Tracy Hanson, a 15-year LPGA Tour veteran and consultant for women’s ministries with Links Players, is at the historic Chicago Golf Club for the inaugural US Senior Women’s Open, which starts today. She is caddying for old friend Barb Bunkowsky (pictured), and she brings us her insights into the tournament as it opens.

Let’s talk about Barb a little bit. What is your friendship going back with her?
We played just a couple years on Tour, my first couple years, with each other. Met her through the fellowship and then kind of got to know her a little bit on and off the golf course. She left the Tour because she got married and had a child.

We have maintained an off-and-on friendship over the time and distance, and over the last seven years we have been able to rekindle that friendship and have gotten to spend more time personally with each other.

How did she qualify to get in?
She qualified through a local qualifier. I think it was in Daytona at one of the LPGA courses. I think she shot 75 to get in.

So, is this a tournament you are hoping to play in yourself one of these days?
Well, I have four years (before turning 50) to mentally prepare myself for the tournament, because the jury is still out on me. Being the inaugural one, the first one, it would have been really fun to be able to play. But because I don’t have a lot of playing time under my belt over the last eight years, I think about it and feel nervous.

The more I have walked into the week, the more excited I have gotten with just the fact that I can be here, caddie for a friend, and to be a part of this historic event with so many players that I have played with.

How physically up to it do you feel?
I am totally fine physically. Beside my normal workout regime—you know, running and hiking and biking—I carried my bag at least once beforehand and played several rounds walking. I even went on a few walks with a weighted backpack on, just to feel weight on my shoulders..

Oh good.
And the bottle of Ibuprofen is sitting on the desk (laughs).

The golf course looks fantastic. Is it?
Yeah. It is more of a links style where the trees don’t really come into play, but it does have that longer fescue grass that can come into play.

Right.
The bunkers are definitely positioned to come into play. Not all of them are an issue, but they are there so that you can see them. And then there are a few that depend on which tee boxes they end up playing. There are five holes where there are two options for tee boxes. Many bunkers will come into play depending on the tee box.

It definitely feels like an old golf course—you know, a little bit back and forth, kind of more compact, no homes around it.

The greens are massive and a lot of them have a square shape. There are a lot of false fronts, so it’s going to be the challenge because if you can’t get it over the false front, the greens have a lot of curve and then these square points, so you might run out of green and then down into a deep bunker. They are pretty undulated, too.

So does the golf course favor a certain type of player?
Any golf course usually favors a long hitter, but I think it is going to favor the player that can hit it high and control the quadrants where they can play their balls. There is a little bit even with the false fronts. We’ve been talking about it today that if you can, it’s probably the better area to miss the green short and use like a rescue club up the hill to the green versus over the green and chipping back, which is typically downhill or a sidehill. The greens are running I think 12 to 12-1/2 (on the Stimpmeter).

So on paper, this looks like Juli Inkster’s tournament to win, or are there others who can contend with her?
I would say that Juli is definitely a favorite, probably one of the top three favorites, because she has just been playing and competing and she is a long hitter, and so she is probably one of the ones in the best in competitive shape. But I also think Trish Johnson, who won the LPGA Senior Championship last year, could be in the hunt or other players like Laurie Rinker or other players that have just never stopped playing.

Um, who else? Laura Davies is here. You know, you can never count Laura Davies out.

And Liselotte Neumann?
Yep, Liselotte is here and she’s got her long-time caddie with her. Juli has her long-time caddie with her.

So those are probably some of the favorites, for sure.

When you say the course favors a long hitter or Juli is a long hitter, what is a long hitter among the senior players right now?
Um, I would think that Juli is still hitting it longer than I am, so she is probably out there like 260-265.

Are there any dark horses to watch out for?
You’ve got some girls who are physically in really good shape, and so for longevity of walking four days in a row plus the practice rounds, at the end of the weekend if they can keep their ball in play, they are going to have the stamina.

Hiromi Kobayashi is here from Japan. I don’t know how much she is playing, but there are a couple other Japanese players here. So you’ve got players that have experience and I think all the ones that have stayed in the golf business have a better chance, because they have been just around golf, playing golf and thinking golf.

And I don’t know a lot about the amateur players, but there are some good amateur players here. I wouldn’t count out an amateur player giving it a run.

Anything else we should know before we watch?
The USGA has really done a good job of showcasing the history of women in golf.

JoAnne Carner is going to hit the first shot. Hollis Stacy is second. And you’ve got the 1962 US Open winner, Murle Lindstrom Breer.

On a personal note, it has been fun because I haven’t been at a USGA event in, I don’t know, over 10 years. They have all of the boards of past champions of all the amateur events and Opens, so they have a board for all the US Amateur Public Links Championships, and I found my name on the board (photo below)!

(Chicago Golf Club Photo: USGA gallery – Fred Vuich)

Today Links Daily Devotional editor Jeff Hopper completes a 16-week round of chemotherapy treatments after a surgery in February to remove a second liposarcoma from his chest (his first surgeries and treatments in 2016 are documented in his book, My Hundred Helpers: The Provision of God through People). Meanwhile, Links Players Arizona region director Lewis Greer continues hormone treatments and follow-ups for prostate cancer first identified in summer 2015. Here the two “weakened warriors” talk about how their cancer treatments have robbed their strength on the golf course and how they have learned to enjoy the game anyway.

Jeff: Did you find that it was harder for you to deal with the physical weakness or the changed expectations about how you could play?

Lewis: The hardest thing for me was dealing with the physical side of it. I refuse to deal with the changed expectations. My expectations virtually never went down. I knew in my heart that I could not play as well, mostly because I have lost distance, but the physical part was—I don’t think I’m over that.

Jeff: The expectations are hard to lose. Someday we are going to have to, right? We’re going to be 85 and our expectations are going to have to change, aren’t they?

Lewis: Yes.

Jeff: So why is it so hard temporarily?

Lewis: Well, that’s a great question. I think that I simply wasn’t ready for this. I think at some point I knew that I would have to do this, but I didn’t think I would have to now and I was telling someone the other day that it really came at an inconvenient time, and she said, “Is there a convenient time?” I said, “Probably not.” But I think that that was really my issue, that I simply wasn’t ready for this to happen now.

Jeff: You said that you had lost distance. I certainly have lost distance. Anything else that is noticeable or is that how it shows up, in the loss of distance?

I was telling someone the other day that it really came at an inconvenient time, and she said, “Is there a convenient time?”Lewis: It shows up two ways primarily. One is distance, which is obvious and sort of immediate. And the other is energy, which is lacking tremendously. I love to walk and carry; it is my primary way to play. And I find it very difficult to do that especially if there is any heat, which there often is here. So, I then moved to a push cart and even that sometimes is hard and I simply can’t do. I monitor myself better now better than I did for a while and I still believe that I will recover from these side effects, but it has taken much longer to recover than either the doctors or I had thought that it would. So, loss of distance—probably a full club on the irons and probably 20-30 yards on the driver.

Jeff: I might be 50 yards shorter with the driver, and what’s worse is that it is totally unpredictable. You know how it is. You think that you are making the same swing every time, but you’re not. For me right now it is maybe 20 yards different, 20 yards of lost distance when I hit it well. But it can be 70 yards lost distance when I miss it.

Lewis: The misses are magnified, aren’t they?

Jeff: Yeah, it’s no fun.

Lewis: Yeah, no fun. I’ll hit a shot and I’ll think, Wow, and I start to walk out after it and I’ll arrive much sooner than I thought I would.

Jeff: Yeah, much sooner, and now you can’t reach the par-4.

Lewis: Right. I am often hitting much longer clubs into par-4s than I am used to doing. It really is a challenge. The energy thing happens to me as I am playing, and I will have a couple of good friends, Links Players, that I play with on a regular basis and they will say on maybe twelve or thirteen, “That was a tired swing.” They can see it before I even recognize it. The good news is that this loss of distance has been very good for my short game.

Jeff: Oh, yeah.

Lewis: I still think I can hit and carry a 7-iron 150 yards and I carry it 133 yards and it bounces up. So I have to hit more short-game shots than I have ever had to hit before. Also, the energy shows up in my inability to spend much time on the driving range. So I spend a little bit more time in the short game area and there is much less effort to do that and it has probably a better reward. The good side is that if I get the energy back, get the length back and keep the short game, then I am going to be trouble.

Jeff: That would be nice! Forced carries, even just where I’ve got to carry it over a bunker to get to a flag, I can’t risk that anymore because I have no idea what is going to happen.

Lewis: I have found myself not aiming for the pin as much as aiming for someplace that I know will be safe even if it comes up short.

Jeff: Right. See for me I think I have found—and I have always liked this style of play anyway—but I think about playing along the ground. Maybe it used to be a 6-iron and now it is a 4-iron. I feel more comfortable hitting that as a punch-and-run 4-iron if the hole allows for it.

Lewis: Right, yes, like my friend Andrew Yun said when he played in this really windy tournament in the Bahamas: “Keep everything low and hit a lot of chip shots.” I got to thinking about that and, in effect, you and I playing into the wind.

Jeff: Yeah, effectively that is what we are doing in terms of thinking about our club choices.

Lewis: Right. So you keep the ball lower and play more of a ground game and more punch shots and it is more creative, and I think sometimes it is a lot of fun.

Jeff: It is, and you are actually playing the ball lower anyway because you can’t generate enough clubhead speed to really throw it up it up into the air like you would normally do.

Lewis: That is correct.

Jeff: So what we have come to is that the best thing for a weakened warrior is to move to the UK.

Lewis: (Laughs) Good idea. Play the links-style courses.

Jeff: Yeah, I mean, I guess you can look at it and say, if you are not a member of a particular club, “I used to play here, but I have started to play here because I can enjoy the game the way I am capable of playing it right now.”

Lewis: I think that that is a great idea.

Jeff: What else? Anything else about how you approach the game that is different because you just can’t muscle it out there anymore?

If I am going to have enough energy to get through 18 holes, I am going to have to ride, and that makes me more social right there.
Lewis: Well, I play a lot more social golf than I do competitive golf. Part of it has to do with my inability to play the game that I used to play. I have realized that I cannot be as competitive as I once was. And so that has been good for me because I have spent time thinking about the people that I am playing golf with and thinking about my own game and I worry much less about my own game than I once did. If I miss shots I know I am going to miss shots, that it is OK. I let it go a lot easier than I did once upon a time. And I brought the people that I play with in that world with me and they are happy to be there and happy to walk alongside me and help out and we all joke about it. I always say with no testosterone I should be able to play from the ladies’ tees and nobody ever lets me.

Jeff: Yeah.

Lewis: But we still joke about it and it’s still fun. So on the social side of it, that I would say has been a benefit from getting away from being so competitive on the golf course.

Jeff: I think it is more social for me right now because if I wasn’t riding I wouldn’t be playing. When you’re in a cart it’s always a more social game. I am walker normally like you, but right now I just can’t do that. If I am going to have enough energy to get through 18 holes, I am going to have to ride, and that makes me more social right there.

Lewis: Yes, yes. Right there, that is a good side of it. Of course, having an illness, having treatments, and recovering from both the illness and the treatments, it puts things in perspective for you. I still absolutely love the game. I think about it every day. I pick up a club every day, even if I don’t hit a ball every day, and I still want to improve. I actually took a lesson the other day and I paid for it which is, like, an amazing thing.

Jeff: Yeah.

Lewis: And partly what I was trying to do is find more length taking the swing back even though I don’t have strength. I can watch a little girl hit a ball and carry a ball 200 yards with her driver. You know I should have as much strength as her.

Jeff: Sure.

Lewis: At least once or twice! So I still care about it, but it does have a different place in my perspective.

In many ways, golfers on tour face the same daily priority questions that all of us do: How will I spend my time? What comes first? Where will I set aside time for my spouse, my kids, and focus with the Lord and his people?

What this all means is that these players need prayer. We are often asked at Links Players who the believers are on tour and how you can be praying for them. (You can find many of these players among our magazine articles here.)

We asked Pete Hiskey, who travels and works as an informal chaplain with a number of PGA and Web.com Tour players, to give us some ideas about how we can be praying for the players who make their living at the game.

Here are some things he told us, and you might recognize in these ideas some of the very things you need prayer for in your own life, or things you can be praying for the brothers and sisters in your Links Fellowship or other small group.

“Priorities. They are sooo busy. Not enough hours in a day often. The enemy of the great is the good. These guys have so many good options—including sponsor opportunities, tournament activities and normal evening activities we all have—that it can be hard to choose.” Prayer: That the Lord would allow them to seek his kingdom and his righteousness first (Matthew 6:33), so the things that are needed for life would fall into line after these main priorities.

“Family. With so much time on the road and so many demands from others, they need to keep a constant eye on loving their wives and children.” Prayer: That the Lord would make them husbands and fathers who reflect his kind, caring love for us, but who also take spiritual leadership in their home, including the teaching, training, and discipline that is necessary.

“Spiritual practices. This includes personal growth with Jesus, opportunities to share and invest in God’s kingdom, and stewardship of the gifts and resources they have been given.” Prayer: That the Lord would allow these players to experience the blessing of exchange with the Lord found in Psalm 5, where they lift their voice to God and have time to wait on his voice in return. Ask too that they would receive guidance from the Holy Spirit during these times for the decisions they have to make in their lives.

“Physical care, including rest. Golfers aren’t just playing the 18 holes you see on TV. As professional athletes, they stay competitive with workouts and diets that keep their bodies working their best. It can be hard to know when to say no to more exertion and balance this with the rest a body needs.” Prayer: That these players would remember what it means to treat their bodies as temples of the Lord, as well as to set aside time in Sabbath rest for the restoration of mind and body that is needed to work and serve well.

“Correct self-belief. Not too high, not too low.” Prayer: That these players would assess their lives soberly in all regards, according to the measure of faith they have been given (Romans 12:3), remembering always that their primary identity is in the Lord as his child, not as a golfer, a competitor, an athlete, or a sponsor’s ambassador.

Richard Stott