Livescore
Morgan Pressel’s 18th annual Morgan & Friends event raised a record $1,022,000 to support the fight against breast cancer. Pressel, 36, lost her mother Kathy to breast cancer in 2003, and her memory is at the heart of the mission.
The event, held annually at St. Andrews Country Club in Boca Raton and Banyan Golf Club in nearby West Palm Beach, Florida, has long been a star-studded affair, with tour friends Lexi Thompson, Brittany Lincicome, Brooke Henderson and Lydia Ko among its longtime supporters.
Golfweek caught up with the major champion turned lead analyst for Golf Channel’s LPGA coverage to talk about her foundation and the 2025 LPGA season, which gets started later this month with the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions.
Q&A with Morgan Pressel
You raised more than $1 million in the fight breast cancer. What are the keys to your success to keep doing this year after year?
Yeah, it’s kind of a pinch-me sort of situation every time this comes around. Just to see the incredible support, especially from the St. Andrews community and others that have been involved for many, many years and are just as passionate about our work as I am. I’m so grateful that they believe in our mission, and, you know, that goes from to those who work behind the scenes to collect auction items to those who come and support us as sponsors, to the incredible staff at the club, who work really hard to put this event on. The energy this past year was exceptional, and it’s hard to put my finger on exactly what it was, but it was just fabulous.
What will the money be used for?
Yeah, so we of course have our first MammoVan thattravels all around south Florida, providing mammograms in a convenient and non-intimidating way, basically creating access for people all over the community to state-of-the-art mammography equipment. And we have ordered now a second van, so that’ll be coming this fall, so we’re really excited about that project that we have with Boca Raton Regional Hospital. We’ll still continue work on our Center for Cancer Genetics and a couple other projects as well, but our big project, especially this coming year, is the second MammoVan, which will be on the streets this fall.
(LPGA and Epson Tour player) Kim Kaufman is starting chemo treatments in her fight against breast cancer. Kim is 33 years old. How do you think her diagnosis has impacted the tour community?
It’s certainly impacted me. I mean to think how young she is … any time that happens in a community as tight as the tour, it definitely shakes people up. I would say I’ve thought about it a little bit as I’ve gotten older as well, and thinking about the age that my mom was diagnosed, at 39, and I’m not that far from that these days; I keep getting closer.
And you know, to see Kim going through that now I mean, it’s very, very real. … I’ve been in communication with her a little bit as she’s been going through this, and you know, she’s always been a fighter and incredibly tough, but it’s not an easy journey, not an easy road that that she is traveling right now, but there’s no question she is not doing it alone. She has the entire LPGA family behind her. What can you tell me about the company that you honored this year? Lola Blankets is a relatively young company that was started by a couple brothers who founded the company in honor of their mother, who passed away from breast cancer. Their mother had this blanket that she took with her everywhere to all of her treatments. It almost became an extension of her, this blanket, and her name was Amy Higham, but her nickname was Lola. When she passed unbeknownst to the kids, she had plans to have a replica of the blanket made for each one of the children and from that, they got this idea to start a blanket company in honor of her, their mother, and they do a tremendous amount of work in the breast cancer space.
After such an historic 2024 season, what will be Nelly Korda’s biggest challenge in 2025?
I was just thinking, as a whole, what an incredible year 2024 was for the LPGA and just keeping any kind of a streak alive, nothing in sports is ever linear. I think, you know, Nelly’s last year was not linear, and that’s just kind of the nature of sports. And, you know, Nelly is incredibly determined and very competitive. The amount of work that she puts in, she doesn’t really show it. She doesn’t really flaunt it, in that sense. …
I think her biggest struggle will just be a little bit similar to what it was last year, as it is for any athlete at the top, and that’s staying in your bubble.
She talked about it time and time again, not paying attention to what the media saying. I think she’s very, very good about not being pulled away from her job, in a sense, and doing almost too much outside.How did you see her evolve as a player last year?
Well, I’d say she came out pretty strong. You know there was that little bit of lull, so to speak, in the middle of the season … when you win six times and then suddenly you don’t, people are like what happened? But that is the nature of sport, and for her to come back and really play some incredible golf at the Solheim, and winning at Pelican later in the year, she just she really does a good job of kind of keeping her head down. Who do you see that that might step up as her big rival going forward?
Well, I’d say last year even alone Lydia Ko kind of said ‘Hey, I’m here too. Don’t forget about me.’ You know, that’s kind of a thing when you look at 2024 as a whole, you think 2025 has got big shoes to fill. … I would definitely expect to see Lydia continue to challenge again. It was so interesting to watch her last year, come within one victory from the Hall of Fame and, you know from the media side, we’re all wondering is it this week? Is it gonna be next week? When is it going to happen, because it wasn’t a matter of if, but it was a matter of when.
And then kind of a storybook-ending to her Hall of Fame journey at the Olympics, which really almost seemed to free her up to go on and win at St. Andrews and in such thrilling fashion as well. It was fun to watch both of their evolutions, both Lydia and Nelly, throughout the season with the different things that they were faced with.Obviously said goodbye to a lot of players, and then kind of partial goodbyes to some players, in 2024. How often do you think we’ll see Lexi (Thompson) this year?
I’m not sure, I think it sounds like we’ll see Lexi a little bit. I don’t know. I don’t have the answer of how much that will be. How hard is it to play a partial schedule? It’s not easy to play a partial schedule. I tried that also while working starting to work in television as well. … I only know my own my own reasoning for stepping away, but it’s not easy to stay at the very top of the game, or the way that you would want to perform, while only playing part-time. Obviously, it’s a critical time for the tour as a whole right now as the LPGA looks to hire a new commissioner. What do you think the search committee should be looking for? I think it definitely is an important year for the tour from that respect, putting together a search committee to find the right person to take the tour into the next however many years is really important. I think there’s a lot up in the air right now from the television standpoint. You know, I think certainly a marketer, somebody with really a good background between television, marketing and sports and how all of that marries together because it’s a very unique business – the tour and professional sports in general, compared to a lot of other things that other executives may face, there’s a lot of moving parts to an organization like the LPGA, and at the end of the day, it’s a nonprofit organization. I think that those are kind of some real key points that the search companies should consider in hiring the right person for the job.
You’ve been in this role for a few seasons now. What are some hacks you’ve learned that make booth life easier?
I mean, they’re like silly things, like I eat with a cape on because I don’t want to get food on my shirt or my outfit before I go on camera.
I’ve definitely learned different ways to keep notes and make sure that my notes are readily accessible. Even if I might have it written down somewhere, if I can’t access it within a couple seconds, the moment is gone, and it might not come back again.
Is packing for a week of TV a lot different than your normal life is a tour player?Yeah, packing is different. I plan most of my outfits in advance for television. I would say I probably didn’t do that for golf. I would kind of throw in a few things and they typically, like you know, like the season would generally match one way or the other. I would say a little bit more specific on packing outfits for each specific day.
So from that perspective, it’s different. Jackets take up a lot more space than golf clothes, but I don’t have golf clubs, so it’s a trade-off.
But yeah, I would say the biggest difference is not having my golf clubs. You know, on the rare occasion, I will travel with my golf clubs, if there’s some event or something where I am playing. But after what … 20 years essentially of traveling with my golf clubs, it’s kinda nice to not have to lug them around every airport.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Morgan Pressel raises $1 million in fight against breast cancer
Read the full article here
Discussion about this post