Stacy donates winners’ cheque for Houston relief
portland — Stacy Lewis won for Houston.
Lewis ended a long winless streak on Sunday at Cambia Portland Classic, with her $195,000 in winnings going to the relief efforts in her hometown area. Her two biggest sponsors also stepped up, with KPMG matching her donation and Marathon Oil kicking in $1 million.
“Probably was more pressure, to be honest,” Lewis said. “Honestly, I think that’s what helped me through the week, just knowing people wanted me to do well. People wanted me to win this for Houston. To do it when I added pressure to myself is a pretty good, pretty cool deal.”
Lewis, 32, from The Woodlands just north of Houston, won her 12th LPGA Tour title and first since June 2014, ending a frustrating stretch that included 12 runner-up finishes. She closed with a 3-under 69 to hold off In Gee Chun by a stroke at tree-lined Columbia Edgewater.
“Just kind of handed over control and said, ‘Take me. Take me to the finish line. Let me know what happens, God,’” Lewis said. “It was just amazing how when you let go of the control like that how great you can play.”
Lewis embraced and kissed husband Gerrod Chadwell, the University of Houston women’s golf coach, on the 18th green. She didn’t know he had made the trip to Oregon until he appeared on the green — after hiding out in the Golf Channel tower during the round.
“I was fine until he showed up, and then I started crying,” Lewis said. “You go through all the emotions of finishing second when sometimes it’s your fault and sometimes it’s not, and things just don’t seem to ever go your way and you get really frustrated at times.
He went through all of that with me, and it was probably as hard on him as it was on me. So just to have him here and get to share the win with him was pretty special.”
Lewis parred the final 11 holes. She got up-and-down from off the green on the par-4 17th and reached the green on the par-4 18th from a fairway bunker to set up her winning two-putt.
“I kind of resigned to the fact that whatever was going to happen was going to happen,” Lewis said. “I just needed to commit to my golf shots and hit them. I pulled off a great upand-down on 17 and probably hit one of shots of my life on 18.” — AP