Feel-good story of the year.
Class act of the year.
Stacy Lewis, we salute you.
And so does everyone else in the world of golf and beyond.
What Stacy Lewis accomplished this week at the Portland Classic will be talked about for a long time.
All she did was end a three-year winning drought. All she did was declare before the LPGA event started that she would donate her entire check, all her winnings from this week to the relief effort in her hometown of Houston.
Talk about pressure.
She said up front that she wanted that check to be the winner’s check.
And that’s what the relief effort will get and then some.
The sad fact of life on the LPGA Tour is that their purses are paltry compared to what the guys earn. The TOTAL purse this week in Portland was $1.3 million. The winner on Monday in Boston at the Dell will get more than that.
So Lewis played her best for three days with rounds of 70-64-65 and took a three-shot lead into the final day. She was calm about the situation but down the stretch Sunday, it would be a tense, nail-biter for the former world’s No. 1 who came into the week ranked 18th.
Lewis was playing with the world’s No. 6, In Gee Chun and if you want some tough work these days, try going up against these young, emotionless and highly-skilled players from South Korea. Seems like there’s an endless supply out there and American victories are few and far between. There was a grand total of two last year.
Lewis was awesome over the first nine holes. She was three-under and in control of the action. On the back nine, her birdies went away and the Chun-Express was cutting into the lead.
By the 17th hole, Lewis’ lead was down to a single shot and she dodged a bullet when Chun missed a 10-footer for birdie.
At the 18th, Lewis made things tough on herself when her drive caught the fairway bunker to the right. Chun caught a flyer and went over the green, taking some heat off Stacy, who calmly found the back of the green, 35 feet from the cup. Chun’s chip didn’t go in, just two putts and Lewis would get that first win in three years.
Lewis met the challenge, got her putt within two feet and calmly made par. Her winning total was 20-under par, one better than Chun. She shot 69 to Chun’s 66.
Husband Gerry Chadwell, coach of the University of Houston women’s golf team, flew in to Portland and surprised Stacy on the 18th green. It was a long hug of relief.
“Way tough,” was how Lewis described the action down the stretch. “In Gee just played great. That shot from the bunker at 18 is something you dream about.”
Now comes the really good part.
Lewis is giving her entire $195,000 winner’s check to the relief cause.
Now comes the really, really good part. She found out after her round that her main sponsor, KPMG, was throwing in an additional $195,000 for a total of $390,000.
Just like that, this little fireball, all 120-pounds of her, outdid the Commissioner of the PGA Tour.
Ebenezer (Scrooge) Monahan and the rest of the tightwads at PGA Tour headquarters, shook loose the couch cushions and came up with all of $250,000. And that from an organization that has an investment war chest in excess of $1 billion that earns money tax free.
Thank-you Stacy Lewis.
Thank-you on behalf of all of us who love the good people in golf.
And certainly you are one of them.
