces back and forth between the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour.

Gerina is still searching for her first tour victory and has no plans to slow down. Not after what mom taught her.

“You know, I’ve always saw myself and pictured myself as someone who wins on tour,” said Gerina, “but now that I have my son, and it’s not like I wasn’t motivated before, but to have him, be on the 18th green when I hole out or just … I don’t want him to say like, ‘Yeah, mom, I heard you were a pretty good golfer.’ Like I still want to compete, and I want to show him that girls, women, females are strong, and that I can still beat his dad.”

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