Rozner: Golfer Stacy Lewis scores huge victory for women of LPGA

With a heat index of 109 Friday afternoon, Stacy Lewis walked a golf course for 5½ hours.

That was difficult for everyone at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship, roasting in the blast furnace that was Kemper Lakes. But Lewis also played 18 holes. And she happens to be five months pregnant.

Yet, she was - as always - Stacy Lewis, feisty and loud and at times angry with herself, as when she walked off the 14th green with a bogey Friday, in full possession of her entire vocabulary.

Lewis made the cut at plus-2 after a 4-over Round 2 that was pretty much the norm once the wind picked up and the greens began to bake.

It was quite impressive and it means a lot to Lewis, the two-time major winner and former world No. 1 who will play one more tournament in two weeks and then take a sabbatical.

It has become quite the story in women's professional golf and an important topic of conversation this week, at least in part because of the role her sponsor, KPMG, has played since Lewis broke the news.

"My time with KPMG has been unbelievable," said the 33-year-old Lewis. "You guys can see it this week in what they've done with this tournament the last four years, making it into the best major we have.

"Me personally, they've done a ton to support me and now my family, and I just couldn't be more thankful."

Even though she'll miss a healthy portion of the 2018 season, including two majors, her main sponsor will continue to pay her contract, which has led other sponsors to do the same.

"KPMG called me a couple days after I told them I was pregnant and said they wanted to pay me for the whole contract, regardless of the number of tournaments I played," she said. "They see me as a member of their team and their family and they wanted to treat me like any other female in their organization that has a baby.

"I was blown away, shocked to get that phone call.

"As far as the maternity policies, I think ours is pretty good on the (LPGA) Tour, but I hope it changes the way contracts are written, where it doesn't have to come from a (sponsor's) CEO.

"There's a lot of women on this Tour that basically have to say, 'I'm willing to give up all of my income this year to have a baby,' and that's a hard decision to make for a lot of people.

"If they don't have income and they don't have their (Tour) status for the next year, that's a big deal."

Lewis is due in early November and with the LPGA Tour heading to Europe for a few weeks, Lewis figured mid-July was the logical time to get off her feet.

But, as Lewis pointed out, many female pro athletes are the primary breadwinner in the family and can't afford to leave a sport to have a baby. It's a constant tug between fighting to succeed, which can easily take a player into her 30s, and starting a part of her life she has always wanted.

"You've been so focused on what you want to accomplish, and then there's that family component that is always in the back of your mind," Lewis said. "You wonder how you can balance it all.

"I want my kids - even though they may not ever remember it - to know that they were a part of my career.

"I don't want to retire and then have kids. I want to do it all at the same time, and I want to show that it can be done, that it's not such a bad thing, because really in the last 10 years we haven't had a lot of that on the LPGA Tour."

Simply put, in an individual sport you don't get paid if you don't play, and players who haven't had the kind of success Lewis has had might have to wait to start a family.

Lewis mentioned that players talk openly of the fear of waiting too long and missing the opportunity.

"I honestly never thought about the money part of it. I really just wanted to have a family," Lewis said. "But there were a lot of thoughts this year of, 'I need to make sure I'm playing good.'

"There was pressure to cover expenses and pay for your caddie and all that kind of stuff, which I never really had to think about before.

"So what KPMG did just made all of that easier, and it took a lot of the pressure off."

Lewis, as of now, plans to return to golf in January, but that raises questions about travel and keeping the baby on a schedule and everything else that goes with motherhood.

There will be many challenges.

"But every time you end a conversation with a mom, they just say, 'It's all worth it. It's the greatest thing ever,' " she said.

Lewis' story has brought much attention to the issue of maternity leave, but golfers don't want any distraction, let alone one this large while trying to win a major.

Still, the value of casting a light on the situation was too much for Lewis to pass up.

"I think a lot of people were shocked to learn that it had never happened before," Lewis said of KPMG's decision to support her. "Players that are moms and have kids, they thought it was the greatest thing ever because they had been in my position and they know what that feels like.

"More than anything, it brought attention to it and that's the goal. I didn't necessarily want to put it out there, but the more I thought about it, I was like, 'This could bring about some change,' and we need to get it out there."

Pregnancy, not surprisingly, is starting to take a toll on her game and the ferocious heat didn't help.

"I'm not hitting the driver as far, but the irons are still going the same distance," Lewis said. "Right now, it's really just trying to manage energy more than anything, taking a few more naps and resting a little bit more. Other than that, I think it's been pretty good."

Lewis isn't likely to win the PGA Championship this year, but she has already scored a huge victory for the women of the LPGA.

And she has a much bigger prize coming in November.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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