Nine moms are teeing it up at the Cognizant Founders Cup, a week that celebrates the 13 women who built the tour along with the generations that followed.
LPGA founder Betteye Danoff once teed it up at a tour stop in Dallas in the 1950s just two weeks after giving birth to daughter Debbie. She’d gone out to the tournament to see her friends in town and hit a few balls. Danoff wound up calling her husband, a physician, to see if was OK if she played.
LPGA moms have always been remarkable.
Caroline Masson just came back to the tour in March after giving birth to son Benton a year ago. Husband Jason McDede caddies for Nelly Korda, and the family takes advantage of the Smucker’s LPGA Child Development Center, which has been around for 30 years.
Like many moms on tour, Masson finds that motherhood, though challenging, has given her a new perspective inside the ropes.
“It frees you up a lot and makes you appreciate the game a little bit more,” said Masson. “It seems more like a game again maybe. You’re trying to play the game and not trying to be so perfect.”
A mom hasn’t won on tour since Stacy Lewis in 2020. Spain’s Azahara Munoz came close last year, tying for second at the penultimate event of the season in Florida. Earlier this week, Munoz’s son Lucas got sick and had a bad night of sleep, and on Wednesday, he took a spill and nearly cut his eye.
As she said, every week is different.
“I never want to use it as an excuse,” said Munoz, “but it is hard. You are more tired. All these girls are 20, 21, 22, obviously dedicating their 100 percent to the game and we are dedicating the time we have, and the time you have you might not be feeling super fantastic either because you maybe didn’t have a super good night of sleep or whatever. You have an afternoon tee time and I’ve been in the park with Lukey for two hours, so I’m already tired.
“At the end of the day you wouldn’t trade it for the world, either.”
It’s a message that every mom in the field at Upper Montclair can find relatable this Mother’s Day week.
Here’s a look at the nine moms in action:
