Stacy Lewis can still win it all.
The only player in the top-5 in the Race to the CME Globe without multiple wins, let alone one win this season, Lewis still sits in that coveted top-3 position.
That’s how consistent her game is.
Each of the top-3 players in the standings heading into the season’s final event control their own destiny in being able to capture the season long prize with a win in Naples.
“You look at what I’ve done this year, I’ve had opportunities to make it a really good year,” Lewis said in Taiwan. “Even as frustrating as it has been, you get a win and it kind of turns a pretty frustrating year into a pretty good one. I’d like to be in the top three going into CME so that I kind of control my own destiny there.”
A victory at the CME Group Tour Championship would turn around what has been a season of near misses for Lewis, including 13 top-10 finishes in which she was six times a runner-up. Lewis was just strokes away from having a career season. She missed out on hoisting the trophy by an average of just four strokes in her 13 top-10’s. Two of her runner-up finishes came after losing in playoffs at both the ANA Inspiration and Canadian Pacific Women’s Open.
Through it all Lewis changed her golf ball for the first time in six years. It was a process that was much tougher than she anticipated and left her questioning herself and doubting her game.
“While one week, the ball may seem ok, and then you go to a firm golf course the next week and then you’re like, what is going on,” said Lewis. “I’ve always relied on feel and I lost my feel. And that was the biggest thing is to hit a chip shot and think you’ve hit it right and then it goes flying across the green. You start to question your technique and all those kind of things. Just a lot of doubt crept in there.”
After testing out two other Bridgestone models, Lewis settled on the ball she has now in Canada, where she lost in a playoff to Lydia Ko.
“Since then, it’s been a lot better. Shots just coming off the way I expect them to, and around the greens is where I saw the difference, chipping and pitching. It’s just now I’m trying to get that trust and that confidence back that I lost kind of middle of the year.”
She has three top-6 finishes since Canada, including two second place finishes, including last week’s Blue Bay LPGA, where where she finished just one-stroke back of winner Sei Young Kim. In what was extremely tough scoring conditions that combined wind and severely undulating greens, Lewis was able to rely on the one aspect of her game that has kept her in the hunt all season long: her putting.
“It's hard to describe even how hard it is. I mean, it's probably some of the hardest conditions I've ever played in with the wind and this golf course,” Lewis said in China. “It's hard to make putts. You're playing the wind; you're playing the grain; you're trying to keep your body still. There's a lot of factors that go into making putts. So when you make them, it's good. But it's just hard to make them.”
This season, Lewis leads in Putts Per GIR at 1.743 and is currently ranked 11th in Putting Average at 29.16.
“I think this year, I’ve putted really good in general. Stats-wise, I think it’s really good too. I haven’t looked at it closely but the putting has just kept me in it,” Lewis said in Taiwan. “The ball change this year kind of turned out to be more than I thought it was going to be. Lost some confidence. But the putting was the thing that all year, it’s kind of kept me in it.”
Lewis will have to continue relying on her putter if she wants to come out on top in Naples, it’s the one edge she has over the top-two ranked players in the world, who lead her in nearly every other standing.
“I know if I can be in the that top three, I’ve got a chance to end the year on a good note and have some momentum going into next year,” said Lewis.
Lewis will tee it up again this week at the TOTO Japan Classic before taking a week off ahead of the season ending CME Group Tour Championship.
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