1. Heart Of The Matter: Becky Lucidi Bounces Back
Those who know BECKY LUCIDI’s personality should have known something was wrong when the jokes stopped and the one-line zingers didn’t leap off her lips anymore.
Those who recognize that sparkle in her mischievous eyes should have sensed that something had changed when the Californian sometimes disappeared for weeks at a time or made in-and-out tournament appearances without her usual fire that always came to play.
Only a few knew about Lucidi’s secret – the one that was with her when she won the 2002 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship and when she was a member of an NCAA Championship team. That secret was even with her when she was a contestant on the Golf Channel’s “Big Break” series, following her to the Duramed FUTURES Tour and on to the LPGA.
It was the secret that could have killed her and one that was nearly unfathomable for a healthy, vibrant woman in her 20s with a golf game that was destined for stardom and a personality that was already there.
Last week at the Duramed FUTURES Tour’s tournament in Lafayette, La., Lucidi was ready to talk. And as the tears welled up in her eyes, she displayed the pinkish, still-tender scar on her chest that has already begun changing her life. That surgical signature was the culmination of so many years of playing tough and stubbornly ignoring what her body was trying to tell her.
“I’ve had heart arrhythmia since I was a kid and I passed out a lot,” said Lucidi, 28, a fifth-year professional who now makes her home in Phoenix. “My mom always just said, ‘She’s playing hard with the boys.’”
But those blackouts were more than getting the wind knocked out of her in kids’ games. Lucidi’s heart rate would plunge and then race. Her hands would shake and she would pass out. Her symptoms got worse as she got older and by 2005, she was having full seizures. During one episode, an ambulance rushed her to the hospital where multiple tests were run. But the diagnosis was always the same. Doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her.
At that time, Lucidi’s family operated horse stables in Poway, Calif., and one of their boarders was the head nurse for Dr. Daniel Blanchard, a top cardiologist at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). She booked an appointment for the golfer to see the heart specialist.
The physician also ran a series of tests on her, including a “tilt table test,” which is used to evaluate the cause of unexplained fainting. Seven seconds into the test, Lucidi could feel an episode coming on.
“The next thing I knew, I had the heads of six doctors leaning over me,” she said. “They didn’t tell me then, but my heart stopped for 11 seconds.”
Doctors attempted to treat Lucidi with medication and restricted her physical activity. She wanted to work out, but the exertion would cause more fainting episodes and doctors warned against it.
“I gained weight and lost confidence and strength,” she said. “But you can only fall so many times before you realize it’s not worth it.”
A former collegiate player at the University of Southern California, Lucidi moved on to the Duramed FUTURES Tour, where she played 15 events in both 2005 and 2006 – carding a career-best runner-up finish in 2005 in McAllen, Texas. In 2006, she was named as a contestant on the Golf Channel’s “Big Break V: Hawaii” show – an always-on-camera experience that kept her on edge for two weeks of filming.
“I was terrified that I was going to go down when the cameras were rolling,” she said. “I don’t know how I didn’t pass out.”
In autumn of 2007, she earned full status at the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament. It was the moment she had dreamed about for all of her golf career. But that same autumn, Dr. Blanchard sat her down in his office and offered his final verdict on her mysterious health condition: “We need to put in a pacemaker.”
His words hit her like a line-drive errant tee shot. Lucidi walked out of his office that day, past a waiting room full of cardiac-care octogenarians, with his recommendation still ringing in her ears.
“I played in college at one of the top teams, I had a great amateur career and I was ready for the next step,” said Lucidi. “Then, to finally get there and someone tells you that you need to wait, I just wasn’t ready for that.”
So rather than having the surgery and taking three months off from golf to recover, Lucidi began preparing for her first season on the LPGA Tour. She had that coveted card in her hand for 2008 and nothing was going to stop her – even though she was now passing out twice a week and never knew when those moments would come.
“It wasn’t safe and it wasn’t smart for me to drive,” she said. “But all I knew was I didn’t want to lose my [LPGA] card.”
Lucidi’s fiancée, Adam McDaid, a PGA club professional with his own solid career as a golf instructor in Chicago and Florida, knew what having LPGA membership meant to her. He knew she wanted to play, but he also knew how bad her condition had become and he feared for her to be out on tour alone. So McDaid quit his job and went out on the road with Lucidi to work as her caddie.
Lucidi played in 20 LPGA tournaments in 2008, finishing tied for 13th at the Ginn Open and 18th at the Longs Drugs Challenge. But there were ups and downs and 13 missed cuts that season. During a practice round at the Kapalua LPGA Classic in October, she passed out on the golf course.
“Whenever she passed out, it scared me, but she would pretend like it was no big deal,” said McDaid. “I understood that it was her first year as an exempt LPGA Tour member and she had worked hard to get there. I probably would have done the same thing, but this was starting to get serious. She wasn’t sleeping at night and the condition was just wearing her down. I finally told her that we needed to get something done.”
So after she missed the cut at the Kapalua LPGA Classic, Lucidi made a decision to have the surgery. She had thousands of questions. How would it affect her golf swing? Would she feel it inside her chest? Would she still be able to play? And most of all, would it work? Would the fainting stop?
On the night before her surgery, she was asked to sign some medical papers. Lucidi and McDaid stared at the legal forms and the reality of the whole matter was right there in front of them in black and white.
“I was scared,” said Lucidi. “I knew they were going to open me up and put something in my heart. And then I was being asked to sign a paper saying that I knew there was a chance that I could die. I signed it. And I hoped that God would take care of me.”
“It was something tough for both of us to hear,” added McDaid. “But I tried to tell her that the surgery was something she had to do.”
Surgeons at UCSD’s Pearlman Ambulatory Center spent about 2½ hours installing a Medtronic ADAPTA pacemaker -- slightly smaller than the length of a business card -- into Lucidi’s chest. Because the golfer’s dual atrial valves were weaker than her ventricular valves, not enough blood pumped out to reach her brain, which resulted in the fainting spells. The pacemaker’s job is designed to detect those drops in heart rate and to regulate the heart’s beating rhythm.
In the first week after her pacemaker was installed, Lucidi was instructed to use a mobile heart monitor, which she holds over her pacemaker to collect data and transmit the readings back to her physicians over the telephone. In the first week, her pacemaker was forced to kick into action 256 times whenever her heart rate dropped below 60 beats per minute.
“That’s when I knew I did the right thing,” said Lucidi. “This condition ruled my life for the last three years and now when I look at the test results, I know I’m lucky to be here. It’s been life-changing and this whole experience has put a lot of things into perspective for me.”
Lucidi now has the green light to work out again and resume the normal life of a woman her age. She is bouncing back and forth between the LPGA (where she is playing this week) and the Duramed FUTURES Tour (where she played last week). She wags her finger and says, “Give me six months and you’ll see a change.” And she vows that now, “There are no excuses.”
McDaid has returned to the club setting as the first assistant professional at Friar’s Head in Riverhead, N.Y. He says Lucidi is back to being the sharp-witted jokester she was when they first met.
“She’s happy, she has more energy and she’s cracking jokes again,” he said. “She wasn’t like that for a little while, but now she’s loving life. That’s the Becky I know.”
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2. Player Is Collecting Ponytails To Benefit Cancer Patients
Nearing the two-year anniversary of her mother’s death, Duramed FUTURES Tour player CINDY LEE-PRIDGEN wanted to do something special in memory of her late mother, Shirley Lee, who lost her battle to cancer in June 2007. So the player has decided to work with tournament organizers of The Duramed Championship to host a special day where individuals can donate a length of their hair to be used to make wigs for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy treatment.
The Pantene Beautiful Lengths Share Your Shining Strength charity event will be held on Tuesday, June 16, at The Golf Center at Kings Island in Mason, Ohio, in conjunction with the Duramed FUTURES Tour’s tournament that week. Women and men with locks of eight inches or more may have their hair cut for the charity by stylists from Mandarine Spa in the Cincinnati area. The event is open to players, volunteers and to the public at no charge.
“I wanted to do it for my mom because when she was sick, she really struggled with the fact that she was losing her hair,” said Lee-Pridgen, a native of Sabah, Malaysia, who now lives in Oklahoma. “My sister and I went and looked at wigs and we couldn’t believe how expensive they were. It would be nice to be able to help provide wigs to women who need them and give them one less thing to worry about.”
The player is growing out her hair for the charity event and hopes other players will consider doing the same. She says it takes six ponytails to make a wig. And with all the ponytails on the Duramed FUTURES Tour, she hopes some players will opt for a summer haircut for a good cause.
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3. Samantha Richdale Wins Louisiana Pelican Classic
Canada’s SAMANTHA RICHDALE won last week’s Louisiana Pelican Classic in Lafayette, La., carding rounds of 70-66 for a total of 136 (-8) in the rain-shortened tournament. The Wetlands golf course received nearly four inches of rain in two days, rendering the course unplayable at times and making a Sunday finish impossible after multiple weather suspensions and delays.
Richdale began the day five shots behind first-round leader LIZ JANAGELO (77) of West Hartford, Conn., who fell into a tie for ninth at 142 (-2). The Canadian’s final round included five birdies, an eagle and one bogey, enabling her to improve her previous personal-best score of 68 by two shots. It was Richdale’s second career win on the Duramed FUTURES Tour.
Rookie CHRISTINE SONG (70) of Fullerton, Calif., finished in second place at 139 (-5), followed by DANAH FORD (68) of Indianapolis and HAEJI KANG (71) of Seoul, South Korea, who tied for third at 140 (-4).
“I was pretty nervous about today with so much waiting around,” said Richdale of Kelowna, British Columbia. “I just tried to go for the greens and pins that I could go for. I’m happy with the turnout.”
With her win, Richdale charged up the Tour’s season money list from 16th place into second place. And Song, 17, improved from 12th on the money list to fourth, also taking over the top spot in the 2009 Rookie of the Year race.
“I told my dad a week ago that I was going to finish second here,” said Song, of her finish in Louisiana. “I’m very satisfied.”
JEAN REYNOLDS of Newnan, Ga., winner of the Tour’s season opener in Winter Haven, Fla., retained her top spot on the current money list. Ford made a big jump from 20th into the No. 7 position with her finish last week, while Kang improved from 46th to 12th.
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4. Richdale Wins iPod Touch For Sunday’s Low Round
SAMANTHA RICHDALE of Kelowna, British Columbia, was the recipient of a new 8 GB Apple iPod Touch to continue Duramed’s season-long promotion of the Sunday Low Round Award with her final-round score of 66 (-6). Richdale rocketed from a tie for fifth to winning the tournament with her total score of 136 (-8) in the rain-shortened event. Her round was highlighted by five birdies and an eagle on The Wetlands course.
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5. “Big Break” Premieres On The Golf Channel
The “Big Break” is back and fans of the Duramed FUTURES Tour will have a chance to watch Tour members in action on the Golf Channel over the next several weeks. The new show, “Big Break: Prince Edward Island,” premieres tonight (April 20) and will feature current Duramed FUTURES Tour members CAROLINE LARSSON of Stockholm, Sweden, BRENDA MCLARNON of Belfast, Ireland, and GERINA MENDOZA of Roswell, N.M.
“I’ll probably be really anxious on Monday around 7:30 p.m., but I plan to just watch it with my host family in Brownsville, Texas, at our next tournament,” said Larsson. “We filmed it a long time ago [last year], but it will be fun to watch.”
Also in the cast of six females and six males are Tour alums KIM KOUWABUNPAT of Upland, Calif., BLAIR O’NEAL of Scottsdale, Ariz., and NICOLE SIKORA of Valley Cottage, N.Y. The contestants in the show’s 11th series will compete on equal ground with no consideration of gender when it comes to elimination. Top prize to the winner is $100,000 cash.
When asked about the show’s outcome last week by a reporter from The Advertiser newspaper in Lafayette, La., Mendoza quipped: “I’m telling everybody [who] asks, if you want to know what happened, I’ll tell you for $2 million. Otherwise, you have to watch the show.”
“Big Break: Prince Edward Island” airs today at 9 p.m. Eastern. Check local listings or visit golfchannel.com for times of all Golf Channel programs.
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6. SunTrust Bank Putting Challenge Rolls On
The second week of the SunTrust Bank Putting Challenge continued last week. SunTrust Bank is sponsoring the SunTrust Putting Challenge, which began in Daytona Beach, Fla. The contest consists of three different series of Duramed FUTURES Tour tournaments, with a culminating overall contest combining winners of the three series events. The contest will be based on players’ total putts for 12 competitive rounds. The winner of each series earns $800, while the winner of the overall series collects $1,000.
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7. McPherson And Duncan Volunteer As Caddies
Three weeks ago, Duramed FUTURES Tour alumna KRISTY MCPHERSON of South Carolina nearly got to take the traditional winner’s plunge at the Kraft Nabisco Championship -- the LPGA’s first major championship of the season. She tied for second in her career-best finish on the LPGA Tour.
Last week, the two-time winner on the Duramed FUTURES Tour gladly served as caddie in Lafayette, La., for good friend JENNY GLEASON of Clearwater, Fla. The two have played together both on the LPGA and Duramed FUTURES Tour.
“I wanted to come down and hang out and see my friends and my former housing hosts,” said McPherson, who earned 2007 LPGA status by finishing in the top five of the money list on the 2006 Duramed FUTURES Tour. “And I think you can learn a lot being on the other side of the golf ball.”
Tour alumna MEREDITH DUNCAN of Shreveport, La., also drove down to Lafayette last week to caddie in the pro-am for Tour member JANELL HOWLAND of Boise, Idaho. Duncan, now also a full-time member on the LPGA Tour, looped for Howland, a former Louisiana Pelican Classic tournament winner, before hustling back up the highway to prepare for this week’s event in Mexico.
“I’m only three hours away and I would feel like a jerk if I didn’t at least come down here and say hello to a lot of people,” said Duncan. “I want to see people that I’m not going to see in a while, including my [former] host family and everybody out here.”
Duncan and McPherson have retained many friendships on the LPGA’s developmental tour and seem perfectly at home visiting on the professional tour where they got their respective starts.
“I played out here for 3½ years, which is a little longer than I wanted it to be,” said McPherson. “But it turns out that I needed every bit of that time to work on my game and learn how to win.”
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8. Argentine Golf Fans Bask Following Masters Win
Like the rest of her countrymen, Duramed FUTURES Tour member MARIA LAURA ELVIRA of Buenos Aires, Argentina, is still celebrating the playoff victory at The Masters this year by Angel Cabrera. It was a long-awaited win by an Argentine following Roberto De Vicenzo’s ill-timed signing for the wrong score at the 1968 Masters. His incorrectly signed scorecard cost the Argentine a playoff with eventual Masters champion Bob Goalby. Instead of a final-round 65, De Vicenzo erroneously signed for a 66 – making him more widely remembered for his scorecard gaffe at The Masters than for his victory at the 1967 British Open.
“Futbol [soccer] is still the most popular sport in our country, but this win at The Masters will help make golf bigger,” said Elvira. “Roberto made golf big at home, but Angel’s win is important now for today’s players. It’s like, ‘If he can win, why not us?’”
Elvira has met Cabrera, but says they are not close. Still, with her compatriot coming to Louisiana this week for the PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans, she plans to make a little detour on her way to Texas to possibly salute the new Master’s champion and to see good friend Andres Romero, also an Argentine member of the PGA Tour.
Interestingly, Cabrero’s caddie, Rubin Yorio, is the husband of former Duramed FUTURES Tour member MARA LARRAURI of Berezategui, Argentina, who was a Tour member from 1999-2005. Yorio caddied for his wife when she was on tour.
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9. Eaton Gets A Ring On The 18th Green
MELISSA EATON of Port Shepstone, South Africa, had been one of the local favorites all week at the Louisiana Pelican Classic. Not only was she a Louisiana State University (LSU) alum, but she also was engaged to a local man, Billy Jackson of New Iberia, La.
Jackson surprised Eaton after Sunday’s final round of the tournament in Lafayette, La. He led Eaton over to the 18th green, pulled a ring out of his pocket, knelt down and asked the former LSU Tiger to marry him, much to the cheers and delight of tournament volunteers at the hole.
Eaton had just carded a final-round score of 67 to finish tied for ninth at 142 (-2) with Jackson on her bag. And the answer to his question was “yes.”
“I made lots of birdies today and I feel like I just had a hole-in-one on the 18th green,” said Eaton, sporting a new engagement stone on her finger. “It was a really good day.”
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10. Quote Of The Week
“Our practice facilities are so good on the LPGA Tour that sometimes you beat balls for so long that you find something wrong with your swing.”
-Duramed FUTURES Tour alumna MEREDITH DUNCAN of Shreveport, La., who visited her friends at last week’s Louisiana Pelican Classic and caddied for good pal JANELL HOWLAND of Boise, Idaho, in the Thursday pro-am.
Contact: Lisa D. Mickey, Duramed FUTURES Tour, 386-274-6216, or lisa@duramedfuturestour.com.
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