Steinhauer museum chronicles life in golf
All golfers collect and display memorabilia and keepsakes from their careers, but former LPGA Tour star Sherri Steinhauer has taken it to a whole new level.
Last summer, the eight-time LPGA tournament champion opened a museum on her 70-acre property in the south Catskills, N.Y., that chronicles her life in golf. From her time at Memorial High School in Wisconsin and a stellar amateur career that prompted her inclusion in the Wisconsin State Golf Association Hall of Fame, to her collegiate days at the University of Texas and her stellar professional career, the complete “story of Steinhauer” is on display at the museum.
“One side is my amateur career, and the other side is my professional career, and the far end is the family room, slash media room,” said Steinhauer, who earned more than $6 million during her 26-year career. “I’ve got family pictures of all of my brothers and my mom and dad, because that’s how my mom decorated our family room.
“A lady (Gillian Black) who followed me for years from England, through the years, she sent me video of every tournament I played in. So, I have all of this video, and I must have 150 disks. I put all of those on a hard drive, plus everything my mom had, so my whole career is basically on a hard drive.”
The one-of-a-kind museum features a considerable amount of memorabilia, records, trophies, photos, awards, golf gear and keepsakes. Most of the items came from a massive collection of Steinhauer’s mother, Nancie, who passed away in 2010.
“I started going through the house and kept finding all these things she had tucked away that she had saved that I had no idea about,” Steinhauer said of her mother’s thorough collection. “My bulletin board from my bedroom wall as a teenager was in a plastic bag, and I found my high school golf bag and all kinds of things around the house. I said, ‘Oh my gosh, what am I going to do with all of this? I can’t get rid of it.’
“If I was ever in a magazine, she had every last one. She had all of my records of how I had done every week, and it was like a diary. If I was injured, she’d write why I didn’t play. I could go back and say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s when I had that injury.’ It just went on and on.”
Discovering the memorabilia and detailed records helped Steinhauer cope with her mother’s passing.
“It brought back a lot of memories, and it was really therapeutic after losing my mom,” she said. “It really helped me get through the loss of my mom.”
Once Steinhauer realized the extent of the treasure trove of memories she had discovered, she knew just the place to keep it all.
“I had just built this storage garage at my home in New York, and it had a second floor that I didn’t know what I was going to do with,” Steinhauer said. “It just happened to be 60 feet long and 14 feet wide, and I thought, ‘This is the perfect place to display all this.’ I wasn’t thinking I was going to take it to the extent I did, but as I started getting into the project, I just started getting into it deeper and deeper.
“I ended up hiring a builder to build the furniture, and my nephew, Alan Steinhauer, got into the project. He helped with the project tremendously. From start to finish, it took about 18 months.”
Steinhauer’s nephew enjoyed the process so much, he began a memorabilia room company called The Elm Company.
“He was so instrumental in it, and we spent six months talking twice a day,” she said. “My nephew and I became very close, and the whole experience was just wonderful.”
It was a highly reflective process for Steinhauer, a two-time major champion.
“As you’re playing on the Tour, you’re going through the motions every week and you never really reflect,” she said. “This has given me a chance to reflect on my career.”
Not surprisingly, the museum includes a Solheim Cup area, as Steinhauer was a four-time competitor (1994, 1998, 2000, 2007) and served as assistant U.S. captain in 2011. Equipped with reader rails that lay out Steinhauer’s career in writing, the museum takes on a storybook-type feel.
“I equate it to an autobiography that’s actually a visual autobiography,” she said.
Steinhauer hosted a group of cut scouts at the museum in December and plans to bring more children to the facility after it reopens in May. Promoting the game of golf and serving as a mentor to children has become a passion project for Steinhauer.
“I hope to inspire kids,” said Steinhauer, who serves on the board of The First Tee of South Central Wisconsin. “I’ll take them through it and ask them what they want to do with their life. I’ll just talk to them and tell them that dreams can come true.
“It’s a great place for me to take kids and give them any kind of inspiration I can. I started dreaming about what I wanted to do at a young age, and I really do feel like my dream did come true.”
Steinhauer loves making connections with young golfers and seeing them enjoy the game she has loved for a lifetime.
“After being on Tour and focusing on myself while I tried to be as good as I could be at the game of golf, now that I’m finished playing I find I really enjoy working with and helping kids,” she said. “I go out and work with the kids, and I love seeing them happy through the feeling of a good golf shot or just the camaraderie with their friends and enjoying the game of golf. At the same time, we’re teaching them great values and life skills.”
Steinhauer is also a mainstay on the Legends Tour, and she won the 2013 Wendy’s Charity Challenge to add to her career victory total. Competing on the tour is another source of joy for the Wisconsin native.
“That’s a lot of fun, and I can’t tell you how much I enjoy playing with the players I grew up with,” she said. “Although everyone’s very competitive, it’s more relaxed and we have a great time out on that tour. That’s been a lot of fun, and that tour is growing.
“It’s a wonderful place to be to just get out that competitiveness that’s still in all of us.”
Whether it is competing, mentoring young golfers or sharing her golf life with others through the museum, Steinhauer remains highly involved with the game that has given her so much.
“Golf afforded me a wonderful life,” she said. “I loved my career on Tour, I was able to live out my dream, and I feel so fortunate. I’m just grateful.
“I pinch myself every day, and I know how fortunate and lucky I am.”
)
)
)
)
