Suprising Lewis on verge of Open win in debut
by Jeff Babineau, Golfweek.com
Golfweek.com
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Only the conversation this time around was one they'd never shared before.
"Hey Dad," smiled the blonde pony-tailed daughter, frolicking along and bumping the arm of her daddy caddie after glancing at a leaderboard, "I'm leading the U.S. Open."
Wow. Talk about a proud parental moment.
The world will awake Sunday morning to news that Lewis is the 54-hole leader at the 63rd U.S. Women's Open, and that may surprise many. It doesn't surprise Dale Lewis, nor does it astound his 23-year-old daughter in the least.
Even if it is her very first tournament as a professional.
Already she has accomplished her main goal for the week, to put herself into contention on Sunday. After shooting 6-under 67 on Saturday, a masterful round that had no glitches or bogeys, Lewis owns a one-shot lead over Paula Creamer and leads by two over Helen Alfredsson and Inbee Park. One cannot get any more in contention than that.
But Lewis won't leave Interlachen satisfied unless she has a trophy in her arms.
"I only play in golf tournaments to win," she said. "I'm not here to finish top 10 or do any of that. I'm here to win. People might see that as arrogant, but I think if you're not here to win, you're never going to be successful."
If Stacy Lewis is destined to be anything, it's successful. She has overcome scoliosis, enduring a hard plastic back brace for nearly eight years, all the way into her senior year of high school. She weathered surgery after high school that placed a steel rod and five screws into her back just to straighten out her spine, placing her future in the game in great doubt.
"I think when I found out that I had to have surgery," she said, "I thought I was done playing golf forever."
Kelley Hester remembers the day she heard the news about Lewis' impending surgery. Lewis was coach at the University of Arkansas, and Lewis was her first signee in November 2002. Hester, now the women's coach at Georgia, remembers the night Stacy's mom, Carol, called to tell her young Stacy was going to undergo a delicate operation that would lay her up for months, and could possibly end her college golf career before it got started.
"I think I threw the phone across the room," Hester said Saturday evening from home. "We were ranked 90th, or something like that, and we really needed a break. So there was an initial reaction of ‘why me?'
"But after you get over that, you support the family as much as you can. We were taking a chance on Stacy. She was a good student and an OK golfer. But you know, she was taking a chance on us, too. She was pretty average and we were pretty average. I think we were a great fit for each other."
Hester marvels at how Lewis is the type of person who likes to focus more on her weaknesses than her strength, and can't believe how much joy she has brought to her as a coach. Saturday, the bar was raised a notch. The huge crowds and the electricity of a weekend at the U.S. Open did very little to faze Lewis, who made a key 15-footer to save par at the easy par-5 10th, then played her final eight holes in 3 under par. A 7-footer for birdie tumbled into the low side of the cup at 18, and suddenly, the U.S. Open was on the brink of a true Cinderella story.
Only Lewis doesn't see it that way. She expects to be here, to be near the top, to be able to contend. She's a superb ball striker who can get streaky hot with the putter, and when that happens, she can take it pretty low. Last month at the Home of Golf, at St. Andrews, Lewis went 5-0 in helping lead the U.S. to victory in the Curtis Cup.
She laughs at the memory of her opening tee shot at the Old Course, which she said was the most pressure-filled shot she'd ever faced. In her opening four-ball match, she stood up on the historic first tee, took out a fairway metal and ... folded some auld sod over her opening tee shot.
"I actually duffed it down the first fairway. It went like, 100 yards," she said. "It barely got over the road. Pretty embarrassing. But I just laughed about it."
She smiled her way around Interlachen on Saturday, too, which helps to dull the nerves and allows her to forget the huge arena in which she is competing. The bigger the event, though, the better Lewis seems to perform.
Two years ago at the Kraft Nabisco, Lewis was tied for the lead on the 70th hole. She missed two putts on her last three holes that kept her from a playoff with Morgan Pressel, with whom she was paired. She also "won" an unofficial event in Arkansas last fall that was shortened to 18 holes because of rain. Lewis shot 65. The LPGA wiped out the tournament and acts as if the event never took place, but Lewis has a trophy in her bedroom to prove that it did.
"I've never seen her perform poorly because of nerves," said Hester. "There are times she can be impatient, but when she has a big arena — like the Kraft, or the NCAAs (which Lewis won in '07 with a final-round 66), she has thrived under that pressure. If she can stay patient, there's no telling what she can do on Sunday."
Added her dad, "She knows this is big. She seems to play her best in conditions when she is a little nervous."
At Interlachen, the table has been set for a Sunday that could be absolutely riveting. There is the young Lewis, trying to win her first pro start. There is Creamer, possibly the next great American player, two years Lewis' junior but extremely seasoned, in position to win her first major. We have Alfredsson, at 43, making a run at the championship she let slip away not once, but twice more than a decade ago.
And who knows what other surprises might arise on Sunday at a U.S. Open.
There will be few in the gallery or watching at home who know enough about Lewis to believe she can get it done. As Saturday afternoon slipped into evening, former U.S. Golf Association president Judy Bell listened to Lewis talk about her round and looked as if she knew something the rest of us didn't. Bell has a good feeling about this one. After all, she was there at St. Andrews to watch Lewis go unbeaten at the Curtis Cup.
"I've watched her," Bell said. "She's going to be something special. She's got that ‘thing' in her eye."
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