Amateur Career
Lewis was a decorated amateur and a four-time All-American at the University of Arkansas. She redshirted her first year while recovering from her back surgery. As a redshirt freshman in 2005, she won the Southeastern Conference Tournament and was named SEC Freshman Golfer of the Year. In 2006, she won the Women's Western Amateur.
In her 2007 season, though a back injury kept her out of the SEC Tournament, Lewis won the NCAA Division I Championship and was selected Golf Digest Amateur of the Year. She also received the National Golf Coaches Association Dinah Shore Trophy. Following the college season, she won the 92nd Women's Southern Amateur and finished second in individual play in leading the U.S. team to a victory at the Copa de las Americas.
She qualified for the 2007 U.S. Women's Open in North Carolina, shot 78-73 in the tournament and missed the cut by three strokes to finish tied for 93rd. Two months later, Lewis finished first in the 2007 LPGA NW Arkansas Championship, a professional LPGA tournament. Due to rain, the tournament was shortened to one round and Lewis's win was declared unofficial.
In her senior season in 2008, Lewis again won the SEC Tournament and was selected SEC Golfer of the Year and SEC Golf Scholar Athlete of the Year. She was named to the ESPN the Magazine Academic All-America team for the second time and NGCA All-America for the fourth time.
Lewis graduated from Arkansas in 2008 with a bachelor's degree in Finance and Accounting.
As a member of U.S. Curtis Cup team in 2008, Lewis became the first player ever to go 5–0 in a single Curtis Cup. The 2008 edition was held at the Old Course at St Andrews in Scotland in late May and early June, and was her last competition as an amateur. The U.S. won 13 to 7 for a sixth consecutive victory over Great Britain & Ireland.
Read more about this topic: Stacy Lewis
Famous quotes containing the words amateur and/or career:
“The true gardener then brushes over the ground with slow and gentle hand, to liberate a space for breath round some favourite; but he is not thinking about destruction except incidentally. It is only the amateur like myself who becomes obsessed and rejoices with a sadistic pleasure in weeds that are big and bad enough to pull, and at last, almost forgetting the flowers altogether, turns into a Reformer.”
—Freya Stark (1893–1993)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)