|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Kean is keen on golf again
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Even though Laurel Kean's victory at the State Farm Rail Classic was seen on ESPN, you may one day be able to catch her life story on one of those TV movies-of-the-week. There is more to this tale than just some 37-year-old, 13-year veteran having to qualify on Monday just to get in and then going on to record her first LPGA victory by six shots.
At the same time tragedy struck her family. Her brother-in-law, Bob Markus, had a sudden heart attack and died at 52. Michelle, her sister, was left to take care of two young children, Bobby, 6, and Samantha, 9. Without a home base and with her sister in need, Kean packed in her golf bag and headed to Mentor, Ohio, to help out with the family. "Timing is everything. It was at a time I was tired of the tour anyway and I kind of walked right into it," Kean said. "That was one of those life-changing experiences. But one of the blessings is that I am now close to my niece and nephew." For six months Kean didn't touch a golf club. But to help the family make ends meet, Kean needed to get a job. First, she started giving lessons at Bobicks, a local driving range. But the 10-hour, 14-lesson days were not her idea of a career change. In 1999, she played a handful of LPGA events and started to get the fever again. "I felt like I could still play," Kean said. "I'd go out and play with friends and got the bug a little bit. I felt like if I changed something in my attitude, it would come around." But to try to play the tour again would take even more money. So over the winter, Kean took a job as a waitress in an upscale Italian restaurant. While she did make $200 in tips on New Year's Eve, Kean knew her days at Molinari's were going to be short. In June, Kean showed up at the U.S. Open qualifier in Rochester, N.Y., to try to get into the richest field of the year. She would shoot a 74 and end up in a very large playoff -- 18 women, all tour players, vying for just nine spots. On the first playoff hole, a par-5, Kean hit her approach shot the closest -- just three feet from the cup. She looked like a lock to go to the Merit Club. But fate wasn't with her this day. She would miss the three-footer and then miss a similar putt on the next hole to get knocked out of the playoff. Rather than suffer a crisis in confidence, however, she used that failure as a lesson and worked even harder on her game. "The hardest part about playing out here is hanging in there," Kean said. "You play sometimes and you feel like you're beating your head against the wall. It's like you're kind of sort of there, but you're not quite. That is the frustrating part about the tour." Last Monday, the perseverance paid off. While she shot three straight 66s to win the State Farm Rail Classic, her 67 in the Monday qualifier might have been her most important round of the week. But it almost was not good enough. After Angie Ridgeway posted a 65, Kean had to go extra holes with Caroline Gowan for the last remaining spot in the tournament. This time she didn't miss. Kean rolled in a 10-footer on the second sudden-death hole to earn a place in only her sixth event of the season. Before last week, Kean was prepared to go to even another qualifier this season: the LPGA Qualifying School in Daytona Beach, Fla., in October. She wanted to give the LPGA one more shot, but she felt that if she didn't make it through Q school this time around, she would hang up her spikes for good and ask for her job back at Molinari's. But with this most improbable victory, all of her plans have changed. She will still be playing in a tournament during the second week of October but this one will honor her accomplishments and determination. "One trip I'm not making is to Daytona Beach," said Kean, who picked up a first-place check of $135,000 and a two-year exemption. "I'm going to Alabama to play in the Tournament of Champions that same week. That's sounds like a lot more fun." Tom Hanson, a regular contributor to Sports Illustrated's Golf Plus section, is a longtime caddie on the LPGA Tour. Click here to send him a question or comment. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
