Michelle McGann was sorting through old newspaper articles when she answered the phone. The 50-year-old was supposed to be prepping for a summer of majors, including her debut in the U.S. Senior Women’s Open, but instead found herself reorganizing her signature straw hats and a bevy of beautiful shoes to pass the time. The third edition of the Senior Women’s Open was scheduled to take place this week at Brooklawn Country Club in Fairfield, Connecticut. McGann, who married Jonathan Satter 10 years ago, had plans to visit her in-laws in Maine during the run-up.
A hotshot junior player who turned pro out of high school before it was a thing, the statuesque McGann turned heads as one of America’s bright young stars. A seven-time winner on the LPGA, McGann has also inspired as an athlete who has battled Type 1 Diabetes since age 13.
Golfweek recently caught up with the vibrant player who lives in North Palm Beach, Florida, to talk about senior golf, straw hats and her work to help educate and support children with diabetes through The Michelle McGann Fund.
Here are excerpts from that conversation:
I play with the guys. We’ve got the Treasure Coast Senior Tour, which is guys 50, and then 45 and older the ladies, because they let me start playing when I started playing again for the Legends Tour events. We play those once a week, sometimes twice a week in the summer. Ken Duke and Thomas Levet have played the last couple weeks with us. … It’s kind of fun to have those guys join us. I shot 68 on Friday and I finished second, another player shot 63. I mean it’s good competition and no matter what you have to keep a score and compete.
I’m going to try to play in the Florida Women’s Open and also the South Carolina Women’s Open, that counts for Legends points. Our Boston and Nantucket events haven’t been canceled yet, so that’s kind of a day-to-day thing. You check your email and hope the bad news isn’t coming.
We’re in a very isolated place where we live. Everyone is kind of cautious anyway. My parents are 76. My dad’s got cancer, so we all were extremely isolated and didn’t go anywhere. … It’s been a couple years now and it’s a blood cancer, where he’s producing too many red blood cells. He’s on a chemo pill so they are able to somewhat keep it under control. Fortunately, it’s not aggressive. The biggest worry is blood clots or a stroke. So he has to try to stay active still.
We had a big summer planned – the (U.S. Senior Women’s) Open, then the Senior LPGA Championship. There were quite a few other legends events that we were going to play. (My parents) were going to go with me. Like I said, it’s a disappointment, but something we don’t have control over. We’ve just got to be grateful that we’re safe, we’re healthy.
Right now, I would say my diabetes is great. I feel good. I have a good balance of the amount of insulin that I’m getting on an hourly base. And you know that changes. That changes with the more exercise I do. That’s a constant change that I’m in communication with my doctor with to try to tweak that so you don’t get too much or not enough. With the weather conditions, that is something that is really affecting me lately because it’s so hot. To make sure that I stay hydrated, plus sometimes it will crash because of the heat. I always have to try to snack every couple holes. Every day is a different day. People will say to me, oh great you’re on an insulin pump, you just take insulin, you’re fine. It’s like no, no, no. It’s like a science experiment every day.
My mom was a nurse so I had full-time help. We just decided that there were so many kids that needed help and families that needed to go to camps just to learn and feel like they weren’t the only ones living with this disease. Some camps are $400 a week and some are $1,000, whatever the case might be. We raised money to help these kids to go. … I’ve gone to a couple of them and it’s amazing how happy the kids are there and they smile. They don’t feel isolated. They realize that they could do anything they want.
I’d say I have at least a couple hundred hats for sure. Golf shoes, probably a couple hundred as well. Some of them I’m gonna give to the First Tee.
I got my first straw hats at the mall (during the 1991 U.S. Women’s Open) in Dallas, I think it was called the Galleria. I still have both of them. I just found one of them. The other one was in my trophy case. They were Laura Ashley. Do you remember that brand? They were just plain hats with a red ribbon and a green ribbon around it. That’s where I started wearing them. Now Jofit saves me enough fabric to wrap around my hat band and it becomes a whole outfit.
(My husband and I) had a lot of mutual friends. His cousin married a girl that our family was friends with and she wanted to introduce us in the mid-90s. I asked how tall he was. She said she wasn’t sure. Is he at least 6 feet tall? No, no. OK I don’t want to meet him. Fast forward, we just celebrated 10 years that we’ve been married. Got engaged 12 years ago. Talk about how your mindset changes. We had a lot of mutual friends. We would go have dinner just as friends and I’d ask, if you ever find a nice guy for me let me know. We kind of have to laugh about it now.
He started working for the governor last year. He’s secretary of the Florida department of management services. When this all hit, the governor put him in charge of COVID-19 unemployment, which is a thankless job. He’s spent many long nights and days. … Tallahassee is about 5 1/2 hours of drive time to our house. He goes back and forth every weekend. It’s quite the trip.
We didn’t get married until I was 40 and he was 41. Once we got married, we sold his house and moved to mine. We decided that we needed to have a house that we built together. The one room that was a garage, we transferred it into a media room which has cabinets. In between the walkway to the garage there we have glass cabinets that are from the ceiling that split the rooms up. I have all the trophies that I won and all the hats that I wore that Sunday. Then I have all my badges and money clips. The flags I have on the wall. In the middle is when I won my Solheim match against Laura Davies. My uncle got the 3&2 with our names from the board. It’s kind of cool.
I love pinks and oranges and reds. … When I don’t wear (lipstick) my lips get burnt, even though I’ve got a big hat on most of the time. When it gets windy, oh my gosh. Your lips pay for it,
My husband now would prefer me to wear a natural color because he says it brings out more of my natural beauty. He doesn’t get distracted by the color on my lips. I think it depends on what outfit I’ve got on. When I try to sneak that lighter color in, I’m like OK, you didn’t even notice (laughs). What the heck? … I have to take into consideration that he’s got so much going on right now.
[lawrence-related id=778053358,778044957,778007117]