{"id":507229,"date":"2026-02-27T09:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T09:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/507229\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T09:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T09:13:12","slug":"50-years-after-her-first-lpga-victory-jan-stephensons-glamour-still-masks-a-ferocious-fighter-australian-golf-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/507229\/","title":{"rendered":"50 years after her first LPGA victory, Jan Stephenson’s glamour still masks a ferocious fighter \u2013 Australian Golf Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"

In April 2024, Jan Stephenson was told the cancer had come back and had spread to her brain. But just as she fought off the breast cancer that was diagnosed 15 months earlier, she didn\u2019t surrender.<\/p>\n

She had an MRI a few weeks ago. The cancer is gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI practised yesterday for three or four hours,\u201d Stephenson, 74, the famous Australian golfer who now resides just outside Tampa, Florida, said during a recent interview. \u201cI\u2019m still pursuing the perfect golf swing.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED: AGD Interview with Jan Stephenson \u2018Jan in Full\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Tampa is only a few hours from Naples, where 50 years ago this month Stephenson captured her first of 16 LPGA Tour victories, including three majors, in the Sarah Coventry tournament, prevailing by a stroke over Sandra Haynie and Judy Meister.<\/p>\n

Elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2019, Stephenson remembers the 1976 triumph as if it were 50 days ago. She got little sleep the night before, opening the curtains every couple of hours to check out the rain. It was cold, she said and \u201cI always hated playing in cold weather.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good thing the pro shop at Lely County Club, which normally didn\u2019t offer beanies, had one for sale. Might still be the best purchase she ever made.<\/p>\n

The pressure was on. Months before, Ray Volpe, the tour\u2019s commissioner, had told Stephenson he had big marketing plans for her \u2026 on one condition. \u201cIf you could just win\u201d Volpe said. \u201cThen I could really promote you and they wouldn\u2019t be able to say \u2018she\u2019s just a pretty face.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She was paired with Judy Rankin in the final round in Naples. When Rankin made a double bogey on No 9, Stephenson recalled, \u201cfrom then on I felt like the tournament was mine.\u201d She won despite a final round 76 in the 54-hole event.<\/p>\n

Lo and behold, Volpe called while she was in the press room. \u201cThis is perfect\u201d he told her. \u201cYou are now the face of the LPGA Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"1321124538\"\/<\/p>\n

[Photo: Stephen Munday] Jan Stephenson hits a drive during the 1991 Women\u2019s British Open.<\/p>\n

Stephenson felt confident the victory would change her life and she was right. More than she could ever imagine. \u201cEvery Sunday\u201d she said \u201cI\u2019d get a message in my locker on where to go to meet sponsors. We signed so many contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with Laura Baugh, Stephenson became a tour sex symbol. Most memorably, in 1986, she was photographed in a bathtub covered by nothing but dozens of golf balls. A number of her peers were supportive of the attention she received, grateful for any exposure that the LPGA may get. Others not so much. They felt it was degrading to women athletes.<\/p>\n

Nancy Lopez is one of the supportive ones. \u201cIt brought people to the gates\u201d Lopez says now. As for the critics, she went on, \u201cThere could have been a few players who were jealous because they didn\u2019t look as good as Jan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephenson, however, paid a price for the exposure.<\/p>\n

There were many tournaments where, instead of playing practise rounds or working on her game, she said, \u201cI\u2019d be doing things on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The pro-am had to be my practice time. And how many times in my career I didn\u2019t finish off because I was exhausted.\u201d On a personal level \u201cI would have had more friends. It would have been a fun time.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she did work on her game, she spared no effort. During a tournament in Florida, Lopez saw Stephenson on the putting green from her hotel room window practising until dark. \u201cI\u2019d rank her in the top three of hardest working players on tour\u201d, Lopez recalled. \u201cShe was always working on something.\u201d<\/p>\n

The highlight of her career came in 1983 when she captured the US Women\u2019s Open at Cedar Ridge Country Club in Oklahoma by a stroke over JoAnne Carner and Patty Sheehan. She won with borrowed clubs after her set went missing from the boot of a friend\u2019s stolen car.<\/p>\n

In the gallery was her father, Frank. One day, when she was in her early teens, he woke her up to go for the usual practice session. Except it was cold and she told him she wasn\u2019t going. He put a water bottle on her feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you get up now and practise\u201d, he said, \u201cone day you might win the US Open.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou probably don\u2019t remember me telling you that\u201d, he said on that magical day in Oklahoma.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you kidding?\u201d she replied. \u201cI\u2019ll never forget it. It was my goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, there is another day that stands out. For much different reasons.<\/p>\n

Stephenson was headed to a Miami Heat basketball game in January 1990 when an assailant grabbed her purse as she was putting it in the boot of her car. Stephenson broke her finger in seven different places. \u201cHe was trying to get my wedding ring off with all the diamonds on it\u201d, she said. (He pushed her down and ran off. An off-duty Miami police officer chased the guy and caught him a few blocks away.)<\/p>\n

She would never be the same again. \u201cI lost probably 30 yards in distance\u201d, she said, and could only hold on to the club in her right hand with her thumb and forefinger.<\/p>\n

\"1149031795\"\/<\/p>\n

[Photo: Don Feria] Jan Stephenson addresses the audience at the World Golf Hall of Fame Induction reception in 2019.<\/p>\n

Though Stephenson wouldn\u2019t win on the LPGA again, she went on to score three victories between 2000 and 2007 on the 50-and-over Legends of the LPGA tour. In 2003, she challenged the men by playing in the PGA Tour Champions Turtle Bay Championship, finishing last.<\/p>\n

Which leads to her biggest challenge yet.<\/p>\n

Stephenson was playing in a celebrity event in Atlantic City two years ago when she suddenly couldn\u2019t sign her name. And when she got on the range, she couldn\u2019t hit her driver more than 50 yards. She thought she was having a stroke.<\/p>\n

When she got to a hospital in Florida and underwent a few tests, the doctors told her about the cancer in her brain. She was told she needed full brain radiation. Immediately. \u201cYou\u2019re not touching me,\u201d she told them.<\/p>\n

Working with Dr David Wenk, an oncologist, Stephenson has been on a couple of therapies (trastuzumab and tucatinib) and has changed her diet, taking dozens of supplements every day. \u201cEverything I do is organic, even my soap and shampoo\u201d, she said. Every two or three weeks, she also takes a high dose of Vitamin C and undergoes intravenous Ozone therapy.<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s been conventional therapies, her holistic methods, or both, it\u2019s worked. \u201cShe\u2019s in that 10 percent or so that\u2019s getting a phenomenal response\u201d Dr Wenk said. \u201cShe\u2019s doing tremendous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lopez isn\u2019t surprised one bit. \u201cJan Stephenson is a fighter\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In April 2024, Jan Stephenson was told the cancer had come back and had spread to her brain.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,254595,147378,1379,755,138747,254596,176367,59345,146405,44,85,39133,199777],"class_list":{"0":"post-507229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-golfers","12":"tag-cancer-survival","13":"tag-features","14":"tag-golf","15":"tag-golf-digest","16":"tag-golf-legends","17":"tag-jan-stephenson","18":"tag-lpga-history","19":"tag-lpga-tour","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-womens-golf","23":"tag-world-golf-hall-of-fame"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}