ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Stacy Lewis is again sitting on the supremacy desk of the media room, answering a belated query from any individual too shy to yell over the gusts of breeze all over the clicking convention.
Her five-year-old daughter Chesnee desires to understand if she will get a swimming lake — “a big one” — if her mum wins right here, as she did in 2013.
“I think I might be able to sort you out, girlie,” says Lewis.
11 years have handed for the reason that Texan shot birdie-birdie at the ultimate two holes to clinch the Girls’s Visible by way of two pictures. The second one shot into 17 residue the most efficient of her occupation, such a lot in order that the 5-iron is the one membership she has saved for her place of business.
However in that age, as motherhood has usurped golfing in her listing of priorities and made her much less tunnel-visioned, the calls for of the LPGA Excursion have turn into much more all-consuming.
This 12 months’s excursion began with two Florida occasions and ends with any other 3 within the Sunshine Situation. The intervening 10 months? A map of tangled zig-zags throughout the USA, Canada, Europe and Asia that might no longer glance out of park in Chesnee’s faculty jotter.
This while’s Visible is the 5th primary in as many months, no longer together with the Olympic Video games at France’s Le Golfing Nationwide previous this hour. St. Andrews closes the majors season, however with the Solheim Cup in September and any other Pacific leg this autumn visiting China, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan and Hawaii within the field of simply 35 days, the agenda is rammed and no longer finishing anytime quickly.
We handiest ask essentially the most remarkable questions on this press convention!!!
Chesnee requested mother @Stacy_Lewis if she may just get a swimming lake pic.twitter.com/bhqgapR1Yz
— LPGA (@LPGA) August 21, 2024
Around the 33 mixed LPGA Excursion stops and majors this 12 months, there are greater than 215 hours of natural gliding age. The full mileage provides as much as greater than 3 journeys all over the world.
This isn’t a untouched defect — extreme 12 months’s agenda integrated a record-breaking 18 events with greater than 2,000 miles between excursion stops. This season there used to be the go to China and intra-continental visits to Thailand and Malaysia; criss-crossing from west coast Los Angeles to east coast Fresh Jersey in Might; June’s see-sawing from Michigan to the PGA Championship in Washington situation and again once more to Michigan, two six-hour flights with simply 4 days left-overs in between every.
8-and-a-half months into the season, with winds of 40-45 mph forecast for Thursday and lots of avid gamers having no longer been in a position to play games the Scottish Visible to reacquaint themselves with hyperlinks golfing, can it’s anticipated that any participant is on the supremacy in their sport? “Probably not, no,” stated Lewis, who’s Crew USA’s captain for the Solheim Cup in Virginia later hour. “Those who played the Olympics, you talk to most of them and it’s just emotionally so taxing that week. So no, our schedule, especially Olympic years, is really, really tough.
“There’s been a lot of talk of schedule lately but also at the same time, I’ve been doing this for 15 or 16 years. You learn how to deal with it, and you learn how to be ready in those moments and really just do the best you can.”
GO DEEPER
The Girls’s Visible is at St. Andrews. The Used Path is able to problem the garden
Since 2009, the handbag on the Girls’s Visible has larger from $2.2 million to $9 million, a 409 consistent with cent build up — tripling since AIG began sponsoring the match in 2020.
Lewis described the advance in infrastructure and amenities on the Girls’s Visible as “night and day” in comparison to 2013 however believes their arms are attach in relation to discovering techniques to holiday the gruelling agenda.
“I think that’s the ideal but a lot of it is when do sponsors want to play and when do we get the golf courses?” she stated.
“We don’t have the luxury of the PGA Tour that says, ‘We’re giving you X amount of dollars and we’re playing this week.’ We don’t have the money to just throw around.
“We are kind of at the mercy of sponsors. We are at the mercy of golf courses and it’s the nature of where we are. Would we like to be better? Yeah, absolutely. I think our team behind the scenes works like crazy on it but we’re a global tour, and I want to compete against the best players every week.
“So to do that, we’ve got to go play in Thailand because we have players from Thailand. We’re going to go play in Korea because we have players from Korea. I think that’s just the nature of it. It’s more getting into your head, to me, that this is a global tour. You say you’re going to go play on the LPGA Tour, this is also what you signed up for.”
Global primary Nelly Korda, having gained six tournaments in seven begins between January and Might, together with the Chevron Championship, has earned greater than $3 million this 12 months in prize cash.
That permits her the posh of skipping the overall Asia swing, a seven-week lay-off early within the 12 months that used to be sandwiched between her successful streak. However even the two-time primary winner needed to pull back from the JM Eagle LA Championship in April, mentioning exhaustion.
Nelly Korda has taken widespread weeks off this season, a luxurious no longer all LPGA execs can manage to pay for. (Michael Reaves / Getty Pictures)
Lexi Thompson unfolded the dialog across the psychological and bodily calls for of the LPGA Excursion in Might when she introduced she used to be retiring on the finish of the season, elderly simply 29.
She spoke about how “lonely” and all-consuming week on excursion has been since she certified for her first U.S. Visible at 12 however believes there are methods the weight may well be lessened.
“The schedule for sure,” stated Thompson. “I think all the travel gets a lot. I think the flow of schedule could be better. Certain events could be back-to-back that are close to each other. We travel a lot out of the country but it is a global tour so that comes with it, and we’re very lucky for the sponsors that we have outside the country.
“There is a little less weight on my shoulders after the announcement because it has been on my mind for a few years, so it’s something that’s been inside that nobody really knew about or what was going to happen.”
Catriona Matthew claimed her handiest primary on the Visible in 2009, successful at Royal Lytham & St Annes simply 11 weeks later giving beginning. Now 54 years ancient and making her extreme look at her house match, Matthew does no longer know the way she controlled to excursion along with her two youngsters in please see years.
To stock chasing any other primary in a garden so deep Lewis counts 60 consistent with cent as having the prospective to win calls for ultimate resilience.
Lydia Ko is taking a look to finish an eight-and-a-half-year primary drought this while however the Australian is available in scorching later successful gold in Paris, turning into the thirty fifth lady to be inducted into the LPGA Corridor of Popularity.
She residue the youngest feminine to ever win at the LPGA Excursion later her triumph at 15 years ancient, however 12 years next there used to be an instantaneous dose of realism about how lengthy she is keen to conquer the sore backs she studies within the morning — and whether or not she would possibly convey ahead her deliberate departure at 30.
“In ways, it can be scary because I’ve played golf since I was five,” stated Ko.
“This is my life whether I like it or not and golf has given me so much for me to be thankful for on and off the golf course.
“As much as we are very grateful to be able to do what we love and compete at a high level, I think there is the other side of things that you have to consider. As someone that’s maybe closer to that point in my career than when I was a rookie, you come to realise all of these things, and you respect the player for the decision that she came up with.”
There are avid gamers nonetheless ambitious to fasten the majors membership, maximum particularly England’s Charley Hull whose perspective against a up to date shoulder trauma captures the mindset wanted to deal with this relentless agenda.
“My shoulder just got a little bit tight so I have acupuncture in it every other day because when it’s cold, it can play up a bit,” she stated.
“I’ve got degenerate arthritis in it, as well. So when it does get cold, it gets a bit stiff. I just try to keep it warm.
“Apart from that, I’m healthy and ready to go.”
(Supremacy photograph: Luke Walker / Getty Pictures)
