The expiration date for Leta Lindley’s time with her trophy as the 2024 U.S. Senior Women’s Open champion was coming too fast for her liking. “I was, like, noooo, I don’t want to give it back,” Lindley said recently. “I emailed the USGA to find out what the absolute hard last date was that I had to put it back in the mail.”
The trophy, captured with a stunning final-round 64 while playing with Annika Sorenstam at Fox Chapel Golf Club in Pittsburgh, got one last outing on a dinner date with Lindley and her husband, Matt Plagmann, near their Florida home. She carried it through the restaurant to congratulations and wide smiles. They posed for photos. And then Lindley took it home and gave “her” one last careful polish, which had become almost an obsessive chore.
“I am certain I’m the only champion who has gone on Amazon to order more polishing cloths,” Lindley said with a laugh.
On the advice of her friend and 2022 U.S. Senior Women’s Open champion Jill McGill, who said she regretted not doing more with the trophy, Lindley didn’t let it sit in one spot for long. When one place became too familiar, she moved it to another. Many days, her husband asked, “Did you say good morning to your championship trophy today?”
“It was a big deal for my career,” Lindley said. “The cherry on top of the ice cream sundae. I wanted to appreciate what I’d worked so hard for.”
The experience went far beyond that. The truth is that few USGA champions have put their title and the message that trophy represents on display more than Lindley, who will defend it this week at San Diego Country Club, 45 miles south of where she grew up in Carlsbad.
In what she called her “Dare to Dream” tour, the 53-year-old, who puts others at ease with an engaging smile and quiet charm, shared her championship experience—and the trophy and gold medal—with kids, junior golfers, college players and anyone else intrigued by her story. The entire University of Tennessee women’s golf team visited with her at Old Marsh Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where Lindley now teaches six days a week.
Leta Lindley poses with the Tennessee women’s golf team at her home club, Old Marsh, in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. (Photo courtesy of Leta Lindley)
She shared with the Lady Vols her practice of writing encouraging messages to herself with sticky notes she posted all around her home. “I had to talk myself into seeing myself do something big,” she told them. “It’s one thing to write those words down—you have to believe you can do it and see yourself doing it. You can make it happen.”
Not long after, Lindley was deeply touched when every woman on the team sent her a photo of their own sticky. How wonderful is that? “I just loved it so much,” Lindley said.
Lindley’s story resonates because it is so relatable. After being a four-time All-American at the University of Arizona and the medalist of the 1994 U.S. Women’s Amateur, Lindley turned pro. With a 5-foot-4 frame, she was always among the shorter hitters, and in 18 years on the LPGA with her husband on her bag, Lindley won just once—the 2008 Corning Classic in her 295th start. “The stars aligned for a happy accident,” she said of beating Jeong Jang on the first hole of a playoff.
A mother of two, and with she and Matt grinding out travel and work, Lindley decided to retire at 40, grateful and satisfied with playing so long at the top level. She began teaching and didn’t think much about competing. But then Lindley talked to another former LPGA player, Rosie Jones, who encouraged her to play in some events on the 45-and-over Legends Tour. Lindley’s thought was, “I guess I better go out and grow my own game if I’m telling my students that.”
Leta Lindley shared her trophy at her gym and playfully works out with it. (Photo from Leta Lindley video)
Lindley went back to work on the range and the gym, and at 47 she started competing again, mostly enjoying the camaraderie that was hard to come by when the LPGA was a full-time job. She has won three times on the Legends, but the real carrot was securing a USGA championship that previous eluded her. That became a possibility when American golf’s governing body inaugurated—some would say rather belatedly—the U.S. Senior Women’s Open in 2017.
Laura Davies won the first title and Sorenstam lifted the trophy in 2021, but there’s also been a surprise regular contender—Lindley. She was second by a stroke to McGill in ’22 and again lost by a shot to Trish Johnson in ’23.
Filled with the belief she could win, Lindley once again got into contention last August at Fox Chapel, though she trailed leader Kaori Yamamoto by five shots going into the final round. Then, as if every moment of experience stewed into one performance, Lindley hit all 18 greens in regulation and made seven birdies to shoot a championship-record 64 and beat Yamamoto by two.
Leta Lindley hits a shot during the 2025 U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills.
Stacy Revere
“I don’t know that anybody would have thought to write that kind of story for me,” Lindley said in the immediate aftermath. “I’ve always been an underdog player, sneaky, under the radar. I have dared to dream so much bigger this season than I did when I was playing on the LPGA Tour.”
And thus began the “Dare to Dream” experience. The trophy traveled when Lindley could manage carrying the huge, padded case in which it’s kept. And the gold medal was often with her.
There was one scary mishap. After sharing the medal with friends at the University of Arizona, Lindley was in a rush for the airport and forgot it in her rental car. She realized it once she was in flight.
“My heart dropped 35,000 feet!” she said. “I was mortified. I’m certain I’m never going to see the medal again. How am I going to explain to the USGA that I need another medal because I’ve already lost it?”
Once on the ground, Lindley and her husband frantically called the car company, but it would be a few days before a representative reached out to say they’d found a box. “Can you please open it up to see if you see a gold medal?” Lindley asked. “I have worked my whole life to win this medal. She must have thought I was crazy.”
The woman confirmed: The medal was there. A happy ending.
Lindley will surely not let it out of her sight again, and as for the trophy, she will receive a replica from the USGA now that the original sits waiting to be hoisted again at San Diego County Club.
Lindley’s coffee table has been empty, and, of course, she sees that as yet another sign of motivation. “I have to start another dream,” she said.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
