The Women's Open will happen after 8 months in 7 countries on 3 continents for the LPGA Tour

St. Andrews, Scotland — Stacy Lewis is back at the highest table within the media room, answering a late query from someone who was too shy to shout through the press conference due to gusts of wind.

Her five-year-old daughter Chesnee desires to know if she will have a swimming pool – “a big one” – if her mother wins here like she did in 2013.

“I think I might be able to help you, girl,” says Lewis.

Eleven years have passed for the reason that Texan birdied the ultimate two holes to win the Women's Open by two shots. The second shot on hole 17 stays the very best of her profession, so the 5-iron is the one club she has kept for her office.

But while motherhood has pushed golf out of her priority list and loosened her blinders, the demands of the LPGA Tour have taken up much more of her time.

This yr's tour began with two events in Florida and ends with three more within the Sunshine State. The 10 months in between? A map with confusing zigzag lines through the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia that wouldn't be misplaced in Chesnee's school notebook.

This week's Open is the fifth major in as many months, not counting the Olympics at Le Golf National in France earlier this month. St. Andrews ends the majors season, but with the Solheim Cup in September and one other Pacific leg in the autumn that may see us visit China, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan and Hawaii in only 35 days, the calendar is packed and won't end anytime soon.

We will only ask crucial questions on this press conference!!!

Chesnee asked mom @Stacy_Lewis if she could get a swimming pool 🥰😂 pic.twitter.com/bhqgapR1Yz

— LPGA-USA (@LPGA) 21 August 2024

The LPGA Tour's 33 stops and majors this yr total greater than 215 hours of pure flight time. The total mileage adds as much as greater than three trips around the globe.

This just isn’t a brand new problem – last yr there have been a record 18 dates on the schedule, with greater than 3,000 kilometers covered between tour stops. This season there was the trip to China and intra-continental visits to Thailand and Malaysia; in May there was a criss-cross from the west coast of Los Angeles to the east coast of New Jersey; in June there was a visit from Michigan to the PGA Championship in Washington state and back to Michigan, two six-hour flights with just 4 days' rest in between.

Eight and a half months into the season, with winds forecast at 40-45 mph on Thursday and lots of players unable to play the Scottish Open to get reacquainted with links golf, are you able to expect any player to be at their best? “Probably not, no,” said Lewis, who’s captaining the U.S. team on the Solheim Cup in Virginia next month. “Most of the guys who played in the Olympics, you talk to and this week is just very emotionally draining. So no, our schedule, especially in Olympic years, is really, really tough.”

“There's been a lot of talk about the schedule lately, but at the same time, I've been doing this for 15 or 16 years. You learn to deal with it and you learn to be ready in those moments and really just do your best.”

Since 2009, prize money on the Women's Open has risen from $2.2 million to $9 million, a rise of 409 percent – a tripling since AIG began sponsoring the tournament in 2020.

Lewis described the improvements in infrastructure and facilities on the Women's Open as “night and day” in comparison with 2013, but believes their hands are tied in relation to finding ways to ease the grueling schedule.

“I think that's the ideal, but it's all about when the sponsors want to play along and when we get the golf courses,” she said.

“We don't have the luxury of the PGA Tour saying, 'We'll give you a certain amount of dollars and we'll play this week.' We don't have the money to just spend it like that.”

“We are at the mercy of the sponsors in some ways. We are at the mercy of the golf courses, that's the nature of our situation. Do we want to be better? Yes, definitely. I think our team behind the scenes is working like crazy on that, but we are a world tour and I want to compete against the best players every week.

“To try this, we have now to play in Thailand because we have now players from Thailand. We'll play in Korea because we have now players from Korea. I feel that's just the character of it. For me, it's more about imagining that this can be a world tour. When you say you're going to play on the LPGA Tour, that's what you signed up for.”

World number one Nelly Korda won six tournaments in seven starts between January and May, including the Chevron Championship, and has earned over $3 million in prize money this year.

That allows her the luxury of skipping the entire Asian tour, a seven-week break earlier this year that came between her winning streaks. But even the two-time major winner had to withdraw from the JM Eagle LA Championship in April due to exhaustion.

Lexi Thompson summed up a conversation concerning the mental and physical demands of the LPGA Tour in May when she announced her season-ending retirement at just 29 years old.

She has spoken about how “lonely” and grueling life on tour has been since she first qualified for the US Open at age 12, but believes there are methods to ease the burden.

“The schedule, for sure,” Thompson said. “I think the amount of travel is a lot. I think the schedule could be better. Certain events could be back to back and close together. We travel abroad a lot, but it's a world tour, that's part of it, and we're very lucky with the sponsors we have outside the country.

“After the announcement, there's just a little less weight on my shoulders because I've been fascinated with it for a couple of years now. So it's something that's been buzzing around inside me but no person really knew about it or what was going to occur.”

Catriona Matthew won her only major title at the 2009 Open, winning at Royal Lytham & St Annes just 11 weeks after giving birth to her child. Now 54 years old, Matthew is taking part in her home tournament for the last time and how she managed to tour with her two children in the years that followed is something she doesn't know.

To continue to pursue another Major in such a strong field, where Lewis has 60 percent winning potential, requires enormous resilience.

Lydia Ko is looking to end an eight-and-a-half-year drought in the majors this week, but the Australian is hot on the heels of winning gold in Paris and becoming the 35th woman to be inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame.

Her triumph at age 15 still makes her the youngest player to ever win on the LPGA Tour. Twelve years later, however, she suddenly became more realistic about how long she was willing to endure her morning back pain – and whether she might bring forward her planned retirement at 30.

“In some ways it can be scary because I’ve been playing golf since I was five,” Ko said.

“This is my life whether I prefer it or not, and golf has given me a lot on and off the course that I’m grateful for.

“As much as we are grateful to be able to do what we love and compete at a high level, I think there's also the other side of things that you have to consider. As someone who is maybe closer to this point in their career than when I was a rookie, you recognize all of those things and respect the player for the decision she made.”

There are players who’re still determined to make it to the key leagues, most notably Englishman Charley Hull, whose attitude towards his recent shoulder injury reflects the mindset needed to address this relentless schedule.

“My shoulder is just a little stiff, so I do acupuncture every other day because when it's cold it can hurt a little bit,” she said.

“I also have degenerative arthritis. When it gets cold, it gets a little stiff. I just try to keep it warm.

“Otherwise I’m healthy and ready to go.”