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KEEP SMILIN’
By Donna Andrews
Maybe when you grow up with two brothers, it's only natural that you learn to compete and you learn to win. I tried all the sports my brothers played and I always tried
to be the best.
When it came to golf, my family was very competitive. We found that a family stayed together by playing together. I started playing golf with my family at home in
Lynchburg, Virginia, when I was young. I also played a lot of junior tournaments, and as they say, one thing led to another. The tournament competition and showdowns with my brothers helped prepare me to
play on an all-male high school golf team.
I fell in love with the game and it has taken me through college, introduced me to many wonderful people, taught me the peace of the outdoors, and paid my bills.
Of course, just as life has its peaks and valleys, golf is a sport that has its ups and downs.
The good times began when my junior golf days were ending, and I was in a position to choose where I wanted to play college golf. The choice, actually, was quite easy.
I wanted to stay in the South, but Virginia's schools did not have good women's golf programs at the time, so I looked to North Carolina. Duke didn't offer my major, so I made the obvious
choice: the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was the only school I applied to. I knew where I wanted to go.
Those were good years at UNC. Katie Peterson, who also went on to play on Tour with me, and Suzy (McGuire) Whaley, who played in the PGA Tour's Greater Hartford
Open this summer, were among my teammates. So the competition on our own team was great, which I really think made us better golfers.
During this time, I was also fortunate to receive instruction from Davis Love, Jr., who was regarded as one of the game's finest teachers. Davis was the second man
(after my father) to greatly influence my golf game. It took a while after Davis was killed in a plane crash in 1989 before I found someone I felt comfortable working with on my game. Jack Lumpkin came
highly recommended and Jack's strongest expertise--the short game--was precisely where I needed the most help. So Jack and I went to work, and we're still at it 14 years later. And if you need
further testament to Jack's ability, he has spent all these years working with Davis Love III as well.
When college ended, I knew what I wanted to do. I loved golf and I knew I had some ability, so I set forth a plan. For two years, I would give the pro tours a
shot. I didn't feel there was much pressure because if I didn't make it, I had my business degree that would help me get a job in the golf industry.
I finished second at my preliminary stage of Tour qualifying that first year, 1989. But the final stage was very competitive, and I received only a conditional playing
card. Still, I got into 18 events my first season, finished 75th on the money list, and learned a lot of key lessons. It would be a while still before my first Tour win, but I kept improving, and in 1992
and 1993, things really started to come together.
In the fall of 1993, I captured my first Tour win at the PING-Cellular One Championship. The following spring I won in Tucson at the PING/Welch's Championship. But
my biggest victory came farther west in California.
When I teed it up at the 1994 Nabisco Dinah Shore, our season's first major, I was not thinking of myself as a major champion. Not that I wouldn't have loved
to win a major. Not that I hadn't dreamed about it for a long time. But it was still early in my career and I felt I had a lot yet to learn.
Only recently Jack and I had been working on a shot that I could use when it was not possible to fall back on my natural draw. It was a hit-and-hold shot that would
keep the ball straight.
Mission Hills, where the Nabisco is held, requires all kinds of shots. And you have to hit them well.
For most of the week, I did hit the ball well, but when I bogeyed seventeen on Sunday, I was fairly certain I had just handed the golf tournament to Laura Davies, who
now led me by a shot.
At the time, Laura was the only player on Tour who hit the ball long enough to reach the par-5 eighteenth green in two. This time, though, she decided to hit a 2-iron
off the tee and pushed it way right. Her next shot went left into more trouble, and when her approach landed on the green, she had about 90 feet left. I knew there was a good chance she could three-putt.
As I stood out there in the fairway considering my best chance for birdie, my mind went back to that hit-and-hold shot Jack and I had been working on. The flag was on
the right side of the green, and to draw the ball would require me to come in over the water, or to start the ball at the flag and have it end up left, where the putts are much more difficult.
I told myself, You know, the best place to be is right of the hole, even if there is no room there. I'm just going to hit that little knockdown hit-and-hold that
Jack and I have been working on.
I hit it perfect--exactly what I wanted to do. It was hard to convince myself to do it, but I did it. I trusted the shot.
Before you knew it, three things happened. First, I made my birdie putt. Second, Laura missed her second putt, which was for par. And third, I was jumping into the
lake as the 1994 winner of the Nabisco Dinah Shore Championship.
It had always been a tradition that Dinah Shore jumped in the lake with the Champion and even though she had passed away earlier that year, I made the leap in her
memory, and no one has stayed dry since. It's a fun tribute to the only non-player ever elected into the LPGA Hall of Fame.
The win at the Nabisco remains my only major, but in the years to follow, I won three more times. In 1998, my win at the Longs Drugs Challenge was one of 14 top 10 finishes.
I ended up third on the LPGA money list that season, a career best.
That competitive nature, the one that had me gearing up to beat my brothers long before, had paid off. In 1997 and 1998 alone, I had made more than $1 million, and I
was able to really settle in at Pinehurst, where I purchased a farm that I named Serenity Stables. I keep my horses there, my two dogs and a cat. I can go out and sit on my back deck and see my
horses and listen to the frogs at night and watch the birds fly. It's just my little piece of heaven here on earth.
All that sounds so beautiful, as though I've never faced trouble in my life. Some people think that's the deal with me. My nickname on Tour is Smiley, because
I've always got this smile on my face. I'm not trying to hide anything with that smile. It's authentic. But my life's roses have not come without their thorns.
When you're a professional athlete, "competitive" is a complimentary word. It means you are focused on the goal of playing your best, of using your
skills to get the job done. But competitive can also mean "hard-headed," and that is something I'm afraid I have been in my life. Sometimes I have to be beaten over the head before I see
the light. Beginning in 1999, God started to do just that. He had to hit me over the head to get me to depend on Him.
n July of that year I fell from a horse, dislocating my shoulder, an injury that can sideline you for quite a while as a golfer. But within three months, I was back on the
road with my husband, John Reeves, another of those men who had a major influence on my golf career.
We were driving to the airport, and I took my seatbelt off to get our plane tickets out of the back seat and make a phone call to the airline. I put my seatbelt back
on and moments later we started to cross an intersection when another car ran a stop sign and slammed into us.
It was a serious accident. I was not seriously injured, but I was seriously shaken. I kept telling John, "I had my seatbelt off not two minutes before that. I
could have gone right through the windshield."
The accident really disturbed me even though it wasn't our fault. The other driver had run the stop sign. I went for counseling to help me sort out what I was
thinking and feeling.
The accident was a real eye opener for me, I began to return to the things that I knew were important--faith, family, and friends. If life could be lost that quickly,
there were questions I needed to deal with: Am I happy where I am in my relationship with the Lord and with my friends? Have I told my family that I love them?
God had gotten my attention. I was beginning to return to what I knew to be true about Him--that He loved me completely and wanted me to love Him completely, too--but
there was still work to be done.
John and I separated in January and one month later my mother called with more bad news. My house was being repaired after we had found termites chewing up one wall. The
pump had also broken down, and I had workers all over the place. My life really did seem to be one problem after another. But in the tangle of all that was happening, my mom's words halted everything
else. "Donna," she said, "I have breast cancer."
I didn't know how I would get everything taken care of, but I told my mom, "I'll be there before your surgery."
My friends rushed to my aid. They said, "You know, you never ask us to do anything. Of course we can help you out. You just go and don't worry about anything
here. Everything will be fine." So I left the house and the animals to them. I went to see my mother.
Here I was, the competitive, independent one, and I was finally learning to put my life in the hands of those God had given to me to support me. The LPGA's primary
charity is the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. I called Val Skinner, who is tied into this effort, and she was able to put me in touch with some doctors who helped me understand what my mom was
going through and gave us great advice.
The doctors removed the lump in her breast, started her on chemotherapy, and I am glad to say that today she is very healthy, a survivor of cancer.
At the time, though, my mother's illness was just one more knock from God on my thick head. I was beginning to understand what this was all about.
God wanted one thing from me. He wanted me to rely on Him.
When all this started to happen--the accident, the injuries, the divorce, my mom's cancer--I knew God had a purpose for it all. And being the kind of person that I
am, one who likes to fight her own battles, I was convinced I could find that purpose.
What I have found is that the one purpose is God. We're here to worship Him. We're here to fellowship with others, those He created and loves. We're here
to enjoy and benefit from all that He does for us.
That began, of course, when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for the forgiveness of our sins. Jesus suffered. He went through all sorts of trials. And He did it
for the same purpose my life is to have. He did it to glorify God.
I'm one of those people who often call God "the Good Lord." But I don't say it casually. I mean it. God is good, very good. He has shown me this in
major championships, and He has shown me this in major catastrophes. That's why, no matter what, I keep smiling.
This article originally appeared in the Links Letter, Oct. 2003.
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