I was standing on the practice range at Pinehurst Resort. It was Sunday and the final round of the 2014 U.S. Open. Leader Martin Kaymer and Rickie Folwer were just finishing their warm up getting ready to head to the first tee. Things were about to get strange. In fact they already had.
It had nothing to do with Kaymer, who went on to win by eight strokes. And it had nothing to do with Fowler who would finish second. Nor did it concern Eric Compton, the heart-transplant patient (he had two transplants) who would have authored the feel good story of the century had he won. He didn’t win, but did finish tied with Fowler.
It had everything to do with who was occupying the range as the men evacuated to play their final round. The greatest female golfers had overcome the range, the putting green and the chipping area. And it was surreal.
The 69th U.S. Women’s Open was on deck at Pinehurst No.2 as soon as the men cleared out and this was their range now, their practice time, their time in the sun. The USGA had staged back to back Open’s and they pulled it off magnificently. Kaymer won in convincing fashion and the women’s game was brought to new heights as Michelle Wie claimed her first major championship.
But on the range at that moment I wasn’t thinking about the impact of Michelle’s impending win or the mastery of Kaymer’s game that week. I was watching a young girl on the range, striping one ball after another. She was absolutely killing it as ball after ball jumped off her club, whizzed through the air as straight as could be.
Meadow ’14 Open
Watching professional golfers, any pro, whether they be male, female, PGA, LPGA, Web.com or Symetra tours is a thing of wonder to a hacker like me. I noted the young girl’s name and decided that this young lady could be a sleeper that week.
Her name was Stephanie Meadow and she did indeed have a great week. Little did I know that she had just turned pro the week before and this was her first pro tournament. It seems that she didn’t know that either as she played well all week and found herself in the penultimate pairing on Sunday along with legend Juli Inkster and just four shots off the lead. She played great golf that final day, shot 69 (beat Inkster by six shots) and finished in third place. That’s quite a debut for a newly minted, twenty-two year old pro.
Meadow was an All-American and Academic All -American at Alabama and the Northern Irishwoman lead them to their first NCAA title. The sky was the limit for such a talented young woman.
And then life happens. It happens to pro golfers…just as it does to everyone.
Beth Ann Nichols chronicles Meadow’s difficult journey since that U.S. Open finish.
But then life threw a cruel curveball Meadow’s way. The night before she was set to leave for Ocala, Fla., to begin her rookie season on the LPGA, the doctor called to deliver the news that her father had cancer.
Anyone who watched Stephanie play knew Robert. The Meadows were a tight threesome, having moved to Hilton Head, S.C., from Northern Ireland to pursue Stephanie’s dreams.
The news put Meadow’s LPGA career on hold, and when she returned, everything about her life and her game felt different. Robert died of Stage IV pancreatic cancer in May of 2015, and Meadow finished out her rookie season in his honor. LPGA players voted Meadow the winner of the Heather Farr Player Award for her determination and perseverance.
Not long after Meadow thought she had turned a corner, a different kind of pain presented itself. Meadow first felt a sharp pain shooting down her back last spring. It grew worse over the summer. She’d be in the physio trailer getting treatment 10 minutes before her tee time. The exercises she’d been prescribed weren’t helping, and when hitting driver became out of the question, she asked to have an MRI. Within 30 minutes of the scan Meadow learned she had a stress fracture.
Her back issues caused her to have to re-qualify for her LPGA Tour card and she missed the cut at Q- School.
After a missed cut at LPGA qualifying school in December, Meadow was presented with a new mental challenge – dropping down to the Symetra Tour. She took it hard but eventually viewed it as an opportunity to learn how to win again.
But through hard work determination and plenty of practice she has found her game once again and won last week on the Symetra Tour. She now plans to try and Monday qualify each week on the LPGA.
Here was a young girl just about to begin her dream of playing golf for a living and off to a good start at that, but life dealt her a difficult break. Dealing with her father’s cancer and then losing him was life changing for her. And then to have to deal with her injury was another stiff challenge.
But you don’t get to where she was without heart and will and talent. And she has all three. Her dad may be gone from this earth but certainly not from her heart. She felt his presence as she sank her winning putt last week.
“It means a lot that I could do that for him,” she said of winning again. “I feel like he’s watching.”
I am sure he is and just like that day back on the practice range at Pinehurst…so will I.
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