Beth Ann Nichols is a writer with Golfweek magazine and a past award winner with the Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA). Her recent articles include a feature with cancer-fighting collegian Sam Humphreys and Stacy Lewis’ continuing contributions to the game even while she is temporarily off Tour.

You focus on the personal stories in the game. How do you find these stories? Do they come to you or do you seek them out?
Any number of ways. I’ve been lucky enough to spend a lot of time on the road. I don’t spend too much time in the press room, usually. I’m out walking around, introducing myself to family and friends and coaches and people who know the players best. I watch golf, but a lot of times I’m talking about something that has absolutely nothing to do with what’s going on in real time. Often times, that’s when I get my best stories, from the circle of friends and family that players have.

Sometimes there’s something on social media that you see that’s interesting and you kind of follow along. Often times having a conversation in general with my colleagues will spark something that will get me going. Actually, I wrote a story recently based on someone else’s story, about all these scholarship dollars that are left on the table in women’s college golf. That’s not true! So I wrote a column for the magazine debunking the myth, because I do believe it’s misunderstood.

So, anyway, a variety of things.

Your focus is mostly on the women’s game. You are as much a champion for the women’s game as probably anybody writing today. Why is that? It’s partly that you’re a woman yourself, surely, but also because of things you see in the women’s game that are wonderful…
I think the LPGA has a lot of amazing characters that remain unknowns. The reality is that the only “household name” on Tour is probably Michele Wie. She’s the only player right now that people who don’t follow golf and are just sports fans would recognize, and that’s solely because of her time spent on the PGA Tour. So I enjoy uncovering nuggets and telling people’s stories and hopefully shedding a spotlight on folks who really deserve it. There are still a lot of ways that the women’s tour still has a long way to go financially and a lot of other ways to catch up with the men and catch up with the Tiger Effect. I’m passionate about the game and I’m a former college player myself and just love telling stories about people. More than birdies and bogeys, I love writing about people.

This year you’ve had some great stories to write about, some that are golf-related and some that are a little more personal. What are two or three stories from 2018 so far that jump out at you from the women’s game?
Well, my favorite event so far this year was definitely the US Senior Women’s Open. Joanne Carner shooting her age, lighting up a cigarette on the range, taking a long drag in between shots. It was like a step back in time. It was so fabulous! I’m almost 39, and a lot of those players that are legendary I’ve never seen win before in person. I’ve never seen Laura Davies win a tournament in person before, so that was cool. Same thing watching Betsy King and players that I watched as a kid on television, but I’d never seen them in person competing in a major, for something that felt really big. So that was cool for me, because as a professional, these were a lot of players that I didn’t get a chance to cover or hadn’t seen win before. I think Joanne Carner carried that championship, no question. She was the most intriguing story of the event. I soaked up every minute of it, and I thought it was a tragedy that it only had four hours of television coverage total—it just kills me! I think the USGA will fix that next year.

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My favorite story of the year was Haley Moore at the NCAA Championship. I don’t know how you can’t root for Haley Moore. Watching her at the ANA several years ago, thinking she might miss the cut, getting really emotional—I just thought everybody was pulling for Haley. It was sort of the same situation with Arizona the underdogs in the final. I walked around with her mother a little bit, and she opened up to me about the bullying that Haley had endured as a young golfer and a young student. I felt like Haley’s story was the kind of story that could inspire a lot of people who maybe don’t even play a sport. They aren’t involved at all, but they can see how a college event, a team event, can really make you feel like you’re part of something bigger and that you’re accepted and you can shine. You can rise above it and be a champion. I just loved all those factors about it. I thought it was phenomenal.

Here’s a question because you’re someone who looks at the players and not just the scores. Professional golf is a precarious business. We see lots of players come and go pretty quickly. What is it in a player’s character or nature that enables them to sustain a career over time and keep competing?
I’ve heard a lot of players—and the most recent would be Ariya Jutanugarn—talking about the higher purpose of why you play. You interview enough players and they’ll tell you that the euphoria of winning wears off quick. You find yourself in a hotel room by yourself, having missed your flight because you had to stay late after you won and do all the things that come with winning, and all of a sudden you’re having to rebook a flight by yourself in your hotel room, and you’re like, “This is it? This is what I’ve been working so hard for?” That wears off. Even players that win over and over, and try to become number one in the world, and then become number one in the world, ask, “Do I really want this? There’s got to me more to it than this.”

I think charity work—that’s often a huge outlet for players, something for them to focus on that’s bigger than trophies and bigger than golf. When I think they find their platform, find their reason why for doing what they’re doing beyond inspiring other people to play golf—while that is important, for sure—I think they want a little bit more. It’s not only champions. I recently wrote a story on Cindy LaCrosse and her working with animal shelters around the country. At each Tour stop she finds an animal shelter to work with and raise awareness and donate items and get dogs and cats adopted. That’s a passion for her that has helped her to refocus. You don’t have everything in your life focused around golf. I think having an outlet, having a place to go home to where you have a sense of community—because everyone needs to get away from it. It’s not just a place you go home to practice; you want a place where there are people you can unwind with and talk about things other than golf. That’s an intangible that a lot of people don’t normally think about. It’s a really lonely life, professional golf. I think people can’t really understand that until they’re in it. You can hear that, but you don’t really understand it until you’re in the middle of it.

What about you, Beth Ann? You can get caught up with golf and eat and breathe and sleep everything golf. How do you get away from it?
I do love the game, but I can definitely get overgolfed—not even from playing it, just watching it and thinking about it. I love to travel and do things. I love to travel with my golf clubs and without them. I’m fortunate to have a good home system. That’s really important. I’m married now, but when I was single and living in Orlando, it was really important to me to have people know that I was gone and miss that I was gone and be excited that I had returned. Those were people from my church, the singles group at my church. They kept track of where I was and where I’d been. That made Orlando feel like home. It’s not my hometown, but it made it feel like home. I think for players it has to be the same. They must feel the same way. When you travel 20-plus weeks a year, you want to know that people are excited that you’re back. You have other things to do that have nothing to do with your career, whatever that is. I found that at First Baptist Orlando. Life has changed since then, but at the heart of it I think that’s what we all want. That was my escape.

Hall of Famer Betsy King, twice a winner of the US Women’s Open, has spent the years of her retirement focused on Africa, where the need for clean water remains acute, and the provision of that water makes incredible differences in the lives of the people. We talked to Betsy about her organization, Golf Fore Africa, and how you can connect with them.

Introduce us to Golf Fore Africa.
Golf Fore Africa is a non-profit that we started 11 years ago, and we raise money to bring help and hope to Africa. Currently, we are funding water projects in rural villages in Zambia. We fund water pumps, hand pumps, wells, and also mechanized systems, mainly in health clinics and schools. The hand pumps are in villages. We are working are in very rural areas where people are often living without electricity. When we do a mechanized system, we [often] use solar power to pump the water up to a holding tank, and then we are able to put taps along the line just outside homes and bring water inside to help facilities and schools.

It’s always fun to see a fresh contrast with people that are living there. They look healthier, they look cleaner, and their spirits are raised.I get to Africa two or three times a year. I have been there twice this year, and every time I go I am inspired to come back and do more. The people have a great spirit and yet they are living in conditions we just don’t see in the United States. I mean there aren’t too many people here that don’t have access to clean water and don’t have a lot of electricity. [The lack of water] often affects women and girls the most because they are the ones that are often tasked with walking for water. Actually, one of the statistics is that 1,000 children die each day in the developing world due to drinking dirty water, so it is something that can be changed and prevented, and that is what we are trying to do.

We partner with World Vision. They are the ones that do the work on the ground. Golf Fore Africa, our goal is to raise funds and awareness in the golf community to address the water crisis. We feel that we need to go Africa every year to see if our dollars are where they said they would be and doing what we said they would do. We’ve really had a good partnership and we have already brought clean water to over 200 wells in Zambia, as well as funding water work in several other countries.

That’s great. What do you do when you go?
We do two things. We take donors along that have funded wells or mechanized systems. We usually like to start the trip with going to a community that doesn’t have access to clean water. It is very eye-opening. We had two couples that were with us in June and their first reaction, talking about it afterward, was, “I cant believe that people live today in conditions like this.”

We had a family that was living in a one-room hut and the children were not very healthy. Not only did they not have access to clean water, their food source was very scarce and the children might eat only twice a day and the adults once a day. It’s not a very nutritious diet and they had a number of issues they were addressing. When we bring clean water into a community, it just changes everything. Now they don’t have to get sick from the water that they are drinking, they don’t have to walk as far to get the water, so it frees up their time. Girls are now able to go to school and there are a number of businesses that grow up around the water well. Most of the families are trying to raise crops, so now their crops are better and they are able to grow more and possibly take some to the market and make a little money. They are hoping to get themselves out of extreme poverty. So that’s the first thing we do is take them to a community without clean water.

Then we dedicate wells in villages that have received these wells, and it is a big celebration. It’s always fun to see a fresh contrast with people that are living there. They look healthier, they look cleaner, and their spirits are raised. They are now taking control of their lives because they have opportunity. I can’t tell you what a contrast that is. I mean, everyone that goes with us notices that.

It is very important to do the celebration because one of the things we believe is that we give a hand up, not a handout. So once we dig the wells and dedicate it, it is now the responsibility of the village to take care of it. World Vision has someone that comes in as a community worker. Not only do they teach them how to take care of the well, but there is a water committee that is trained to take care of the well. They collect some money, but there is money on hand to repair the well if it breaks down. Then they are also taught about hygiene and sanitation, so that’s very important as well. All those things together make a big difference in the lives of the families and children that we see in Africa. Every time I have gone, I am inspired to do more and I’m also inspired by the people we interact with.

It’s amazing what a difference a well makes.
Yes. I have learned a lot about how you do development in the Third World, and it’s very hard to do some things if people don’t have access to clean water and have a food source. It’s pretty basic, but it is also very necessary and it just makes such a difference. We are all responsible for carrying out the Great Commission to share the gospel, but also you know Jesus loved the poor, so you have to have hearts for the poor and you know do more than just pray. You also can physically bring help, so that is what we are doing.

You have a couple of events coming up in Southern California and Arizona that our people might want to get involved in. How can they do that?
Well, if they go our website, which is GolfForeAfrica.org, they can click on Events. The event in California is called Strong Women, Strong World Orange County. That is on Friday, October 6, at the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach. We have great speakers for that event. We have a woman from Africa who is coming to speak who works for World Vision in Zambia. Another speaker Lani Dolifka, owns a water company here in the United States. For every gallon of water they sell here, they pay for a gallon of water in the developing world. So it really makes a difference.

Then on Thursday, November 8, we have an event down here in north Scottsdale. Rich and Renae Stearns—Rich is the head of World Vision—they are our main speakers at our Scottsdale event. They are both a lot of fun. We do an African marketplace where people can buy items that are made in Africa and they benefit various charities, not necessarily our charity. We have a virtual reality space this year where you can put on that headset and see a story of someone walking for water like they do in Africa. We do an ask at the end, but everyone that comes is usually touched and it is fun and it is informative. I know that everyone that I have talked to has really enjoyed the experience.

Californian Andrea Wong has taken to professional golf with as much enthusiasm and joy as she does most things, including her love for food, travel, and the outdoors. We talked with her recently about her individual style but also her commitment to fellowship that helps keep her faith on track while traveling and competing for a living.

Looking at your website, it’s very obvious that you love traveling.
Yes, I love traveling.

What are two or three places where you have said, when I travel I have to get back here?
We’ve done a lot of traveling, but there is still so much more of the world to see. For me, each place that I go is really special. Some places are a little more beautiful than others, but to me what makes the place memorable are the people that I meet there. That’s what makes each place really special.

Obviously, France is a beautiful country. I got to go to Paris last year—not even for golf. I was in the area and my best friend lives there, so I got to spend a little bit of time there with her and her husband. I love being home. I think I take San Francisco for granted a little bit, right? It’s such a cool city, so it’s always nice to be here. I went to Arkansas last year. It sounds random, but I just had such a fun time. We were in Fayetteville. The LPGA event is there. I had an amazing host family there. Southern hospitality is a real thing. It was awesome to spend time with the people there, and that’s what made the place memorable.

Being loved and cared for was really what made me on fire for Jesus. They showed me what it looked like to walk with God. It was ultimately through friendship that I came to know Jesus.
What it sounds like is you’re doing a really good job of taking what can be a lonely profession and getting connected to the people and the places, so it’s not so lonely. Is that right?
Yeah, exactly.

I think we have this picture in our minds of tour professionals just golf, golf, golf, golf. But when you spend time on your site, say, you see you and your friends eating and doing stuff outdoors, just enjoying the environment.
Yeah.

Let’s talk food. Do you have favorites, or do you love trying things?
I do love trying things, but anything having to do with noodles, whether it’s Asian or pasta, anything like that, I just love noodles.

You express your faith in God on your website. Where did that start for you?
I got saved in college [at UC Davis] through Athletes in Action my sophomore year. I went to Catholic school growing up, but didn’t grow up in a Christian home or a church. I was first exposed to Christianity in general through my Catholic high school. Then in college I would kind of dabble through Athletes in Action when I felt like it, and I had a couple of friends on the men’s golf team who were going to College Golf Fellowship. My friend had just come back from a retreat and he shared Jesus and the gospel with me. No one had ever actually shared that, and that got me very curious.

So I committed to going to Athletes in Action every week. The second week I was going, I met this girl. She befriended me and we became really good friends. It was through relationship with her that I ultimately got saved. I lived with her and two other girls in community with them. Being loved and cared for was really what made me on fire for Jesus. They showed me what it looked like to walk with God. It was ultimately through friendship that I came to know Jesus.

When you’re living in one place, you have a regular group or a church. But when you travel like you do, how do you get supported in your faith?
That’s relevant for anyone, right? For me, I’m continuing to learn what it looks like to be in community and connected with people back home. The hardest thing is not fellowship on tour but fellowship when I go home. I didn’t grow up in church, so I don’t have that many Christian friends back in San Francisco. I’m involved in a church, but you can’t join a community group or connect with people that much because you’re away. I feel like God has been teaching me a lot about that. At the beginning of last year I was praying about that, but in the middle of last season I got stagnant, saying, “Oh, you know, it’s too hard to have community back home. I’m away too much.” But I felt like God was telling me, “No, Andrea, I have you at this church for a specific purpose. I have people for you here, so pray about it and pray about it every day until it happens.” Literally, at the turn of the new year I met this new girl at church and got into their group. That was amazing. I saw God answer that prayer.

On tour, Tracy [Hanson] has made herself available to us. It’s amazing, because she cares for us really genuinely, and I know that if I need anything ever from her, she’s available. Then Cris Stevens helps us with a Bible study every week that a couple of the girls lead. I just got connected with a couple of other Christian girls on tour. That’s been amazing to do life with them on tour but also to be supported and be able to encourage each other. You’re on the same wavelength. Even though you get along with someone who on tour may not be a Christian, when it is someone who’s a Christian there is an even greater level of understanding of each other, and being seen and known by them. So I’m really being intentional with the girls I feel connected with on tour.

All photos from Andrea’s website, which features a lively blog about her travels and interaction with the people she meets. It’s at andreajwong.com.