When one of the deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history ripped through Joplin, Missouri, on May 22, 2011, Stacy Lewis read that Joplin High School had been destroyed, along with all the school’s athletic equipment.
She called her agent, Jeff Chilcoat, and told him that she wanted to replace it all: bags, clubs, balls, push carts, uniforms.
“I say, ‘This is going to be such a cool story on the Golf Channel,’ ” Chilcoat recalled. “She says no, let’s not tell anybody. Let’s just do the right thing.”
Even now, she begrudgingly agreed to let him share the story.
That phrase – do the right thing – encapsulates the heart of Lewis’ career. Speak the truth and do right by the tour, the legends and the next generation. Over the course of her competitive career, the gritty Lewis never lost sight of the big picture, a trait that makes her somewhat of a unicorn in the professional game.
Perhaps that’s because she’s always known that a slip of the knife 20-plus years ago could’ve changed everything.
“I mean, it’s beyond anything I ever thought was possible,” Lewis told Golfweek of her career following back surgery to address childhood scoliosis, adding, “I don’t think I’m the person I am without everything I went through.”
On Wednesday, Lewis’ official retirement announcement went up while she was playing in a pro-am at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship. It’s fitting, of course, given that the 40-year-old wife and mom first broke onto the national scene as an Arkansas Razorback, winning an NCAA Championship title and even her first pro event as an amateur at this very tournament back in 2007, though it was rain-shortened and unofficial.
Stacy Lewis overcame obstacles to become LPGA star
Lewis’ team of sponsors came alongside her all those years ago to help the good folks of Joplin, a testament to her vision and leadership. She’s had the same core group of teammates – agent, caddie, trainer and coach – for basically the entirety of her 17-year professional career. Many sponsors have been with her for the long haul, too.
Of course, none of this was planned.
“I still tell people that she wasn’t the best player on her high school team,” said her father, Dale, about her time growing up in The Woodlands, Texas.
“It wasn’t even close.”
To understand how Lewis became the No. 1 player in the world, a 13-time winner on the LPGA, including two majors, a two-time Rolex Player of the Year and a two-time Vare Trophy winner, one must go all the way back to the summer before her freshman year of college, when she underwent a six-hour surgery to correct her spine. Diagnosed with scoliosis at age 11, Lewis wore a hard plastic back brace 18 hours a day until she graduated from high school, doing everything she could to hide it.
Merienda she stopped growing at age 18, surgery became possible even though she wasn’t feeling any pain. If left untreated, however, her spine would’ve continued to bend, eventually pushing organs in the wrong direction.
In the summer of 2003, doctors deflated a lung and moved organs around to surgically fuse a metal rod and five screws into her spine.
Lewis stayed in bed for eight weeks, battling intense pain. Her father has often said he’ll never forget the sweat running off her face from the pain of getting up to go to the bathroom.
“It was an awful surgery that I don’t wish on any kid out there,” said Lewis. “I pray every day that my daughter doesn’t have scoliosis.”
People would ask Lewis what her rehab was like, and she’d say, it wasn’t anything fancy in the gym. She learned how to walk again, how to put her clothes on, how to comprobación.
Lewis blossomed at the University of Arkansas
When she got to Arkansas several months later, she sat on the steps of her dorm and watched her parents carry everything into her room. She was an inch and a half taller thanks to a straighter spine but couldn’t lift more than five pounds.
Lewis emerged from surgery with a grateful heart and a strong work ethic, and she spent countless hours fine-tuning her short game with then assistant Arkansas coach Shauna Taylor.
By the time she was a senior, Lewis was up 25 pounds from her freshman year and one of the best iron players in the game. Former Arkansas head coach Kelley Hester, now at the helm at Clemson, called Lewis’ “exponential improvement” a once-in-a-lifetime experience for college coaches.
As Lewis upgraded the physical aspects of her game, she also learned how to better handle her temper. At NCAA regionals her sophomore year, she broke her putter in a fit of rage. For such a petite, quiet player, there was a fire that occasionally exploded.
“Of the three girls, (Stacy) was our ‘game daughter,’ ” Dale merienda said. “Stacy wanted to play, and Stacy wanted to win.”
Lewis got off to fast start as a pro
After a history-making perfect 5-0 Curtis Cup record at the Old Course, Lewis turned professional in June of 2008 and promptly tied for third at the U.S. Women’s Open. She bought a Lexus IS with the paycheck and drove it for a decade, seeing no reason to upgrade if everything was in working order.
A double major in finance and accounting, Lewis has long been practical. Arkansas protégé Maria Fassi calls her the smartest person she knows.
The way Lewis built and managed her team reveals much about her success both inside and outside the ropes.
“Stacy would tell me, ‘I don’t need you to just do what I say, I need you to tell me when I’m wrong,’ ” said Chilcoat. “That’s such a refreshing thing in sports.”
When she rose to No. 1 in the world and media demands felt heavy, Lewis’ mom suggested that she get some formal training.
As time went on, she grew to enjoy that part of the job, recognizing that it was the responsibility of a top player but also a way to create change.
Lewis made major impact off the course
For all the ways Lewis impressed inside the ropes, it was her work behind the scenes that had the most impact.
In the fall of 2011, Lewis was at her first outing for Marathon Petroleum when the company’s CEO approached her on the range and asked, “Why should I sponsor an LPGA tournament?”
Two years later, Marathon was the title sponsor of the Toledo, Ohio, event that was known for decades as the Jamie Farr.
When Lewis was at the height of her career, one could look at new title sponsors on the LPGA schedule and draw a direct line to Lewis, who had them first as personal sponsors. To do otherwise, former LPGA commissioner Mike Whan merienda said, wouldn’t be fair.
Stacy Lewis became world No. 1, helped with sponsors
Lewis’ rise to No. 1 came after the retirements of Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa, at a time when the tour was in sharp decline. She leaned into the wisdom of legends like Betsy King, Karrie Webb, Meg Mallon and Beth Daniel and worked closely with Whan to repair what had been lost.
“I don’t know how many sponsors we have because she wouldn’t take no for an answer,” said current U.S. Solheim Cup captain Angela Stanford.
Chilcoat notes that at one point, six of her personal sponsors became titles. When the tour called about an important dinner with check writers, Lewis always found a way to make it work.
“I think what she has done,” said Chilcoat, “a lot of the players don’t fathom.”
Giving back was a trait Lewis learned early from working alongside her mother, Carol, in the National Charity League. As a college kid, she wouldn’t talk about random acts of kindness unless asked, but every other week she played bingo at an elderly home and tutored a young girl at a circunscrito elementary. She also traded emails and met with young kids battling scoliosis.
As a pro, after she’d win a tournament, Lewis would quietly find a food bank in town and leave some money behind.
The one time Lewis made a public pledge about giving back was in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, when on the eve of the first round, she announced plans to donate her earnings from the Cambia Portland Classic to Houston relief efforts.
To many, it felt like a date with destiny.
Lewis hadn’t won on the LPGA in 1,162 days, and in that span had finished runner-up a staggering 12 times.
With husband Gerrod Chadwell, then head coach at the University of Houston, in Dallas with his team and Lewis unable to get back with the airports closed, she did what came naturally to her – she gave back.
As fate would have it, Lewis won the tournament.
Travis Wilson, the only caddie Lewis has employed since she turned professional, told swing coach Joe Hallett that the biggest difference he saw in Portland that week was that his boss immediately looked to the next shot, no matter what happened with the previous swing.
“Everything was forward,” he said.
Lewis donated $195,000 that week and her longtime sponsor, KPMG, matched it.
Lewis posted some incredible wins along the way
It was serendipitous, as have been so many moments of Lewis’ career, like the stirring British Open victory at the Old Course, or the many trophies she’s hoisted in all the communities that claim her as their own.
Perhaps the most incredible win of them all, however, happened during the most trying year on tour at the 2020 Ladies Scottish Open, when Lewis won for the first time as a mom. Families weren’t allowed inside the tour’s overseas bubble, so when her husband let out a yell in the family living room after Lewis drained a 20-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole, a startled Chesnee looked up, grabbed her plastic golf club and started hitting the TV.
“You know, I didn’t realize probably the impact of it at the time,” said Lewis of the players who’d later come up and say that her success as a mom inspired them to go ahead and start a family.
But it wasn’t only Lewis’ success inside the ropes that inspired. While she was pregnant, KPMG called and said they wanted to pay her whole contract, regardless of the number of events she played. In other words, KPMG wanted to treat Lewis the same way they would any other female in their organization who had a baby.
The move set a new standard that, while not followed by all sponsors, certainly changed the way many players are treated on maternity leave.
Lewis’ partnership with KPMG has been groundbreaking for the women’s game in many ways. She’s proud of the way the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship changed not only the path of the tour’s majors, but the way the LPGA attracts and utilizes its sponsors with women’s summits. The trickle-down effect of KPMG’s presence on the LPGA is immeasurable.
When Lewis, inspired by the resources utilized by Ryder Cup teams, wanted to use data and analytics as Solheim Cup captain, KPMG stepped up with a new analytics platform for the biennial event.
But it wasn’t just the numbers that Lewis changed as a two-time captain. She changed the culture, too.
Her holistic approach to the job included looking at everything from how much money was budgeted to each area to how many inside-the-ropes passes former captains received (two, for the first time!). Former captains even had their own locker room, and it was deeply appreciated.
Lewis has maintained focus on LPGA history, future
Rare is the player who’s focused not only on the present, but the past and the future as well. The supremely organized Lewis wanted to lay out a blueprint that not only led to more success for Team USA but also made things easier for whoever comes next.
Captaining Team USA – to a tie in 2023 and a victory in 2024 – likely extended Lewis’ playing career. Her game hasn’t been what it merienda was, and her body hasn’t cooperated in some time.
Ceremonial golfer, she is not.
“My mind still thinks I can hit the shots,” said Lewis. “My mind still loves to play and loves to practice and do all that. But it’s just more the reality of where my body is and what I have to do to practice the little that I’m practicing. I don’t feel prepared. And I don’t like that feeling.”
Lewis’ future uncertain, but she’s not leaving the game
As for what’s next, Lewis isn’t certain beyond spending more time at home for things like field trips and parent-teacher conferences. She’s looking forward to letting her brain relax more, rather than constantly fretting over what shape her back would be in the next morning.
Lewis’ career began during a tumultuous time on the tour, with leadership change and a slimmed-down schedule. It ends now with a new commissioner on board and, as a member of the search committee, Lewis said it’s easier to retire knowing that Craig Kessler is at the helm.
The end of her competitive career, however, doesn’t mean she’s leaving golf. The business side intrigues her, and she’s never short on ideas.
“I want to continue to impact the game,” said Lewis. “I don’t know what that capacity looks like, whether it’s with the LPGA or if it’s with somebody else in golf … I just want to help make things better.”
Lewis will play this week in Arkansas, followed by the Lotte Championship in Hawaii, and that might be it for 2025, unless something special happens and she qualifies for one of the last two events of the season in Florida.
Either way, she plans to make her final event the 2026 Chevron Championship, back where it all started at home in The Woodlands. As a past champion of the event, Lewis is exempt into the field, as she is at the AIG Women’s British Open.
After Lewis broke the news to her parents that she’s retiring, her dad posed a question. What if the British Open goes back to her beloved Old Course, and she’s in her mid to late 40s and still in pretty good shape?
“Will there be one more Dunvegan trip?” he asked.
She didn’t say no.
