South Africa’s No 1-ranked ladies golfer again takes us into her world and gives us insight into the life of a Major champion.
We had quite the week at the US Women’s Open. I’ve been dealing with a few things off the course. My back flared up the week before, it went into spasm and I couldn’t move for five days. So I didn’t practise until the Tuesday before the tournament started, I could just do the bare minimum.
Myself, Dave, my caddie Tanya, her husband and Steph Meadow were sharing a house that week. Tanya got sick, there was a virus going around, so she couldn’t caddie on the Wednesday.
We initially thought it was food poisoning because from 11pm on Tuesday she was so sick I thought we were going to have to take her to the emergency room.
Then the next day her husband got it, so we knew it wasn’t food poisoning. He caddies for Emily Pedersen and he couldn’t be on the bag on Thursday and Friday.
Steph was OK, then while she was doing her warm-up it hit her and she had to withdraw.
So Dave and I thought we had no chance. We quarantined ourselves in our rooms, we came home every day, put ourselves in the bedroom and didn’t see anyone in the house, and went back to the golf course and played.
I then had my back injury on top of that. It had been so good then it just happened out of nowhere … I went to put my backpack up on the plane and it just went.
I felt the course was a true Major set-up for the US Women’s Open. There were times when it did feel borderline because the greens were so undulating and quick, but I don’t mind when it’s like that once or twice a year. You had to play very smart golf, and even then you felt like bogeys were fine.
It was the putting that was extremely difficult. I felt the rest of the course played fair, it was a very good test.
You could have a six-footer and you were putting to lag it at times, you weren’t putting to try to make the putt.
And I think that’s what made it so difficult. You were putting to make sure you didn’t three-putt and sometimes four-putt! It was the toughest golf course I’ve played because of the condition it was set up in.
There wasn’t a lot of complaining from the players in terms of, ‘Oh, this is ridiculous’. It was just, ‘Oh my gosh, this is tough’, which is fine. You don’t mind that for a Major.
I think the USGA did well, they had multiple tee-box options and they moved things around on the weekend, which you saw by the scores, they were a little bit better. It was just a true Major test, it wasn’t a ridiculous set-up.
Because there were so many tee times I didn’t get to see much of Casandra [Alexander], but we’d see each other in passing and in dining when we were able to catch up. I was super happy for her when she qualified, it’s a great achievement.
She did brilliantly to even make the cut and she did so well to be in the middle of the pack going into the weekend.
Obviously we all have our own expectations but I think she also enjoyed just being there. It was a bit of a rally to get things done after qualifying so late. She texted me asking about accommodation options, etc. Things get booked up in advance and we were pretty much playing in the middle of nowhere, but she managed to get it all sorted.
It happened to me in the past where I qualified at the last minute and you have to book accommodation and flights. Everything is more expensive than it would have been five or six months ago but at the same time, you have the opportunity to play for a $12-million purse so you’ve just got to bite the bullet and go.
I’m a little frustrated because everything is good – my swing is good, my putting feels like it’s starting to turn around and mentally I’m good, but my body is just not allowing me to completely do what I need to do. By the Sunday of the US Women’s Open I had nothing left in me, I had fought so hard the whole week to just get in there and try to play.
We’re working through it with my physio. The good thing is it isn’t getting worse, but it obviously needs rest and we just don’t have that time. So we’re just playing and managing with what we have at the moment.
I do feel I’m playing good enough and I’m close enough, I just need my back to be OK every day, it doesn’t need to be 100%, it just needs to not feel like it did on the Sunday that it would completely flare up and give up on me.
It’s also mentally tiring, it’s an extra element where you’re constantly fighting pain, and eventually it gets to you. I got to the 15th on the Sunday and I told my caddie I had nothing left in me. She said, ‘I know, it’s been a long week.’
She’d been sick, she hadn’t eaten much for three days. It would have been OK on any other course but that week took it out of us even more.
When we’re facing those kinds of challenges, my caddie and I just lean on each other. I was doing extra work like double-checking yardages, stuff I wouldn’t normally have to do, because she wasn’t well. And vice versa.
She was making sure I was OK, telling me I have to rest and not to push it.
So it was an interesting week, Dave and I did well to survive and not get sick. When we woke up every day we’d just say to each other, ‘OK, we survived another day, last man standing!’
– This column first appeared in the July 2024 issue of Compleat Golfer magazine.
Photo: Patrick Smith/Getty Images
