For a quarter century, LPGA Tour moms have been able to compete at the highest level while also having their children along for the journey.
That’s because the Smucker’s LPGA Child Development Center has rolled along from tournament to tournament for 25 years, providing consistent and quality care for children while their competitive mothers have chased their dreams in professional golf.
“It’s an amazing feat for any sponsor in any sport to have existed for 25 years, but I think the partnership we’ve had with Smucker’s and what it has provided to these moms on tour can only be called a lifesaver,” said Kelly Schultz, senior director of communications at the LPGA. “It has created opportunities and prolonged careers.”
And while child care services for tour moms is essential to their ability to compete, it is also the LPGA’s long-term vision for its members that established the program years before such an option was available to women. In fact, the LPGA’s traveling child care center was the first of its kind in professional sports.
“As a tour, we want to be as athlete-friendly and mom-friendly as we possibly can,” added Schultz. “We don’t want our players to have to choose between being a mom and pursuing the career they have wanted or being the athletes they know they can be.”
Children from around the world have literally grown up on the LPGA Tour and transitioned from high chairs to high school. Bardine May has served as director of the Smucker’s LPGA Child Development Center for 16 years and has changed the diapers of former tour kids who are now in college.
When she started, there were 27 children traveling on tour and staying in the child care program. That number dwindled down to two children four years ago.
There are now more than 11 moms on the LPGA Tour, with some 13 children utilizing the center by early June at the ShopRite LPGA Classic.
And with a new baby boom occurring over the last two years, the LPGA’s caravan of kids is certain to grow. Several more tour moms are expecting children this year and early next year, which means the pendulum will swing up once again with a larger number of kids traveling on tour.
“It’s exciting to see some of our top players, such as Stacy Lewis and Gerina Piller, develop not only as top performers, but also as moms,” said Schultz, who also uses the tour’s child care service with her 18-month-old daughter, Mackenzie. “They had great examples to follow with Karine Icher and Cristie Kerr, as well as other moms who have been out on tour with their kids through the years.”
One tour mom, Catriona Matthew of Scotland, won the 2009 Ricoh Women’s British Open 11 weeks after she gave birth to her second daughter, Sophie. It was an incredible display of a mother’s will to both expand her family and to win a major championship.
“It showed the world that you can be a mom and you don’t have to choose between your career and your family,” Schultz said.
Of course, the child care staff witnesses only the super moms, not the hard-charging competitors.
“We get to see a whole different side of the moms -- not the very focused golfers,” said May, who travels the tour all season with co-workers Joy Dods and Lori Schmidt-Wog, all early-childhood education teachers.
“I see them lying on the floor playing with their children, laughing and giggling or changing their child’s dirty diaper,” she added. “I get to see them just being a mom.”
The program is offered at no charge for tour members and LPGA staff. Children from six weeks to around 12 or 13 often travel with their tour moms and stay in the child care center during the day.
An equipment truck hauls the center’s equipment from site to site and staff members set up the center each Monday of tournament week in hotel conference rooms, churches or rooms in clubhouses. The center locations are known only to tour members and staff and are off-limits to the public.
Once the traveling center is assembled, it looks like a daycare, pre-school or school-age classroom setting. The doors open at 5 a.m. each Tuesday morning of tournament week and often don’t close for the day until 9 p.m. During weeks of major championships, the center opens on Monday morning.
The center’s staff also prepares breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for the youngsters, unless the host site provides food.
“We are the one constant thing in this lifestyle that stays the same for the children,” said May. “We’re the same three women who go to the different tournaments every week, using the same equipment and offering the same routines whether we’re in South Carolina, Portland, Oregon or Hawaii. The kids know that every day will be the same with us, and for children out here -- where everything else is changing -- that’s vital for them.”
Inside the child care center are different areas for science and math, and art and language. Even infants and toddlers are given items to sort and loosely assemble as they develop spatial awareness.
As expected on a global tour, the socialization of kids in the program often has an international flair. Children whose tour moms call Scotland, Finland, Sweden, Mexico, France and the Republic of Korea home have used the service. The next wave of babies heading to the LPGA’s center will be largely from the United States and Australia.
“The children here get a lot of socialization because the little kids want to be big like the older ones and the big kids just love being brothers and sisters to the little kids,” said May. “It’s kind of like one big, happy family.”
Looking ahead, the LPGA is discussing how to address child care and international travel for tour members. Schultz noted the service will become even more essential as tour moms take their children abroad for tournaments, including two major championships in Europe.
The tour also updated its maternity policy this year to give members options as to when they take leave. In addition, the LPGA now allows tour moms to return to the tour at the same playing status they had entering their season of maternity and also provides exempt entry into major championships for all returning players who qualified for the previous year, but did not compete due to maternity.
Clearly, gone are the days when LPGA players had to choose between their careers and their families. And for 25 years of traveling families, the LPGA’s child care center has linked arms and hearts between tour moms and the staff caring for their children.
“It’s about seeing the kids happy and seeing the moms not feel like they need to stress when they drop off their kids with us,” said May. “I think they know their child will be just fine and they can go do their job and perform at the highest level.”