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Stuck at Home With: LPGA lay chaplain Cris Stevens

Since 1982, Cris Stevens has served as lay chaplain to the LPGA and, in these uncertain times, her days are jam-packed with conversation.

The “Stuck at Home With” series profiles players, caddies and staff in the women’s game who are making the most of an unprecedented break in tour life due to the coronavirus pandemic. New stories will be posted every Tuesday and Thursday.

Not long ago, Cris Stevens thought Zoom was an exercise class. She’s not holding any Zumba lessons in her Knoxville, Tennessee, home, but she is hosting video conference calls with current and former professionals from all over the world.

Since 1982, Stevens has served as lay chaplain to the LPGA and, in these uncertain times, her days are jam-packed with conversation.

Stevens planned to hold a Zoom meeting at 4 p.m. on Maundy Thursday, a holy day that commemorates the Last Supper and when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. According to the Bible, it’s when Jesus commanded his followers to “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Isabelle Beisiegel, Martina Gavier, Victoria Lovelady and Cris Stevens during a Zoom meeting. (Photo submitted)

Stevens can already sense a shift in how people treat one another in these isolated times.

“Just going up and down the street,” she said, “people that I barely know, we wave to each other. We make sure that we see each other. … I pray that we will become warmer, kinder more gracious to each other.”

Most weeks on the LPGA, Stevens gathers the fellowship together for a time of worship and a short message. If someone in the fellowship wins on tour, there’s cake. Sometimes lots of it.

“We thought we were going to have to open a bakery,” joked Stevens of Lorena Ochoa’s reign.

Players, caddies and staff also meet in smaller groups throughout the week. Those meetings are still happening even as the tour remains on hold during the coronavirus outbreak. In fact, more retired players have joined in, looking for connection in a time of social distancing.

“What we’re undergoing is really major,” said Stevens, who also works with the Symetra Tour and college teams. “This is a game changer. Everybody is having to step back and see what is important to me, where do I really want to invest my heart, my life? I think when you go through times like this, some of the things we held to closely and thought were so important, maybe they aren’t as important as we thought?”

Stevens thinks back to 2001, when the tour community gathered together on the 18th green to hold a service at the Portland stop after the Sept. 11 attacks. Jackie Gallagher-Smith sang. Wendy Ward prayed. The tournament was ultimately canceled.

Many tour players and staff become almost like family. (Photo submitted)

Now, as the world fights a hidden enemy, Stevens can hear fear and anxiety in the voices of some who call her.

“Every period in history has experienced dark days,” she said, adding that she thinks of the disciples seeing Jesus crucified. “What emotions of fear they must have had? What was going to happen now? Would they be arrested and crucified next? Should they run for the hills and hide? Yes, our hopes and securities have been shaken … this COVID-19 is not the end of the story.”

On Easter Sunday, Stevens will host another Zoom service at 4 p.m. It will be a time of reflection.

Professional athletes, Stevens noted, are often the take-charge type, who see a problem and work quickly to strategize and find a solution. She wants to make sure that players don’t move too quickly into work mode during this break.

“I wonder how many people have really grieved what they’ve lost in this?” she asked.

Take time to lament. To take stock of what is truly valuable.

“Not just to know it,” she said, “but to be transformed by it.”

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Stuck at Home With: Symetra Tour player Allie White

Allie White knows the LPGA and Symetra tours will still be there when this is all over. Until then, she remains a woman of many talents.

Allie White recently applied online for a job at her local Aldi grocery. It didn’t work out. She’s still waiting to hear back from Seaman’s Cardinal Super Market, though at one point on the application she got tired of writing and put “just google Allie White golf.”

In retrospect, she said, they probably see “pro golfer with a Master’s degree” and think she’s lying anyway. She might try Kroger next.

In case you haven’t figured out yet, White is a character. The Symetra Tour player, known for her tall socks and Ohio Farmer trucker hat, certainly knows how to lighten the mood, something that’s desperately needed in today’s uncertain world.

Allie White and her dog, Finley, at her family farm in Ohio. (Allie White)

White, as it turns out, is no stranger to part-time jobs. She lasted seven days at UPS one holiday season, ultimately deciding that a healthy back was too vital to her regular job. She wanted to run packages up to the door, but instead became a truck loader.

“People order the craziest stuff on the internet these days,” she said. “Oh my god is that a kayak? It wasn’t really a kayak, but there were some big things.”

White has also done a fair bit of substitute teaching over the winter breaks. One year while taking over for a teacher on maternity leave, she thought she’d landed a plum gig of health and P.E. classes.

“The first week I was supposed to teach healthy relationships,” she recalled. “All my friends got a huge kick out of that. … Thankfully she stayed pregnant an extra week and I ended up getting straight into teaching a football lesson, which I was much better equipped for.”

White also mowed the greens at her home course, Valley View Golf Club in Lancaster, Ohio.

“I was always taking little chunks out of the fringe,” she said. “The reason they put me outside was because the summer before I’d burnt the hotdogs.”

White worked as a graduate assistant golf coach at Ohio University while she pursued a Master’s degree in journalism. One year, while down in Florida during spring break, the Ohio team spotted Jessica Korda practicing on the range. They begged White to get a picture with her.

“Allie, is that you?” Korda asked as White took the photos.

The team gasped. Korda knew their coach?

“From then on,” said White, “I was legit.”

The Symetra Tour held one event in Winter Haven, Florida, before the coronavirus outbreak shut it down. Right now, the goal is to resume in mid-June. White used to read the New York Times every morning. Now she gets a few nuggets of news from NPR in the mornings while walking her dog, Finley, but mostly tries to keep the headlines to a minimum.

“I turned 30 in February and since then I’m like this is waaay different, 30 is terrible” she joked.

Could she please hit rewind and go back to her 20s?

White alternates between her place in Athens, Ohio, and the family farm in Lancaster, where she helps with the flock of sheep.

Allie White holds lambs while her dog, Finley, looks on at her family farm in Ohio. (Allie White)

The university course where White practices has long been closed but others are open. She tweaked her thumb in January playing football with friends and has taken advantage of the extra time to heal.

White has played six years on the Symetra Tour and had a caddie lined up for every event this season. She planned to try to Monday-qualify at the LPGA event in Hawaii.

She was relieved to find out that the LPGA is offering cash advancements of up to $2,000 for Symetra Tour players and $5,000 for LPGA. These are tough times for many.

A big-picture thinker, White feels gutted for the college players who saw their careers come to an abrupt end. The high school kids who won’t have a prom or graduation.

The LPGA and Symetra Tours, she said, will be there when this is over. White looks forward to getting back on the road. She’s a person who enjoys the process, wherever that takes her.

“I’m always going to be competitive,” said White. “Whether I’m playing pickleball as a 45-year-old or playing on the Symetra Tour or the LPGA. It’s going to be there because I love the actual journey of it.”

Every once in a while, someone will ask White what’s holding her back.

“Holding me back?” she asks.

The thought never crossed her mind.

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Stuck at Home With: Two-time ANA champion Brittany Lincicome

LPGA star Brittany Lincicome should be competing at the ANA Inspiration. Instead, she’s at home with her daughter riding out COVID-19.

Bugs Bunny was on the TV when Brittany Lincicome answered the phone. These days she’d rather watch baby Emery’s shows than the news anyway.

“It’s always so negative,” she said.

This week, Lincicome should be at her favorite stop on the LPGA. If she ever moved away from her native Florida, it would be to Rancho Mirage, California, where the ANA Inspiration is held every spring. Lincicome dug out one of her champion robes from the closet and put it on at the request of an art-seeking writer. All week memories have been popping up on her phone in the time-hop app. The championships dinner would’ve been Monday night. Lincicome, of course, is a two-time winner.

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Round 1 would’ve started today.

Lincicome hasn’t had much time to think about what an ANA Inspiration in September might be like. If the championship is held without fans, she said LPGA photographer Gabe Roux might have to get a shot of her air high-fiving her way past the grandstand on the 18th green, as she did during a playoff against Stacy Lewis in 2015.

“Would our parents be able to go?” she wondered.

Just the thought of daughter, Emery, being able to come greet her on the 18th there – she’ll be walking by September – makes her heart flutter. If she won for a third time, maybe she’d wade into Poppie’s Pond, like Pat Hurst, with Emery in her arms.

Brittany Lincicome poses with daughter Emery in her ANA Inspiration robe. (Brittany Lincicome)

The coronavirus has given Lincicome, 34, the gift of added time with her first-born. Emery sat down in the family pool for the first time a couple of weeks ago wearing her tiny pink sunglasses and bucket hat. Lincicome is rather amazed by the fact that she never tries to take either of them off.

To save money, and perhaps kill time, Lincicome and her sister-in-law, Bianka, started making baby food at home. They’re pureeing everything from pears to squash.

“Come to find out it’s more expensive to make it than it is just to buy it,” she said.

Bianka has been staying with Lincicome and her husband, Dewald Gouws, for over a month now with travel back home to South Africa becoming more complicated due to the pandemic.

Lincicome has a cast on her arm for the next two weeks. She thought it was a case of Mommy Thumb, but is now unsure after her doctor said that usually a cortisone shot clears it up. She has seen two different specialists so far and was scheduled to see a third in Phoenix before the LPGA was postponed.

“I can play,” she said, “it just hurts like crazy.”

Not long ago, Lincicome went to nine different grocery stores in the span of one day looking for supplies for herself and her parents, who run a daycare. She worries about her how the coronavirus would impact her father, who has asthma and tree allergies.

With the meat department shelves so bare these days, the couple spend even more time on the water in Lincicome’s 24-foot Sheaffer boat, christened “Taking Relief” by a Twitter follower.

“When I was having it built years and years ago, I would go over every now and again,” said Lincicome, of the facility near the Tampa airport. “You could watch the process when it came out of the mold.”

These days they’ve been catching tripletail, red grouper, hog fish and a good deal of snapper. Fishing for supper is an ideal way to practice social distancing.

Brittany Lincicome holds the ANA Inspiration trophy after winning the tournament in a three hole playoff at Mission Hills CC – Dinah Shore Tournament Course. (Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports)

There are days Lincicome wonders if the LPGA will play at all in 2020. While she’s soaking up every second at home with Emery and her husband, she’s eager to get back to work. The next event on the LPGA schedule is about 40 minutes from her house in Belleair, Florida. At this point though, it’s hard to believe that the inaugural Pelican Women’s Championship will take place in mid-May.

At the beginning of the year, Lincicome promised her husband that she wouldn’t play more than two weeks in a row with Emery on the road. That might prove difficult in the back half of 2020 with events piled on top of each other.

In an ideal world, Lincicome said, she’d like to have her second child in the fall of 2021.

Does her husband know about this plan?

“I’m not getting any younger,” she said, laughing, “so he’s got to get on board.”

After taking maternity leave in 2019, Lincicome wants to get back inside the ropes as much as possible before taking another family leave.

But for now, she’s doing her part to flatten the coronavirus curve, enjoying all the little things at home that travel takes away.

She certainly has the perfect robe for it.

This is the third in the Golfweek “Stuck at home with” series. Click here to read more.

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Stuck at Home With: LPGA star Cheyenne Knight

While some have yet to compete on the LPGA, Knight played in all four events the LPGA staged in 2020. But the cancelations are still disappointing.

The “Stuck at Home With” series profiles players, caddies and staff in the women’s game who are making the most of an unprecedented break in tour life due to the coronavirus pandemic. New stories will be posted every Tuesday and Thursday.

Cheyenne Knight was in Houston to promote the 75th U.S. Women’s Open when they canceled the rodeo. The Woodlands, Texas, native knew then that her world was about to change even more drastically. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is massive in these parts.

Knight, 23, went home to Aledo to pack for the LPGA event in Phoenix, only to find out the next day that it had been postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak, along with the Kia Classic and ANA Inspiration, the first major of the year.

Now, two weeks later, she knows even less about when tour life might resume. All events on the LPGA schedule have been postponed through April.

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“I still live at home,” said Knight. “I know people that have made some big purchases – a house, a car – and nothing is coming in for however long this is going to last.”

These are stressful times. Knight was supposed to tee it up in her first ANA Inspiration this week. She’d prepped hard for Mission Hills, a course she has only seen on TV.

And while that’s disappointing, she knows that she’s better off than most, having won late in the season last year in Texas to secure strong status on the LPGA and money in the bank. She bought an iPad and TrackMan with her $195,000 first-place check.

While some have yet to compete on the LPGA, Knight played in all four events the LPGA staged in 2020, earning $34,720.

Cheyenne Knight practices in her garage during the coronavirus pandemic. (Cheyenne Knight)

After the Volvik Founders Cup was postponed, Knight made the 10-hour drive east to visit her boyfriend in Birmingham, Alabama. Robby Prater played golf at Alabama at the same time as Knight and recently took a job with a sports agency. They were still able to play golf in Birmingham and work on puzzles. An impromptu 10-day visit is a significant silver lining for long-distance couples.

Knight drove back to Texas last week where her club, Shady Oaks, is still closed. She’ll instead go to work at the garage net that she’s had since high school. The winters are so dicey in Aledo she’s worn a hole through it.

Knight grew up riding horses and made the tough decision to leave them behind and pursue golf seriously at age 12. She lives with her parents in a neighborhood outside of Fort Worth, but 100 yards down the road there are pastures with livestock.

“We hear the donkeys in the morning,” she said.

Knight joked with her mom that she might get a part-time job working at the stables if this break carries on much longer.

While Knight was away in Alabama, her mom made a shadow box from Cheyenne’s win at the Volunteers of America Classic, held only 60 miles from the family home. Even her pink hair ribbon was saved.

Knight recently finished “Peaky Blinders” (her favorite) and “Tiger King” (crazy and really bizarre) on Netflix. She was stoked about the third season of “Ozark.”

“My parents will probably put me to work doing stuff in the house to pay my rent,” she said.

She had plans to clean out her closet and donate her old golf clothes. Workouts will continue on with the hope that she comes back with a bit more swing speed.

Knight realizes that she might be a bit too optimistic about the tour returning to action in mid-May for the Pelican Women’s Championship in Belleair, Florida. The Woodlands native is especially eager for the Women’s Open at Champions Golf Club, now slated for early June.

When asked for her thoughts on moving the U.S. Women’s Open to the fall, Knight noted that Houston gets “pretty saturated” during hurricane season.

What about potentially extending the season in 2020?

“December in Houston?” she asked. “That would work.”

Right now, there’s not much left to do but speculate from the couch.

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Stuck at Home With: Beth Ann Nichols

Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols gives us a tour of her home office.

Stuck at home with: LPGA player Sarah Jane Smith

LPGA player Sarah Jane Smith is busy soaking up this bonus time with newborn son Theo and her husband Duane.

Theo Kai Smith crawled for the first time last week.

Daddy Duane captured on video the moment eight-month-old Theo made his way across a colorful street map toward his mother, who was on the floor clutching a toy.

“Our baby’s a genius!” said Duane, who doubles as his wife’s caddie.

While the world is awash in uncertainty, these are the precious moments that keep us sane.

Proud father Duane sits with son Theo. (Photo submitted)

The LPGA’s Sarah Jane Smith came back from maternity leave in January with Theo and six pieces of luggage in tow. But before she even left for the new Gainbridge event in Boca Raton, Florida, she had worked herself into a tizzy while putting labels on Theo’s clothes for daycare. The mere thought of dropping him off was heart-stopping.

When Tuesday morning came, she told Theo that she wasn’t going to cry. But the moment she opened that door to the daycare room, tears dripped down. Theo turned six months old while he was in daycare in Boca Raton and made a footprint canvas to mark the occasion.

Smith, 35, so badly wanted to make the cut that week. She hit the ball poorly, chipped and putted lights out and missed the weekend by one stroke. The moment she opened that daycare door to pick up Theo, however, everything changed.

“I didn’t want it any less,” she said, “but it was just a whole new perspective.”

Smith missed her first three cuts of the year on the LPGA and hasn’t competed since the tour went on break for the coronavirus back in mid-February. The LPGA has since canceled events through early May, including the ANA Inspiration.

Normally those three missed cuts would’ve weighed on her mind. Instead, she’s busy soaking up this bonus time with Theo and Duane. Making use of the garage practice and gym setup Duane had put together at their Orlando, Florida, home for maternity leave.

Smith typically wakes up Theo at 6 a.m. for his first bottle. Morning playtime sails by, she said. She forces herself to do a 30-minute workout program. Recently gave the house a good dusting.

“I’ve been very much enjoying the puttering around,” she said, “the housewife-y jobs.”

Sarah Jane Smith out and about with son Theo. (Photo submitted)

The Smiths were deliberate about when they wanted to start a family. Sarah Jane wanted to make sure that there was enough in the bank account so that she didn’t feel the need to rush back to work. A share of fifth at the 2018 U.S. Women’s Open earned her a $182,487 paycheck. En route to the airport that Sunday night, Duane looked at his wife and asked: “Want to have a baby?”

Theo was born on July 24, 2019.

The Smiths, who have known each other since they met as 11-year-old junior golfers back in Australia, are making the most of a second offseason. Finances aren’t an issue now. She raves about 3M, a sponsorship that started as a handshake agreement several years ago after a fortuitous pro-am pairing in Arkansas.

“I’m sure some companies will honor contracts, but some won’t be able to,” said Sarah Jane. “I think everybody has to be kind and understanding.”

Just last week the Smiths were thinking back to times on the Symetra Tour when they literally had nothing in the bank. Sarah Jane recalled one specific instance when Duane fell ill during an off-week, and she went around to several different stores to round up supplies. She’d never heard of overdraft charges until she got dinged a $20 fee for each transaction of cold tablets and Gatorade.

At least back then she had the chance to make money the next week.

“We’ve been in those situations,” Sarah Jane said. “But I can’t imagine it for girls that are just getting started.”

Stuck at Home With: LPGA’s Sarah Jane Smith

Golfweek’s “Stuck at Home With” series profiles players, caddies and staff in the women’s game who are making the most of an unprecedented break in tour life due to the coronavirus pandemic.