Nichols: So many LPGA players who thought about calling it quits enjoyed breakthroughs in 2023

Lindy Duncan, the 208th-ranked player in the world, considered 2023 to be a make-or-break year. She began the season with no status, and told herself, I’m either going to get better at golf, or I’m going to do something else.

Last November at The Annika, the penultimate event of the LPGA season, Duncan emerged from the scoring tent on Sunday in a jolly good mood. She’d finished the season 92nd on the CME points list, her card secured for another year.

“I feel like I’m playing some of the best that I’ve played,” she said, “ever.”

While Duncan wasn’t in the headlines this season, her comeback story is one of many. Lilia Vu thought about going to law school not long ago, after a 2019 rookie season on the LPGA left her feeling “destroyed.” Vu’s mother convinced her to keep going.

“I just remember being miserable,” said Vu. “This is like the dream, everything we ever worked for was to be out here, and I was just not in the right mindset for it.”

But Vu dug deep, used her late grandfather’s strength as motivation and soared to No. 1 in the world after winning four times in 2023, including two majors.

Ruoning Yin missed the cut in seven of her first nine starts as a rookie last year. She, too, called home and told her mom she wanted to quit. She was hitting it poorly, which led her to practice even harder, ballooning from 100 balls per range session to 500.

Now she was fed up and in pain.

“My mom told me, if you cannot swing just don’t swing,” recalled Yin, “just do your putting drills, practice putting and chipping – you’ll be fine. No matter what, we still love you.”

That message gave Yin the peace she needed to power through. She tied for fourth at the Dana Open in Toledo and never looked back. Now a major champion and budding star in China, Yin ranks No. 2 in the world behind Vu.

Coming back from maternity leave proved more stressful than Azahara Munoz imagined. The battle to keep her tour card made her feel like throwing up all week at The Annika. Munoz came into the event 100th on the CME points list. The top 100 keep full status for 2024. Munoz said she was so stressed out she didn’t even want to tee it up.

“I was like, if this is how stressful it is, I don’t know if I want to play golf,” she said. “It’s no fun at all.”

Azahara Munoz of Spain plays a shot on the 16th hole during the final round of The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican on Nov. 12, 2023, in Belleair, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

Munoz ultimately played well enough to contend that event, vaulting up to 64th on the points list after taking a share of second at Pelican Golf Club.

Players in all stages of life and career face turning points, and there were stories of triumph around every corner this season.

Alison Lee has been open about her rock bottom. After her parents convinced her in 2019 to give it one more try, Lee Monday-qualified to get into an early-season event in 2020 and knew that if she played well, she’d move up the priority list on the next reshuffle and get into more fields.

But then she had a panic attack on the drive to the golf course.

“Every mile I got closer to the course,” Lee wrote on lpga.com, “the more anxiety overcame my body. I couldn’t breathe, and I could hardly see with all the tears streaming down my face. The feelings became so overwhelming that I began to look at the concrete barrier on the interstate and considered crashing my car into it, because I would rather have been in the hospital than have to tee off and compete. In that moment, anywhere else besides the golf course felt safe.”

The pressure to win on the LPGA took Lee to a dark place.

In 2023, Lee came closer than ever to finally achieving that lifelong goal. And while she didn’t get there, finishing runner-up in her last three events left her feeling rejuvenated. All signs point to Lee’s best golf being ahead of her.

“All the dreams I had when I turned pro nine years ago, I haven’t been able to accomplish any of them,” said Lee.

“If my career starts now at the age of 28, of course I want to keep going. I still have a lot of goals I want to achieve that 19-year-old Alison, when she turned pro, all the things she wanted to accomplish.”

Alison Lee of the United States plays her shot from the third tee during the third round of the CME Group Tour Championship at Tiburon Golf Club on November 18, 2023, in Naples, Florida. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

Duncan, 32, was the NGCA National Player of the Year as a junior at Duke. She was a first-team All-American all four seasons and earned LPGA status soon after graduation.

If Duncan could go back 10 years and give her younger self some advice, she’d say to find joy in the pursuit rather than the destination.

“And she wouldn’t understand it,” Duncan said with a laugh.

Duncan still gets a mighty thrill from competition. She loves traveling to Asia for tournaments. She’s hitting it farther than ever and feels healthy enough to keep up the grind.

When Duncan started 2023 with no status and no sponsors, she thought about what her next chapter might look like, should the season not go as planned. While she didn’t get far enough in that thought exercise to have the details planned out, she came to this conclusion: “I’m going to be OK.”

Lindy Duncan of the United States hits her tee shot on the 10th hole during the second round of the TOTO Japan Classic at the Taiheiyo Club’s Minori Course on November 3, 2023, in Omitama, Ibaraki, Japan. (Photo by Yoshimasa Nakano/Getty Images)

That gave her the peace and the clarity to put it all on the line once more.

Comebacks come in all shapes and sizes, but the feelings of joy and satisfaction are universal.

May the journeys of those who triumphed in 2023 be a source of inspiration to those on the verge of calling it quits.

Just think, Lilia Vu could be nearly done with law school by now.