62 South Bay Accent DAVID CANNON/GETTY IMAGES beauty queens play sports.” Inkster won her first U.S. Open in 1999 at age 39, giving her a career Grand Slam (a victory in each of the four major tournaments). That year she was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, a highly prized distinction. Two years later she captured a second U.S. Open, overcoming a two-shot deficit against Sorenstam. Inkster shot a sizzling 66 that day. But her fame extends beyond the 18th green to her achievements as wife and mother. In fact, she is nearly as famous as a working mom as for her game. Dottie Pepper, an LPGA player and broadcaster, calls Inkster a “super mom.” Says her best friend Hurst: “She has never been away from her kids for more than two weeks. That says who she is.” “I had more time for my kids than most working women,” says Inkster. “My career was different.” The LPGA Tour runs about seven months, she adds, playing down her super mom status. Inkster was a jock from a young age. She loved playing sports, including football and baseball with her two older brothers. They would frolic on the fairways of Pasatiempo. “My mom would ring a cowbell when it was time to come home.” Here is where she first developed her love of team sports, which has proven so critical to her success as the coach of the U.S. Solheim team today. As far as coaching experience before Solheim, Inkster recalls that she was a fourth-grade basketball coach for one of her daughters. She’s being modest, of course, making light the gifts she brings to the table for the most prestigious women’s team-golf event in the world. Her theory, she says, is “just be honest, be myself, get them to play as a team.” At the 2015 Solheim Cup, when her team was staring defeat in the face, she remembers telling the girls, “Play your game and let the chips fall where they may.” The words by themselves don’t carry as much weight as the person who said them, a dyed-in-thewool winner. Inkster has returned to her roots at Pasatiempo. Jerry Mauer has been instrumental in naming her the club’s Touring Professional. There is a biography of her HER ACCOMPLISHED BACKGROUND GIVES HER STREET CRED AS A COACH AND MENTOR. on the Pasatiempo website that includes photographs. One is a picture of the 1976 Santa Cruz Harbor High School boys’ golf team. In the center of the picture among the guys is a spunky looking girl, the only distaff member of the team. “That’s where it all started,” she says. “I never thought about playing professional golf or anything like that. I kind of fell into the game.” Her first job was shagging balls at Pasatiempo. After work the guys would go out and play golf. Always one for a little sporting competition, the 15-year-old told herself, “I can do that.” The rest, as they say, is history. n while order is not Inkster’s forte. They travel to tournaments together and will share a room. “She will drop her suitcase on the floor, and that’s where it stays until it explodes,” says Hurst. She has found that the odd-couple combination works best if she finds a reasonable location for Inkster’s suitcase and puts it there, not on the living room floor. Their combination works well on the golf course as Hurst’s attention to detail complements Inkster’s free-form style. Still, says Hurst, just as Inkster knows the contents of her suitcase, on the golf course she understands exactly what’s going on. Another of Inkster’s quirks is her famous “awful dance celebration” following victorious putts in big tournaments. “She’ll twirl and twirl and twirl, then stop,” is how Hurst describes it. “It’s classic. It’s so her. Fans love to see it.” Google the 1998 Solheim Cup for pictures of one such memorable jig. She can be tough as nails then let it all hang out with a little fun. “She is really well respected among her peers. Players look up to her,” says Hurst. Last year when the San Francisco Giants promoted a Golf Night at the ballpark, the coveted item was a Juli Inkster bobblehead. She’s always been a big Bay Area sports fan. She had the honor of throwing the first pitch that night, after which she repaired to her first-row seat and performed a bobblehead “move” of her own, yucking it up with the fans. They loved it. Throughout her career Inkster has not only carried her own weight but rallied behind all women in professional sports. “We don’t get any respect,” she says, maybe half joking, but giving the impression that she means it. “If Lexi Thompson, the young super talent on the LPGA Tour, was a guy, she’d be on the cover of every magazine.” Inkster acknowledges that the male pros hit the ball much farther than the women, whom most agree play a more aesthetically pleasing game. The men’s game is about power. Men play on golf courses that are roughly 7,300 yards long; courses for women are in the 6,600-yard range. She envisions a four-day tournament in which women and men each play (or, based on gender, attack) 36 holes. She admits, “it’s a tough sell.” In 2003 Swedish superstar Annika Sorenstam, 10 years Inkster’s junior, competed in a men’s PGA Tour event at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas. She was the first woman to play on the men’s tour since Babe Didrikson Zaharias did it in 1945. Sorenstam’s appearance was controversial, labeled a publicity stunt by some PGA players. She was the No. 1 woman player in the world yet she missed the cut. Still, women golfers everywhere were inspired by her performance, as was Inkster. “When I grew up if a girl played sports you were a tomboy,” says Inkster. “Today Juli Inkster reporting for Fox Sports
South Bay Accent - June/July 2017
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