In the Moment

Hilary Lunke stood on the final green of the 2003 U.S. Women's Open 18-hole playoff—after witnessing her opponent drop a would-be tournament-tying, 27-foot putt from off the green—with a 15-foot putt to win her first title on the LPGA tour. Crowds pressed against the ropes surrounding her, and Johnny Miller, rapt behind his microphone, stared down alongside unblinking cameras from the NBC TV tower.

Good memories, right?
For Lunke, the former Minnesota state high school champion and Stanford University golfer 20 years removed from that day at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in North Plains, Oregon, the emotions of the moment have not faded. Lunke drained the 15-footer (only her 23rd putt of the round), pumped her fist heavenward in exhilaration and screamed in, perhaps, relief.

“The feeling of the final putt to win was more of exhaustion,” Lunke says. “I remember thinking, ‘I cannot continue this level of intensity for 90 holes, for each shot. Let's roll this in and be done.'

“I could see the line, and an overwhelming feeling came over me that Angela [Stanford] was going to make her putt and I'd have to make mine. So, I just flipped into match-play mode, thinking ‘don't even look at her!' I wasn't distracted at all. I just thought ‘I've got to make my putt' and . . . it was just crazy.”

Lunke became the first qualifier to ever win the Open. She hadn't won an LPGA tournament coming in—and didn't win another as a pro. Lunke flashed across the LPGA firmament, besting then-two-time champ Annika Sorestam, who finished one-stroke out of the 18-hole playoff. And the victory prompted descriptors such as “unlikely” (from Miller who called it “the greatest win” he'd ever seen) and “improbable.” Lunke has heard them all—and she gets it. Just don't call it a fluke.

“I would be the first to admit that it was improbable,” Lunke says. “I only get a little bothered when people call it a fluke. To me, it was not a fluke. I had to make that putt and I made it. I was tied for second after the second round. So, it's not just like I went out in the morning and shot a score and everyone else fell all over themselves the rest of the day and, somehow, I was the winner. I had to hit those shots under pressure for a sustained amount of time, so it wasn't a fluke! I prefer to call it a ‘one-hit wonder.'”

Fluke is inaccurate. And while “one-hit wonder” may be more apt, its connotation of a “flash in the pan,” from “out of nowhere,” catching “lightning in a bottle” is not. Any deeper-than-clichéd examination of Lunke's career and life reveals something else: a talented, driven and mentally strong athlete who put herself in a position to capture the biggest title in women's golf—and seized the moment.

The Straight and Narrow
Hilary Lunke was not groomed early to be a major golf champion. She was a very competitive swimmer and softball player before turning to golf relatively late—not playing her first 18-hole round until age 13. Lunke had caddied for her dad, MGA rules official Bill Homeyer, and played the occasional causal nine-hole round. She didn't play for her high school team of Edina until her sophomore year, eventually winning one individual state title in 1997 and two team titles in ‘95 and ‘97. But things changed when she started competing against her teammates.

“My teammate Kalen Andersen—who went on to play collegiate golf and is the head coach of women's golf at South Carolina now—we had played softball together as kids and she was just a great athlete,” Lunke says. “By the time I was playing on the Edina team, she was an excellent player and that pushed me. It made me strive to be better.”

She asked her dad for help, and Homeyer showed her the ropes, amazed at her rapid improvement. “When I'd tell her something, she could do it almost immediately. And if you weren't careful, she would overdo it,” he says.

Not wanting to “screw her up,” Homeyer turned his daughter's tutelage over to PGA pros Ron Benson (Indian Hills GC) and Marty Lass (Edina CC). They soon realized that coaching the motivated Hilary meant mostly staying out of her way. After shooting 124 in that first 18-hole round, Lunke broke 90 two months later and within 22 months broke 70.