Nice article / interview with Stacy from the Duramed FuturesTour... Don't you know the DFT is loving having her on their tour?
- Bert
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duramedfuturestour.com/NewsRoom.asp?page=Releases/WR081808.ssi
Stacy Lewis’ Stellar 2008 Season Still On CourseRookie professional and first-year Duramed FUTURES Tour member STACY LEWIS of The Woodlands, Texas, continues to set new milestones in her golf career. Suffering with scoliosis since age 11, Lewis went on to win the 2007 NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championship as a junior at the University of Arkansas and has continued adding highlights to her golf resume.
As a collegian, she was a four-time All-American, a four-time Academic All-American and a two-time ESPN The Magazine All-American. Lewis was the 2005 Southeastern Conference (SEC) Freshman of the Year and the 2008 SEC Player of the Year. She won 12 college tournaments while at Arkansas. She also won the 2006 Women’s Western Amateur Championship, the 2006 Harder Hall Invitational, and the 2007 Women’s Southern Amateur Championship. She was named to the 2008 U.S. Curtis Cup team earlier this year, where she posted an unprecedented 5-0 record.
In major championships, Lewis tied for fifth at the LPGA’s 2007 Kraft Nabisco Championship as an amateur and tied for third at the 2008 U.S. Women’s Open Championship in her professional debut. In last year’s LPGA NW Arkansas Championship, which was rain-shortened after 18 holes, she led after the first round with a score of 7-under-par 65.
In two tournaments on the Duramed FUTURES Tour this season, Lewis finished third in Kentucky two weeks ago and tied for third last week in Richmond, Va. She is currently ranked 32nd on the Tour’s season money list after only two events. She sat down with the Duramed FUTURES Tour’s Lisa D. Mickey to discuss her year:
DFT: If you had to present a report about your year in golf, what would you say about the 2008 season?
Lewis: It’s been my best year yet. It’s been exciting and so much fun. I don’t even think I can pick out one specific highlight. Ever since the SECs [Southeastern Conference Championship] in mid-April, it’s been non-stop.
DFT: But doesn’t everything pale in comparison to tying for third in this year’s U.S. Women’s Open Championship?
Lewis: I knew that I could make the cut and that I could compete at the Open. And then my putter got hot and I called my coach and said, “Hey, I’m leading the Open!” That whole week, I wasn’t thinking about the money – I just wanted to win, but by the end of the week, I went from having like $3,000 in my bank account to nearly $300,000. It was pretty amazing. But as great as the Open was, the Curtis Cup was the best golf experience I’ve ever had – just the whole team part of it and being able to play well to represent my country. It was a great way to end my amateur career. I think that week was the most pressure I’ve ever felt on the golf course. People were walking behind us on the fairways and it was held at the Old Course at St. Andrews. It was beyond my expectations.
DFT: Other than now earning money for playing golf, how is your life different as a professional than it was as an amateur?
Lewis: It’s really not different. I’m still practicing and I’m still around the same people. I have some other obligations, and now, I’m always trying to get ready for the next week’s tournament, but I still call my parents and my coaches after I play like I always have.
DFT: Is there something you really appreciate from both lives -- as an amateur and also as a professional?
Lewis: In college at the University of Arkansas, I don’t think I appreciated how much my college coaches did for me. All I had to do was pack my bags and show up to play. They did everything else. Now, I have to make sure I’m really organized and make calls to register for tournaments and plan my travel. As a professional, I like going to different cities and playing in front of crowds. I think it’s cool that people follow you.
DFT: Obviously, after you won the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championship as a junior, you could have left school early. Why did you stay and why was the college experience so important to you?
Lewis: I wasn’t the best player on my team coming out of high school. My high school team was really good. I just wanted to play college golf and continue to improve my game. Once I got there, I loved it. I think I needed time to learn how to win and play with the best players in the country. I finally played well during my junior year. Some people questioned why I stayed for my senior year, but honestly, it didn’t ever cross my mind to turn pro. I wanted to play in college.
DFT: What do you think you gained the most from college golf?
Lewis: I made great friends and had fun. I improved. That last year when people were wondering if I was going to turn pro, I just weighed it: one year in college versus one year in the pros? Hmmm. And then I said, the [LPGA] Tour is going to be there in a year.
DFT: When you declared yourself as a professional at this year’s U.S. Women’s Open, what kind of expectations did you have for the Open, as well as for the rest of the year?
Lewis: I knew that what I earned at the Open didn’t count toward getting my LPGA card [because the Open is a United States Golf Association championship, rather than an LPGA event]. My goal was just to give myself a chance to win. I expected to do well, but I just didn’t expect to do as well as I did.
DFT: Where do you think you currently are in your own strategy for 2008?
Lewis: That first week playing on the Duramed FUTURES Tour was a good step. [She added another top-three finish last week in Richmond, Va.] By finishing in the top 90 on the season money list, I will have status on the Duramed FUTURES Tour next year, so I won’t have to worry about going to the Duramed FUTURES Tour’s Q-School. Right now, I’m not even halfway through the season. I still have three to four more LPGA events I hope to play on sponsor exemptions. I’m going out there trying to win, no matter what level I’m playing. And I try to look at each event I play as just another tournament.
DFT: Playing on the Duramed FUTURES Tour is something new for you. How did you find your experience that first week in Kentucky?
Lewis: I was really surprised at the golf course [Crooked Creek Golf Community in London, Ky.] because it was a good golf course, it was in great shape and the people were awesome. On the LPGA, everybody’s out there to beat each other. Out here, you still want to win, but players go to dinner together and some of them travel together. I played college golf with a lot of these players. I don’t know … when I see players from the SEC, I just have to root for them to play well.
DFT: What is your impression of the competition at this level?
Lewis: You have to play well to win. You have to hit good golf shots. I expected it to be good competition. In that first tournament I played in Kentucky, MINDY KIM hit her approach to five feet for eagle on the last hole to win. What can you do about that? [Laughter]
DFT: Do you feel any extra pressure as being heralded as one of the top young Americans in women’s golf?
Lewis: It’s a good pressure to have. We have to get more good young Americans out on the LPGA Tour. I want to help put us back on the map. It’s all about just getting out there and it’s hard to get sponsor exemptions. For me to have the success I’ve had has been because I got sponsor exemptions. I think it takes you a few tournaments to figure out how things work. I’m glad I got to play in five professional tournaments as an amateur, and at events like the Kraft Nabisco Championship and the Jamie Farr [Owens Corning Classic]. It was such good experience.
DFT: If you were writing the script for your life in golf, would you change anything?
Lewis: Not at all. Every experience I’ve had has been for a reason and everything has prepared me for the next thing.
DFT: How about for your life, in general?
Lewis: Everybody has said it would have to be all the problems I have had with my back, but even that has made me who I am. Everything happens for a reason.
DFT: As a child and as a teen when you were struggling with scoliosis, did you think you would go on to accomplish so much in this game?
Lewis: No, not at all. I wore a brace for seven years. I hated it. I fought with my mom about it. Golf was the only thing that got me out of that brace. I didn’t have to wear it if I was playing golf. But in a way, all of that made me a happier and better person because I’m so appreciative of the things I was able to do once I got out of the brace. When I was wearing it, I thought the whole world was ending. But I’ve grown because of it. I’m a better person.
DFT: Your back problems were pretty long and drawn out, weren’t they?
Lewis: Oh yeah. I saw doctors every three or six months for seven years. I wore the brace 18 hours a day. The brace held my spine in place. I’ll never forget how in high school my senior year, I stopped wearing the brace in October and I signed in November to play golf at the University of Arkansas. I was so happy, and then three months later, the doctors told me that I needed surgery. I cried the whole way home from that appointment. I thought I was done with all of that, but I had surgery in June 2003, after my senior year of high school. It was a six-hour surgery where they put a titanium rod and five screws in my back and took one of my ribs and used it to fuse my vertebrae in place. Then I had three months where I had to wear a brace and I couldn’t bend or twist or lift anything over five pounds. I had to do rehab and when I went to Arkansas that fall, I couldn’t bend or twist for four months. I red-shirted my freshman year and after a while, I could only putt and chip.
DFT: Your short game must have really improved.
Lewis: It did. But the funny thing was all of this made me see the game in a different way. I’d get in the cart and ride around with the coaches during the team’s qualifying matches. I learned a lot about course management just watching the other players. During all of that riding around, the coaches would make comments, wondering why players were doing certain things out on the course. It gave me a different perspective to watch them play and to listen to the coaches. It helped a lot. And it made me think that, down the road, I’d love to coach.
DFT: Does the scoliosis bother you at all now? Do you have pain?
Lewis: I lost a little bit of my turn [during the golf swing], but the doctor knew I was a golfer and he wanted me to be able to get my flexibility back. He put the metal road in my back from the side. My muscles are sore here and there, but I do a lot of stretching and I work out quite a bit. The metal rod and the screws are still in there, but I can’t feel it. It doesn’t hurt.
DFT: How much of what you do and how you do it is guided by your own decisions? And how much comes from advisors?
Lewis: It’s mostly my parents and me, but I’ve also gotten some help from [University of Arkansas women’s golf coach] SHAUNA ESTES, who played on the Duramed FUTURES Tour. I’ve done most of the planning myself. I’m just trying to figure out this whole life-of-a-pro thing a little bit. With my back history, I know that I can’t play six to seven weeks in a row.
DFT: Do you have any special interests outside the game?
Lewis: I like to do charity work in the community. That’s something I’ve been doing since high school. Sometimes I tutor kids in elementary school.
DFT: What makes you the happiest?
Lewis: Playing good golf, but really, just being able to play golf. I think I kind of forget that sometimes.
DFT: I realize you don’t yet have LPGA status, but what are your two top goals in golf?
Lewis: To get out on the LPGA Tour as a member and to make the U.S. Solheim Cup Team. I was the low American at every major I’ve played. I want to get in [U.S. Solheim Cup captain] Beth Daniel’s mind for the 2009 Solheim Cup. I’ll call this year successful if I get my LPGA card. I don’t care how I do it. I don’t care if I win a tournament, or make enough money playing tournaments on sponsor exemptions, or get my card at LPGA Q-School. That’s my goal.
DFT: Your finance and accounting degree at Arkansas will probably come in handy during your career. Do you do a lot of number crunching statistically of your game?
Lewis: I know my statistics, but I think you can over-analyze things. I know where I stand. I try to keep it pretty simple.
DFT: What would you like to be remembered for down the road and what do you want to give back to the game?
Lewis: For a while, I thought my life was over and I’d never be able to play golf again, but I hope other people can see that you can do whatever you want to do with scoliosis. I was diagnosed at age 11 in middle school on a random day when they were doing checks at school for scoliosis. That was something I never thought I’d have to deal with. It was unexpected and it completely changed my life. But I got through it and I am playing golf again. Now, I hope I can somehow be a part of doctors finding a better way to cure it or to prevent it. There is research going on for it and I want to help raise awareness for scoliosis. I want to show people they can still do the things they want to do.
