RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- Sunny, cloudless skies with temperatures hovering around 80 degrees greeted players in Thursday's opening round of the ANA Inspiration. For golfers, that's about as perfect as can be for the first round of a major championship.
But for mothers-to-be Brittany Lincicome and Sarah Jane Smith -- each expecting her first child later this year -- the toasty afternoon rounds commanded more water consumption and more time huddling under umbrellas and shade trees.
Lincicome hit her first tee shot at 1:27 p.m. PT, and moments later she calmly drained a 25-foot putt for birdie on her first hole. The Floridian walked under a reflective umbrella between shots and seemed at ease on the Mission Hills Country Club's Dinah Shore Course, where she won in 2009 and 2015.
"I feel like I'm hitting it 5 yards shorter, but then sometimes the ball goes the right distance, so my yardages are really challenging," said Lincicome, once nicknamed "Bam Bam" as the tour's driving distance leader at 270.3 yards in 2005. Lincicome was 11th in average driving distance in both 2017 and 2018, but she is only 29th this year so far, averaging just over 268 yards off the tee.
Lincicome carded an opening-round score of 3-over 75, with bogeys on her last two holes.
"I love this place, and as a competitor, it's tough not to play well. But in the whole big picture, I can't complain," added Lincicome, who was given a baby onesie by two young fans after her round. "Make the cut, miss the cut -- as long as my baby's healthy, that's what really matters."
Having grown up in the blistering heat of Queensland, Australia, Smith arrived to the first tee for her 1:43 p.m. PT tee time. Her caddie/husband, Duane Smith, pocketed bottled waters for the round and spoke quietly to his wife before she whacked her drive right-center down the fairway.
Smith's fellow competitor, China's Xiyu Lin, outdrove the Aussie by 50 yards -- something she's not used to as a once-formidable ball striker herself who is now averaging 251 yards off the tee -- but after a few gentle tugs at the waistband of her skort, Smith hit her approach shot, chipped to within 2 feet and saved par on her opening hole.
Smith finished the day at 2-over 74, parring each hole except when she bogeyed 16 and 17. She hopes to improve on her career-best tie for 32nd, posted at this event in 2013.
This spring has been about learning to play a game they each have played for years in a brand-new way. A part of that has required them to become more attuned to how their bodies feel during preparation and competition.
"Stacy [Lewis] has been great, and she's given me a few tips about stretching and being very careful with my back," Smith said. "Gerina [Piller] also has given me a heap of advice about when the baby comes. Everybody has been so helpful."
It was at last year's ANA Inspiration when Lewis told her caddie she was expecting to deliver a baby in October. Now, the mother of daughter Chesnee, Lewis is the tour's new lifeline for expectant moms Lincicome and Smith. She has taken on the role that Juli Inkster used to play for Lewis and others.
"I get a text every couple of days and a lot of questions," said Lewis. "It's fun to be able to help them. Swinging a golf club and being pregnant is a hard deal ... [so it's good] just to be there for them and to assure them that what they're feeling is OK."
The LPGA Tour lists 11 active moms on its roster, including veteran mothers Inkster, Laura Diaz and Catriona Matthew, whose children are now older. But the new arrivals scheduled for later this year could spark a baby boom once again.
With a youthful tour membership during recent years, the LPGA's traveling Smucker's Child Development Center had dwindled from nearly a dozen children in the late 1980s and 1990s to three kids of players Karine Icher, Cristie Kerr and Sydnee Michaels in 2018.
That number is trending upward, however, with the recent additions by new moms Lewis, Pillar and Brooke Pancake, and new family additions by Icher and Kerr. Jackie Stoelting posted on Twitter this week that she is pregnant. European veteran Suzann Pettersen also gave birth last year but has not yet returned to the tour.
Due to deliver her son on July 23, Smith plans to return to the tour next year. She is already excited to think her son will be the first Australian baby in the LPGA's child care program.
"A lot of us joined the tour at about the same time, and we're at that age when we're thinking about having families," said Smith, 34. "Hopefully, all of our kids will grow up together while we play on tour for a little bit longer. It's going to be a full day care."
Lincicome's daughter is due for arrival on Sept. 1. Playing while pregnant this week has been a completely different experience for Lincicome, making her 12th appearance on a course that has proved to be her comfort zone.
"I can definitely feel when I swing -- especially with the driver -- there are some things stretching and growing around the belly area," said Lincicome, 33. "I've been so lucky, though, [because] I haven't been sick, I haven't been tired and I haven't really felt anything."
Smith, on the other hand, was sick during her first trimester but has rebounded with the start of the 2019 season.
"Luckily, all of my sickness fell in the offseason, so I wasted the entire preseason in bed sick," laughed Smith.
"And then I started feeling him kick a little bit during the Australian Open," she added. "Since then, he hasn't stopped."
This year's ANA Inspiration has been a celebration already for Lincicome. The affable player wore all-pink golf attire during an early-week press conference. Her eyes sparkled. Her return to Mission Hills Country Club this spring marked a solid year of learning about much more than golf shots.
Lincicome learned she was pregnant for the first time during the 2018 ANA Inspiration. She and her husband, Dewald Gouws, were excited about the news, but when they went for their eight-week checkup, their joy was replaced by sheer heartbreak and disbelief.
The baby's heartbeat was gone, and Lincicome was quickly scheduled for surgery at 5 a.m. the next day.
"We cried for days and days," she told Golfweek magazine when describing her miscarriage last year.
And while Lincicome won't be available to help this year's 2019 U.S. Solheim Cup team when it faces the European squad in mid-September -- two weeks after her projected delivery date -- she is grateful to have a chance this year to deliver a healthy child.
"It's truly a blessing," she said. "We've been trying for a while to get pregnant."
As for missing the Solheim Cup, where she has played for the American team in six events, Lincicome shrugged.
"I was going to have to miss something regardless of when I got pregnant," she said. "It is what it is."
Lincicome said six months seems to be the typical stopping point for pregnant tour players. She hopes to make the LPGA's late-May tournament in Virginia her final 2019 event. Smith likely will head home to Florida in early May to prepare for her baby's arrival.
Just as Lewis experienced last year during her pregnancy with corporate sponsor KPMG, Lincicome learned in late March that her sponsors, Diamond Resorts and CME Group, plan to honor their support of her through her pregnancy. Until last year's unprecedented announcement of continued support for Lewis, corporate endorsement agreements for women golf professionals on maternity leave were generally lost when players left the tour.
"I was totally blown away," Lincicome said when asked about having her contracts honored while away from the tour.
"We're a women's organization ... [and] we don't have time to take off like the PGA Tour guys do," she added. "This is our job. It's just so great that our sponsors see that and support us 100 percent."
Lisa D. Mickey has covered golf for Golf World, Golf For Women, The New York Times, the U.S. Golf Association, LPGA.com, Virginia Golfer Magazine and for various other publications and websites. She is based in Florida.
