Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where Liz Sheppers scored the ot winner to lead the Minnesota Frost to a second straight walter Cup. We've asked the WNBA for comment, and if you don't get that joke, honestly, good for you out there. You're probably touching grass and feeling the sun instead of living.
On the internet like us.
It's Wednesday, May twenty eighth, and on today's show, we'll be bringing you my conversation with pro golfer and LPGA tour player Mariah Stackhouse ahead of this weekend's US Open. We talk about growing up a prodigy, the cost of life on tour, dealing with injuries, including the one keeping her out of this weekend's tourney.
And more.
Plus so many champions were crowned over the weekend, Caitlin Clark is sidelined, and the NWSL's next expansion squad has its head coach.
It's all coming up right after this Welcome back slices.
Here's what you need to know today. Let's start on the ice with the PWHL. The Minnesota Frost completed their title defense, securing a second straight walter Cup with their win on Monday, Entering Game four on home ice, the Frost r up two to one in the series and with eleven twenty four fans cheering them on inside Excel Energy Center, Minnesota found its first goal in the second
period thanks to friend of the Show Kelly Panic. Ottawa's Teresa Venisheva answered in the third, setting up overtime for the fourth time in four games in the series.
In the n Frost.
Forward Liz Sheppers showed off her clutch gene once again, scoring the championship winning goal for the second year in a row. We also got a shout out front of the Show Matti Rooney, who made thirty three saves for Minnesota in the win. With the start and the win, she earned her fifth straight postseason victory, tying the PWHL record for most wins in a single postseason set by Boston's Aaron Frankel last year. Two seasons, two titles for the Frost, we got the beginnings of a little dynasty
cook in here, folks. Crossfield, North Carolina put the cherry on top of its undefeated season on Sunday, beating Northwestern twelve to eight to earn the programme's fourth women's lacrosse title. A record fourteen thy four hundred and twenty three fans attended the twenty twenty five national Final, obliterating the previous record of eleven thousand and six sixty eight. The game was a grind, with both teams notatching their lowest point totals of the season. There were a couple of really
cool family connections in this one. UNC head coach Jenny Levy and her daughter, freshman Kate Levy, became the first mother daughter combo to win the championship, and Kate scored UNC's second goal in the dub Grad student attacker Ashley Humphrey hit ninety assists on the season in the title game, breaking her own nc doublea single season assist record from twenty twenty two, while her sister, freshman attacker Chloe Humphrey, recorded her ninetieth goal of the season and NCUBA freshman record.
And there's more.
The eldest sister of the three, Nicole, is also on the UNC roster this season, but she didn't play the championship game. You could say that lacrosse prowess runs in the family. Two more quick shoutouts from the Lacrosse Weekend. My friend Stu Gotts's daughter Rachel Wiener, whose Northwestern squad came up just short of the title, and my Cornell big Red who won the men's National championship, first title
in lacrosse for Cornell since nineteen seventy seven. And getting to watch the game with my college friends on Monday at my friend's lake house was the perfect way to close out the perfect girls weekend. Some footy news congratulations are in order for Gotham FC. The NWSL club won the inaugural CONCACAFF W Champions Cup on Saturday, earning a one nail dub over Liga MX club Tigris uanl Feminil.
No idea what the CONCACAFF W Champions Cup is. It's a tournament that brings together the top women's soccer clubs from North America, Central America and the Caribbean. And you remember we told you it actually started last season. Okay, back to the match. So after missing a penalty kick, Aster Gonzales controlled the rebound and bare married the game winning goal for Gotham in the eighty second minute. I mean, who else would it be that lady is on a heater.
With the win, Gotham FC has secured a spot in both the inaugural FIFA Champions Cup in twenty twenty six and the inaugural FIFA Women's Club World Cup in twenty twenty eight. Also got to give a tip of the cap to the Portland Thorns, who defeated Club America three nil to take third place in the tournament. More soccer news. Boston Legacy FC has found its head woman per friend at the Show Jeff Casouf at ESPN. The club has agreed to terms with Felipa Pateau, who's been heading up
Portuguese club Benfica's senior team since twenty twenty. Pateau led the squad to five consecutive league titles and helped Benfica become the first Portuguese club to reach the UEFA Women's Champions League quarterfinals in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four. Now, the thirty six year old, who was nominated for the Ballon d'Or for Coach of the Year last year, will be under contract with Boston until twenty twenty seven and lead the side in its first NWSL season next year.
A little more NWSL news.
Huge kudos to Barbara Banda in the Orlando Pride three to one win over the Utah Royals. On Friday, Banda scored the fastest hat trick in NWSL history, completing it in the first thirty eight minutes of the match. She scored in the sixth thirty seventh, and thirty eighth minutes. It was also the first hat trick in Pride history, and per opt to Jack, Banda didn't just bury three, she was on target for all six shots she attempted, becoming the third player to attempt six or more shots
with one hundred percent accuracy in an NWSL match. To tennis, many of the WTA's top players remained standing in the French Open at stad Roland Garros, but a couple players have seen their tournaments come to a close. World number nine ranked player Emma Navarro got knocked out in straight sets by Jessica buzis Manero in the first round, and just a few weeks after picking up her first WTA title since twenty twenty one, Naomi Osaka suffered her own
early defeat. She lost to world number ten Paula Bedosa in the first round, and she had a pretty emotional press conference after the match. A reporter Naomi how the tough loss would make her stronger, and here's how she responded.
I hope you can tell me that I think. I'm not sure. I feel like I learn little things from each match. I think I lost a tiebreaker in Rome, and I didn't lose the tiebreaker here, So I mean I am conscious of things when I'm playing. So maybe the next match I play, I'll learn little.
Things from today.
And you know something, I really can appreciate when athletes show us how much a loss hurts, because that way we feel even more joy when we get to watch them win. Naomi's been on this super public journey back to full strength over the last few years, and it's been a constant reminder watching her just how hard what these players do is. So we're sending love your way, Naomi. You're still a hell of a player and we're rooting
for you. Some WNBA news, second year sensation Caitlin Clark will miss at least the next two weeks of Indiana games with.
The left quad strain.
The injury announcement came on Monday, and of course sent some folks into a spiral. By all accounts, though the move is more preventative than anything, as Clark had been limited in the preseason with what she called tightness in her left quad. The team didn't officially confirm whether the two instances were related, but Clark said she had a pain after their loss to the Liberty on Saturday, and an MRI revealed the injury. Now this is uncharted territory for Clark.
She never missed a.
Game at Iowa nor in her WNBA career to this point. The Athletic published some comments from Fever head coach Stephanie White talking about the injury. She said, quote, there's so many things when you think about Caitlin and her not wanting to miss games. Obviously everyone wants to watch her play.
But for me, it's maintaining perspective. It's making sure that we address this in a way that doesn't affect the long term, that we take care of it, don't over push, don't overexert, making sure that we take the long game approach to this so we're not having lingering issues throughout the course of the season.
End quote.
Per ESPN's Candor, and the Fever phenom is set to be reevaluated on June ninth. That's a bummer for me and Chicago fans as She's said to miss the Fever Sky game on June seventh that had been moved to the United Center, and that's part of a real cool doubleheader with the opening day of AUSL still gonna make it happen, but we all want to see Caitlin in that one to the Diamond.
The D one College Softball Super Regionals are.
Over and eight teams advanced to the Women's College World Series. The action gets started tomorrow at twelve pm Eastern with number three Florida taken on number six Texas, followed by number two Oklahoma versus number seven Tennessee at two thirty Eastern. Both those games will be on ESPN Coverage moves over to ESPN two at seven pm Eastern for number twelve Texas Tech against unranked Ole Miss, and then number nine UCLA at number sixteen Oregon round things out at nine
thirty pm Eastern. We'll link to the full interactive bracket in our show notes. Also want to give a shout out to Tennessee's CARLN. Pickens, who reset the record for the fastest pitch in college softball history. Now you remember we mentioned her back in March when she first broke the record. With a seventy eight point two mile per
hour pitch against Arkansas. Well, Pickens out did herself on Saturday, throwing a seventy eight point four mile per hour bullet in the first inning of the Lady Bowls Super Regional game against Nebraska. Starting to understand why Pickens has been the SEC pitcher of the year the last two seasons.
We got to take a quick break.
When we come back, I chop it up with most acts back in a jiff. Joining us now, she's a professional golfer on the LPGA Tour. A graduate of Stanford, where she was a four year All American and a twenty fifteen NCAA team title winner. In twenty eleven, at seventeen, she was the youngest African American golfer to qualify for US Women's Open, and was the only Black qualifier in that tournament. She reached her highest ranking so far in twenty eighteen, at one hundred and thirty seven in the world.
She's in her gen z era, but she's never given up the peace sign. And it's Mariah Stackhouse. I'm Mariah.
Hey, Sarah, you do it.
I'm good. Thanks.
Everyone just heard about your start as a golf phenom, So I want to go all the way back.
How'd you get into playing?
My dad actually got me into playing golf when I was younger. So I wanted to go wherever he went. So he left the house, I wanted to go with him, and so he would often go play golf after work on the weekends. So he cut down some clubs for me. Got me started when I was about two years old, and the rest is kind of history. Started playing tournaments at six and just kept it going.
When you say cut down clubs, like what was he using to break adult clubs into the size that you could practice with?
You know, I have no idea, But he was an architect and he's had a construction company too, so he had all the tools. So whatever he used, okay, chop it down, I'm not sure, but he cut some real clubs and took me with him.
I'm just trying to imagine my dad trying to do that.
Yeah, because the shop, you're right, it's iron, so you'd have to really have something and like keep it.
Safe, like throw something on the end, not stabbing everybody when you're trying to learn how.
To play it too.
Exactly or like stabbing my own arm slinger, right right right.
I mentioned that back in twenty eleven, you kind of burst onto the scene and you did an interview with NPR rejecting the comparisons to Tiger Woods. Was that just about the fact that he had won bigger tournaments at the age of seventeen than you had yet or was there something else that you didn't like about hearing that comparison.
You know, it's not that there's anything that I dislike about hearing the comparison, you know, at that time, and honestly still to the present day, there aren't that many black golfers on tour. So for all those of us who come up that are younger than Tiger, they're always going to get that comparison, especially if you've had a
successful junior career. But you know, Tiger is one of the greatest athletes to ever walk the planet, you know, So it's honestly just you know, looking out for myself and allowing myself to kind of carve my own lane with my own expectations that don't necessarily have to be as grand as that is, you know. There, like I said, one of the best athletes to off for play. So now a little bit of pressure exactly.
You know, you also said back then, which was all the way back in twenty eleven, so a long time ago, that you hadn't experienced the same race hurdles that Tiger had, nor had you faced gender based hurdles. You're thirty now, is that still the case for you?
I think, by and large yes, I think I was. I was grateful as junior golfer that my dad, especially on the golf course, was always around me, always protective, and I think he grew up in murder Beeat, South Carolina. He definitely did experience racism on the golf course, and so he was always protective of me and wanted to make sure that he was there to protect me from
anything that might be said or done to me. So throughout my junior golf career, I just never had those experiences because he was always going to be right there making sure that they didn't happen. And then, you know, as I got a little bit older, start traveling by myself, especially turning pro you know, nothing was ever overt you know, are crazy, which was which was a blessing for Shure.
It would all some microaggressions, like you know, letting players in that might have their badge on their hit, you know, but then not one letting my badge count. It's like, no, we also want to see your idea to get into the locker room. Little things like that. But you know, my dad, they had an affirmation written for me that I would say to myself here every day when I was young, and part of that was just having pride and confidence in myself and being happy to be black
and proud of that. And so I think that that's kind of my internal protection against those sort of things, and they never really get me outside of myself and outside of my body or make me feel undeserving of being in that space.
Oh, I love that, and I love that they had you before maybe it even was necessary already saying that to yourself and ready for that, Let's talk about the present. You're currently sidelined with an injury, which is a bummer. Tell us about the surgery.
Yeah, I had a pretty like just on a case and bicep tendonitis, and I took about six weeks off in the off season. At the start, did my PT and it just would not get better. So after two cortisone injections with no improvement. I reached out to my Stanford coach and the Stanford Sports Medicine Network and they got me connected with a team here that works with a lot of athletes, and so I underwent surgery at
the very end of March. So it's been almost two months now, and I had a bicep toent odisis, which is basically going in and cleaning up the damage part of my bicep tendon and then retightening it and then letting it heal so that I can get back to working out and swinging paying free. So it's it's honestly, I like the physical side of sports. So the like kind of nerd outside of me is enjoyed, like learning the process and everything that I'm going through and I'm
realizing like pt and like recovery. It's a really cool space on the side of not being able to play that has really up. Like the US Open qualifiers came and went couldn't compete. I'm watching my friends, like, you know, they had a new and mogural tournament in Mexico and a couple of my buddies LPJ and EPSOM were there and I was like, man, you know that would be that would be cool to be performing getting a chance
to play there right now. But I have a great team around the agent, sponsors, and they are really pushing just patience, take care of yourself, heal because we want you to come back the best that you can be. So it's been a whirlwind, and I definitely miss traveling and playing and honestly just seeing our friends on tour. But it's also been nice to be home and spend some time with my family, time that I haven't gotten
to spend in years. So I'm just kind of looking at the silver lining of it and saying, if this is the situation that I'm in, let's just make the most of it.
Well, I can tell you, as someone in their forties, if you really like diving into pt and understanding how your body breaks down, you're in for a beautiful future because a lot of us are are there, whether we like on one.
Are you hoping to be back competing.
I should be able to make a full swing with an iron by the end of June, so that's an after the twelve week mark, I can swing a club and if that goes well and it's paying free, I'm hoping to build up over the next couple of weeks next few weeks, so maybe by the end mid to end of July be hitting my driver and if that goes well, just a couple of weeks so strong work in the gym and working to get my swing speed back up, which would make the go mid August, so
all things go well, I'm hoping to be back competing there.
What's the best part about being a pro golfers.
I feel like there's two answers for that. For me. One, it's just competing and playing golf like as a career. Every day I wake up and I go to the gym, and I go to practice and I train, and like, that's my job is to be as best as I can be as great as I can't playing golf, And that's pretty cool. It's the game, Like I said, I played it since I was two, competitively since I was six. It's literally been the dream of my life. So the fact that I get to wake up every day and
do that is a treat. So just competing tournaments and the training that goes around it, I love the entire process, but also the travel, like traveling around the country, around the world, getting to go to all these new places, I'm a huge foody, so trying cuisines in different countries is great and I feel like when you're there, it's authentic. And so those are just the experiences that I get to have and the friends that I get to do it with makes it great.
Yeah, the social part has always been a big thing for you.
I read an interview where you talked about enjoying golf in part because you could compete and converse. It wasn't just like basketball where you're playing against somebody but you can never chat with them because you're midway through, you know, defending them or driving the lane or whatever. Do you find at the professional level you can still have those friendships and really pursue those connections or are people getting a little competitive for that at this level?
I think inside the ropes is definitely a bit more competitive professional golf, and rightfully so, right like, every shot you hit it it's it's your income, it's your it's your earnings that you're working towards and your goals. So I would say that for professional golf, inside the ropes it's a little bit more serious, but the same thing. You make friends with people, and so when you get
paired with people that you're good buddies with. There is still that social element that takes place inside the ropes competing, but we also get to travel together, and so there
are times when we'll ruin an airbnb together. Throughout the country, we'll stay at the same hotels and plan dinners and little excursions, so you definitely get that social aspect, and I think outside off the course, it's almost even more important because you're traveling so long, like you could be going from homes for four to five weeks, depending on how your schedule shakes, and so you definitely need some comaraderie and friendship out there so that it doesn't feel
like a lonely career. And so that's something that I learned quickly my rookie year, is that you definitely need just friendship and companions to hang out with out there. And so I've moved forward after my rookie year and do all that in place, and so now I genuinely
have fun when I travel. It's still work, the priority is still showing up to the golf course competing and practicing, but on the relaxed moments, evenings, off days, then we hang out and we go have fun and explore the cities that we're in.
That's awesome. So travel and potential loneliness certainly some drawbacks. What do you think is the hardest part of being a pro golfer?
Hands down, Like, there's just things you miss right there are you know, milestones and emits and things that will happen in your friends' lives that you might not be able to be there for. And I think that that's the toughest part. But you have to wake up every day and say you know this. You know, as an athlete, your career is not your whole life. Like at a certain point, your body will tell you it's time to
bow out. And so as long as you're passionate about it and love it, I tell myself, you know, it's just a sacrifice that has to be made right now for you to chase your dreams. And as long as you're happy chasing those dreams and the sacrifice is worth it.
So it's tough. It's tough to miss those things sometimes of my friends and family, they love and support me, and they know my dreams and my goals and they're happy to support And I always understanding of the things that I might not be able to make.
Yeah, And I think it's so hard because usually athletes are their athletes are entire lives, and it's not up until the moment that they're done that they're out in the real world and they really recognize, like, oh man, how good did I have it? I'm out on a golf course for my job every day, like in the
sun with my friends competing, playing a game. And then you go try to have like a desk job and you're like, oh shit, and like you it's not that you don't already appreciate it, but you maybe would appreciate it even more if you'd ever had to do a couple of years of just everyday garbage before you get to go back and golf again and real ye, what
a joy it is to just be outside work. And you know, one of the challenges is certainly the cost and like competing to make a living, which is so different than here's your salary for the year, and you know that it's coming in.
Of course, you got to work hard, but you know.
In a recent episode of Welcome to the Party, Tesha Allen, who's on our iheartwomen's sports network, former pro golfer, was talking to another former pro in Cheyenne. Woods and Chyenne shared the cost of playing from paying for travel, hotels, entry fee, caddy fee, and I don't think I really realized how much is on the golfer to cover. So can you kind of share the realities of being a player on the LPGA tour and what you're responsible for.
Yeah, playing on tour, that's definitely a huge part of it, and I think, honestly, oftentimes it might be a barrier for some Like I know that I have friends that have felt like I've had to bow out of the tour or go on to the next part of my career because I didn't get the success I needed fast enough to sustain the cost of playing on tour, you know, Like you said, caddie is probably somewhere between fifteen hundred
to two thousand a week. Lodging, you know, is probably somewhere between eight to thirteen hundred, depending on the venue that you're at. We have an entry fee, which for LPG I think they're two hundred. EPSEN, which is the
Mini tour, I think it's four hundred. You know, air travel, rental cars which have also gotten really expensive in the last few years too, So you have those costs that add up every single week, and then you have dining on tour where you have to have to you have to manage your dinner, your snacks, and make sure that you're fuel so it can Honestly, a week on tour can depending can ring somewhere between twenty five hundred to five thousand. It just depends on how it shakes out.
And I mean that's a lot to manage every single week, week in and week out. And I'm really grateful that I have sponsors that have been, you know, great and supportive of me for all the years, especially now, Like I think about even on the recovery side, right I'm not playing, I'm not competing right now, so I'm not making money on the course, but i also have expenses in my PT, like I'm going to PT, I'm doing I'm going to the trainer, I'm doing various workouts just
get back and shape. That's also a lot like weekend and week out for me here right now at home. So having that support makes me feel free and able to do that without like financial burden and stress is huge. But I mean it's just it's crazy. There's there's nothing that we have that's just given to us, and so well, no athlete has anything given to us. But when you're not on a team, everything is out of pocket for you.
And it's actually an interesting side to that is when I realized that I needed surgery, I had to reach out to my Stanford network. Another huge part of that is you're not on a team, you don't have a dedicated doctor and medical staff right at home. So I needed to figure out who I needed to see in
Atlanta to get me through this. And LPGIT were based everywhere, and so there might be a network of doctors, but most of the stuff for the tours in Florida, I need to be at home during doing my PT So I had to go through outside sources to find someone here in Atlanta to help me. Whereas if I were you know, Atlanta Dream or you know, a team here Braced, they have a medical team dedicated to the team right then and there to take care of every injury and
thing that pops up. So it's like all the things that you think come up as an athlete, we navigated on our own, which is really something.
So was your medical coverage through the LPGA.
Actually, the LPGA just launched medical coverage for US, I think towards the end of last season, so this will be the first fool season with it on tour, and with like my injuries and stuff with the pastical be yeers, I don't have full status right now, so I've been able to take advantage of that. But that was a huge announcement for us as players last year because I think that's something that people have really been wanting and so they came through with that and it's been fantastic.
I've heard that some players as soon as they got it went and did some reproductive stuff, freezing their eggs and things like that, which I think is just fantastic. You know, to have that ability as a player, you don't know how long your career is going to go, so you might want to, you know, have those kind of options available to you. So pretty cool that they've gotten met through for us.
You know.
Back in twenty twenty three, the PGA announced it would start loaning mail players money if they were new to the tour to cover uprount costs like five hundred thousand dollars, and then players could return the money as they won prize money. Do you know if the LPGA has ever considered adding something similar to the women's side.
I don't know, as there's conversations about that in effect, but I do know that there have been both LPGA and a few sponsors for certain tournaments have started to offer stipends for certain events, and so that could be like a fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars stipend to
offset costs. I know most of the majors do it now, So if you compete in the major I think for most of them, you earn two thousand dollars for simply having a spot in the championship, which is great, and so a few regular season events have taken that stance as well. So I think the influence of what the
PGA Tour is doing is solely trickling in. And I think that the LPGA is trying to do the best with the with the financial resources that we have available to figure out ways to start to assist players and offset some of those costs.
So players are making money off of obviously sponsors and good finishes. Does it depend on the tournament how far down people make money.
The amount that you make that week is dependent on your performance entirely, So most some tournaments are sixty some sixty five and ties. But wherever you are on the cut after the first two days of the event, only the people that makes the cut are going to go on and have an opportunity to earn and so then depending on the perse size of that influence is payout. So you have some two million dollar per to we need two million, five hundred thousand, three million, et cetera.
So the bigger the purse, the bigger opportunity you have to make a good a good amount at the end of that week. But if you miss the cut, you just missed the cut and you have your expenses for the week, but you get another chance to go and make it back the next week.
I saw you went down to see some unrivaled action in Miami. Are there things that you would like to see golf borrow from other women's pro sports leagues, whether that's unrivaled or the w NBA and WSL, anything you see that you're like, oh, I wish we did that.
Honestly, I think following, just like social and branding for the NWSL and WNBA is incredible and I'd love to see I mean, golf is it's a trickier sport because there's no team aspect to it, and so you're asking, you know, to bring out personalities and get stories from players who might be a little bit shy and we don't have that buffer of like a team around them
to help bring you out of the shell. But I would love to see our tour figure out a few ways to showcase our players and our personalities and our stories a little bit more, and you know, start engaging in trends online that are popular, etc. I just I think that those those organizations do a great job of branding and showcasing who the players are, and that's how you build a following. And so I understand, like there's no team and it so you have to figure out
a different way to go about doing that. But I do believe that it can be done and it would be great for us. I think almost even more important considering it's not a team sport and it's an individual sport. So the more that you can get out about who players are, show their humors, show the things they care about, man trusted, you start to bring more people in. And I think in a women's individual sport it's almost even more important because you don't have that immediate market behind them.
So speaking of things that you're interested in and people getting to know your personality, I'm so you get asked all the time about being a black golfer and all the other stuff, But there's things you'd rather talk about. There's things you'd hope that interviewers would ask you. So what do you want to talk about? What do you wish folks would ask you about?
You know, the questions are pretty much pretty much okay, So I don't know if I have a question about that offer it. I will say that I love to like you bringing in other women's sports organizations into this conversation. Like I'm a huge on sports fan, love soccer, love basketball, and so I think it'd be cool to sometimes, you know, have a little bit of a crossover and talk about the ways that other women's sports and their stories and athletes inspire us.
Yeah.
No, I mean I love that, And I think if I were on the LPGA tour, I would want to like get involved with the other leagues and do more collabse and bring those players out to the course and show them what you do and then maybe you know, go go check out a dream game and take some
shots and all that other stuff. I think one of the ways to really involve female golfers in the rest of the women's sports kind of industrial complex that's blowing up is to have those crossover events where they show up in the places people already are and then you try to pull them over to your sport into what you do. Are there athletes and women's sports that you'd love to take out on the course or see in a pro am?
Definitely? So obviously I have a season tickets for Atlanta
Dream here. It's a huge dream fan. I know that Alicia Gay and Ryan Howard play golf, so I think that that would be a really cool, you know thing to maybe if we had, you know, a tournament or a major or something comes through Atlanta, like try to get them out to the pro am, which I think they both love to do, you know, and just different markets that we go to a lot of the women's soccer and basketball, a few of them actually play golf, you know, so just trying to like maybe pull them
into our pro ams. I know that the LPGA did that. I think last fall that Kate and Clark paired up with Nellie Korda, and I'm like, you know, you get some of the best in both sports to be playing together, Like, that's how you do it, That's how you generate a conversation and kind of get golf in there with the conversation and the rest of women's sports. And then I think when something like that happens, it also helps our
brand at Nelly Corda. Last year had one of the best seasons of any women athlete.
That's in the world.
But when it was time to have those conversations about Athlete of the Year, I didn't hear her name brought up. And I think that that's just a matter of golf not being in the conversation with the other athletes as much, because her name definitely deserved to be in there, because what she did was unspeakable. Five tournaments and roll multiple majors, and it's like, how can we get people talking about women's golf in the same way.
Yeah, totally. Speaking of names, most Stacks we got most Stacks, Berdies, is your Instagram name? Is that just a play on words or is that an alter ego for you?
No, it's a little bit of a player on words. So Moe was one of my nicknames and we just shartened it Stacks. But I remember my brother and I actually trying to come up with a Twitter handle for me, and we were just like, you know what, you play golf, you make a lot of birdies, so let's call you most Stacks Birdie. So basically most Stack and Birdie's on the course.
I mean, I like it.
I like it for the name, but I also think most Acts would just be a cool nickname and a cool altery.
Yes, yeah it is.
That is my nicknames my friends.
Yeah.
Yeah, And like, you know, you could do a whole merch line. I don't know, there's something there's Most Acts sounds like someone who would put together those collabs we were talking about and find a way to get yourself into the other spaces. All right, last question, I want to hear about Underrated Golf Tour. What is it and what's your involvement in it?
Yes, so under Golf Tour is Steph Curry's uh tour. He has it for basketball as well, but Steph really loves golf and it is passionate about providing opportunities to our youth, to our junior golfers and getting them on on you know, tab of this courses. Learning what it is like to play a tour structure over the summer owned points which then qualify you for some other Junior
Gloss events. So it's really about going into the kids, getting them on first class golf courses with storied histories, and giving them a chance to compete and grow in the game of golf. And so I love it. KPMG one of my sponsors, and I I had the opportunity to get to know Steph his underrated team and get involved with supporting his event and then supporting the kids, and it's been fantastic. My favorite part of what we do is at the Championship in September, once the golf
has concluded. The next day, we have basically a leadership academy set up for the young players and so their parents have some informationals. We have some informationals. I'll do sessions, My dad will come up and do a session with some of the parents. We have college recruiters, people in business who can mentor and offer some guidance for the young golfers. So it's really investing in them as young
athletes but also people, and it's been great. Like these kids, they love to compete, they're great golf, and I just feel fortunate to get to play a role in helping them continue to grow and improve their games, and, like I said, learn a tour system. Navigating the junior golf world, it can be challenging for parents who didn't grow up playing a game of golf themselves and might need some guidance on how best to move their juniors through it.
So we provide that guidance to both the juniors and to their parents, and our goal is to get them to the best school if possible. And if they go on and decide that they want to pursue a career as professional golfers, then we hope that we've helped invest and give them the tools to chase that dream.
I love that it's so important.
It's really like it's much more complicated than a lot of other sports to get into, to be able to afford to try it and to find out if you're great at it, and then where do you go if you do find that you have a calling for it.
So that's really.
Cool, Mariah, so great to talk to you. Heal fast. I guess enjoy the PT if that's what you're into, and we look forward to see you back out.
On the link soon.
I appreciate it, Sarah, thanks for having me.
We have to take another break when we come back.
One former golfer goes all in on changing the game.
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Watch friend of the show Tisha Allin launching her own brand, rating ten out of ten fashionable fits for the Links and the Clubhouse review. Former pro golfer turned content creator and podcast host Tisha Allen. You've heard her on our show and on her iheartwomen's sports podcast Welcome to the Party, has recognized what she calls gaps in gear visibility and how women are included in the game of golf, and
she decided to do something about it. The first capsule of her all in Golf brand is now live at allindolf dot com. That's al Yn Goolf dot com. From dresses to pants and skirts and t's that say, I'm not a player, I just golf a lot.
She's trying to make golf.
A little cooler, younger, and edgier, and we're here for it. Congrats Tisha. Now it's your turn slices, rate and review. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. Good game, Mariah, Good game, Minnesota, Frost UNC Lacrosse and got THEMFC you biceps tendonitis. A Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You could find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rutterer. Our editors are Emily Rutterer, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch and Gianna Palmer. Our associate producer is Lucy Jones and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain