Whirlwind Year Ending For Lunke

Women's Open Champ Finding Balance In Her Life 10 Months After Major Victory

By David Shefter, USGA

South Hadley, Mass. - Ten months removed from her shocking and dramatic playoff victory at the 2003 U.S. Women's Open, Hilary Lunke seems to have finally found a balance in her life.

The engaging Edina, Minn., native wasn't quite prepared for the post-championship fanfare that followed her first professional victory. Interview requests came from everywhere, as did playing opportunities overseas.

Lunke arrived at the Canadian Open in Vancouver, British Columbia, days after the Women's Open victory in Portland, Ore., thinking she would quietly register on a Tuesday morning. But a plethora of reporters were waiting with notepads, microphones and cameras.

"I hadn't even showered," Lunke confessed at Women's Open Media Day on May 24 at The Orchards Golf Club. "They were writing everything about me, even what I was wearing. I know the next time I win a championship, I will know to shower the next morning."

Winning the U.S. Women's Open can change your life forever. Hilary Lunke found that out shortly after last year's championship at Pumpkin Ridge and the requests for interviews kept on coming. She will defend her title at The Orchards Golf Club in South Hadley, Mass., July 1-4. (USGA Photo Archives)

She might also be more selective about the number of events she chooses to play abroad. France, Spain, Asia and Australia became ports of call for Lunke and her caddie/caddying husband, Tylar.

"Pretty much my whole world has been flipped upside down since last July in a great way," said Lunke, who became the first player since Annika Sorenstam in 1995 to make the Women's Open her first professional win. "We kind of nicknamed it 'Hilary and Tylar's World Tour.' I've just been really, really busy."

Needless to say, Lunke, who also purchased a home in Austin, Texas, a week prior to the Women's Open, was physically and mentally fatigued at the end of 2003. And her golf game suffered, including a stretch of five consecutive missed cuts. The Women's Open victory proved to be her only top-10 effort of the year and just one of 38 post-Open rounds was below 70.

This year, Lunke has yet to record a top-20 finish and she's posted just three sub-par rounds out of 21, amassing $21,286 in seven official LPGA Tour events.

"Last year, the offseason couldn't have come fast enough," said Lunke. "I just needed to take a break and figure things out and to figure out what things I need to work on in my game. I was mentally strained after the Open. This year I have been able to spend some time on the practice range. Slowly but surely, ten months into it, I am learning how to handle this."

Lunke is starting to regain some of the form that helped her edge Angela Stanford and Kelly Robbins in the stirring 18-hole playoff at Pumpkin Ridge last July. She did miss the cut at the Sybase Classic in New Rochelle, N.Y., just prior to Media Day, but outside of two poor weekend rounds in Williamsburg, Va., Lunke had posted some solid scores in her other two May tournaments.

"I played terrible last week (at the Sybase Classic), but I feel like I'm playing better this year," said Lunke, who ranks eighth on tour in fairways hit (80.8 percent). "I've been hitting the ball much better. Ironically, I have struggled with my putting (ranked 116th at 1.88 per green) and that's normally one of my strengths."

Going into the 2003 Women's Open, Lunke's name was barely on the radar screen. Despite a stellar amateur career that included the 2000 Curtis Cup and '00 Women's World Amateur Team Championship in Germany, her professional career had arousedhad little fanfare. In fact, she nearly failed to qualify for the '03 Women's Open at the sectional qualifier at Canoe Brook Country Club in Summit, N.J. She posted an opening-round 80 in the 36-hole event and needed to play the final 15 holes in one under par just to squeak in by a shot (80-73-153).

At the time, Lunke was just happy to returnbe returning to Pumpkin Ridge, the course where she played her first Women's Open at the age of 17 in 1997. Winning was the farthest thing from her mind. This was also her first Open as a pro after three appearances as an amateur.

"I thought I would get in contention a couple of times before I was able to come through in the clutch," said Lunke. "But this has kind of been my pattern for my whole golf career."

Pressure situations didn't seem to affect Lunke at other early stages of her career. As a freshman at Stanford University, she won twice, including her second-ever collegiate tournament, but didn't post another victory over her four-year stint for the Cardinal.

She reached the third round of the U.S. Women's Amateur as a rising high school senior in 1996 and repeated the feat the following year, but never got past the second round after that. At the 2000 Curtis Cup, Lunke accumulated 3½ points to help the USA earn a tough 10-8 victory at Ganton Golf Club. And despite the USA's 17th-place finish at the Women's World Amateur Team Championship, Lunke posted a team-low 72-hole total of 304.

But as a heavy favorite at the 2001 Women's Amateur Public Links Championship at Kemper Lakes outside of Chicago, she was beaten by then 11-year-old wunderkind Michelle Wie in the second round of match play.

Later that year, Lunke qualified for the LPGA Tour on her first attempt through Qualifying School.

"I have always played my best in pressure situations," said Lunke. "Looking back on it, I guess I am someone who can produce when given the opportunity.

"I always seem to play well on difficult golf courses. I don't know if it's a matter of keeping the ball in the fairway or being good at getting up and down or if it's a certain type of mental toughness that you need to keep your score around par. Growing up in Minnesota, I got to play a lot of tough golf courses and in a lot of tough conditions. I just got used to learning how to score."

Surprisingly, Lunke was calm the entire week at Pumpkin Ridge. Maybe it was the fact that few expectations were placed on her. Annika Sorenstam, Se Ri Pak, defending champ Juli Inkster and other elite players had all the pressure to perform. Her experience of playing international competitions as well as elite level amateur golf paid off in the playoff. and Lunke rode her hot putter all the way to the final hole where she drained a 15-foot birdie putt to beat Stanford by a stroke.

The question now is will Lunke be able to build off the success of this championship and have a fruitful professional career? Or will she be like Andy North, who won three pro titles in his career, with two of them coming at the U.S. Open, or Orville Moody, whose only win in his PGA Tour tenure was the 1968 U.S. Open?

"I would be very content," Lunke admitted. "To have one week that I could always look back on as my special week and to have that week come at the Women's Open and the fashion it happened with the playoff and coming down the stretch with Annika (Sorenstam), who is the top player in the world, is pretty incredible.

"At the same time, I am going to do all I can to make sure that I can do something like that again because this is the greatest feeling that I have ever had in my life."

David Shefter is a staff writer for the USGA. Contact him with questions or comments at dshefter@usga.org.