For plenty of Olympians, life comes in four-year cycles. It involves a long and meticulously planned build-up to what is hopefully a career peak, in sporting terms.
For an Olympian golfer, however, the shape and feel of the season is so much different. It’s only a couple of weeks ago that Stephanie Meadow was teeing it up for Ireland in Paris, along with Leona Maguire. Trying her best to earn a medal at Le Golf National in what was her third Games.
She was only 24 on her debut in Rio when it was Olympic Council of Ireland president Pat Hickey making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
The experience of Tokyo in 2021 was reduced by the Covid restrictions that limited travel in a country she was itching to explore and even in terms of mingling with her fellow Irish Olympians.
Undeterred, she finished, memorably, in seventh overall.
This time around, it was straight from Paris back into the daily grind of carving out a professional living and trying to qualify for the fifth and final major of the year.
It took some nerve to eventually emerge through the qualifying process for the AIG Women’s Open which starts today at St Andrews.
The Antrim golfer was one of 12 players to emerge from the field of 92 who took part in the single round at Craighead links. She posted an eagle, four birdies, three bogeys and a double bogey in a one-under 71 to finish in a tie for 10th and then survived a sudden-death play-off.
So before a ball is struck at the famous Old
Course, she has already shown her mettle to join Leona Maguire and Lauren Walsh.
It’s 10 years now since Meadow decided to turn pro after blazing a trail in the underage ranks, first in Ireland, and then in America.
Her parents put such faith in her by uprooting the family to give her a better chance of making it in the United States.
And it worked, Meadow quickly carved out a reputation as a prodigious talent.
At the University of Alabama, she became the Crimson Tide’s first four-time first team
All-American, breaking records at almost every turn. Then there was the joy of clinching the victory for Great Britain and Ireland in the 2012 Curtis Cup, breaking along winning streak for America, as well as winning the Women’s Amateur Championship the same year.
Such was her upward trajectory that she turned pro shortly after qualifying for the 2014 US Women’s Open, where she went on to secure third place.
If that remains her best result at a major championship to date, equalled by joint third in the 2023 Women’s PGA Championship at Baltusrol, well, life can have a habit of getting in the way.
Her father Robert was instrumental in her sporting path, as a mentor and guide as well as being there for her every step of the way. That he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just six months after she announced herself to the professional golf world – with that stunning US Open debut at Pinehurst – threw her world upside down. His death hit hard. A back injury on top of everything combined to see her ranking tumble and she has spoken about that difficult period in her career.
In a video for the 20×20 campaign that was launched to promote women’s sport – with the inspired ‘If she can’t see it, she can’t be it’ tagline – she spoke about visibility, and her father’s legacy.
‘When he first got diagnosed, I didn’t touch a club for weeks.
Golf was really hard because it was just such a reminder of Dad.
‘I started to learn that it was not a bad thing that I’m reminded of him every day. But I do say to myself, “Okay, what would Dad say?” No matter how tough it is, you have to keep going.’
Before Maguire, Meadow was the trailblazer on the LPGA tour.
Last June they played together in the final round of the Women’s PGA Championship at Baltusrol when Meadow – then ranked 151 in the world – shot a one-under 70 to finish tied third. That came with a significant financial reward – a cheque for $423,000, nearly half her career earnings to that point.
‘It was great,’ she recalled afterwards, ‘that’s the reason why I get up every day.
‘That’s what I want, to not only do it at a normal tourna- ment but to do it at a PGA – and with Leona in the final group – all of that combined was a very special experience and I took a lot of confidence from playing several good weeks in a row.
‘I felt like it was trending that direction but sometimes you just don’t get the results.
‘It was nice to be under the gun and prove to myself that I could still do it. And I loved every second of it.’
Because there had to be days when she wondered if she’d ever get back in that sort of position. She had to come through that troublesome period where she had lost her LPGA Tour card and was forced to compete on the LPGA’s feeder tour.
It was there that she got her form and confidence back and there was an added layer of significance to her win in 2019 at the ISPS HANDA World Invitational at Galgorm Castle, Co Antrim.
Not only was it the first event of its kind where men and women competed on the same courses, at the same time and for the same prize money, she won with her partner and future husband Kyle Kallan – a former PGA pro – as her caddie.
She’s come a long way then, the girl from Jordanstown who took the Irish golfing scene by storm as a 12-year-old, finishing runner up in the Irish Girls Close Championship. She was then in the shake-up for a major on her debut only to lose her card when she battled injury and personal loss.
And now, over the next four days, is bidding to become the first woman from these shores to win a major.
