Bobbi Stricker wants to play on the LPGA. She has always said her golf journey is about seeing how good she can get. Sticker played tennis in high school and didn’t start playing competitive golf until college. Every step she has taken in golf, she said, has been a “dream come true.” Now, as she ticks off goals she has felt deep down in her soul, she’s starting to say the big ones out loud.
“I do fully believe they need to be spoken out into in the world,” she said. “Say them out loud, and you start to believe them.”
This week, Stricker takes an important next step toward that big dream, as she participates in Stage II of LPGA Qualifying School for the first time. Her father, Steve, a 12-time winner on the PGA Tour and the winning captain for the U.S. squad at the 2021 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, will once again be on the bag.
Steve, 55, has 11 titles on the PGA Tour Champions, including four this season.
LPGA officials were forced to reschedule Stage II from its original October dates in Venice, Florida, after Hurricane Ian caused considerable damage to the area. A total of 178 players will tee it up Nov. 17-20 in the 72-hole stroke-play event at Plantation Golf and Country Club on the Bobcat and Panther courses. There is no cut, and players, who range in age from 16 to 40, will compete in foursomes due to daylight concerns. The field includes 36 amateurs, including 16-year-old Holly Halim from Indonesia.
The top 45 and ties will advance to LPGA Q-Series, held the first two weeks in December in Alabama. Everyone in the field in Venice, Florida, will earn at least minimum Epson Tour status.
Stricker family: Nicki, Steve, Bobbi and Izzi (courtesy Bobbi Stricker)
Last December, Bobbi caddied for her uncle, Mario Tiziani, at the PGA Tour Champions Qualifying Tournament. The front-row seat was eye-opening, even for a player who has been around golf her whole life.
“I see and have seen my whole life, really kind of one way of doing things,” she said. “What my dad does works for him and makes sense, but it’s been really cool to see maybe a different way of doing things and realizing that it is different for everyone and you do what fits you.”
Bobbi reports that everyone in the family is super competitive. There have been times when Bobbi and her younger sister, Izzi, a high school junior who who recently won a state title, have taken on their parents in a match. Their mother, Nicki, played golf at Wisconsin. Sometimes Izzi and her dad take on Bobbi and mom.
“The game keeps us together,” said Bobbi. “We travel with (dad), we practice with him.”
Last year at Stage I, a worked-up Bobbi was intimidated by the whole scene at Mission Hills Country Club. She walked on Wisconsin’s golf team as a freshman, and her first goal was to start breaking 80 consistently and make the traveling team.
This year at Stage I, a more seasoned Bobbi experienced a profound sense of calmness the whole week. She closed with a 69 on the Dinah Shore Tournament Course to finish in a tie for seventh and easily advance.
“It was the first time in really my whole golfing career where I was fully in control of everything golf-game wise,” said Bobbi. “My spiritual journey has really aligned with my golf.”
Bobbi said she never thought of herself as a perfectionist until recently. She’s a grinder, like her father, and started to appreciate the importance of extending herself grace. For that example, she can look to dad, whose renewed love of the game is palpable after a serious health scare.
“It’s just like this joy that radiates from him,” she said.
While studying at Wisconsin, Bobbi joined a Christian organization called Athletes in Action, where she learned how to apply her faith to other areas of life.
“I say today, golf has become church for me,” said Bobbi. “I find the Lord in nature and I always have.”
The beauty of the desert mountains in Stage I, she said, contributed to the calmness she felt at Mission Hills.
“There is only one being in this world that’s perfect, and that’s Jesus,” said Bobbi. “It relaxes me, knowing that I can’t ever get to that perfection, so golf is never going to be like that.”