At first, Nicki Stricker didn’t tell anyone in the family that she’d signed up for U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur qualifying. She wanted the challenge to be hers for a little while.
Stricker, 54, and her mental coach, Kathy Hart Wood, sister of Dudley Hart, came up with trying to qualify for a USGA Championship as a way to give purpose to her practice.
“Just getting really frustrated because everyone was kicking my butt in my house,” said Stricker, wife to Steve and mom to Bobbi, 25, and 17-year-old Izzi, with a laugh. “I’m a fairly competitive person so was just like, what is happening?”
Needless to say, everyone in the Stricker house is competitive, and Nicki, a former collegiate player, wasn’t having too much fun on the golf course. She also wanted to set a good example for her girls. Nicki didn’t like how she treated herself on the golf course after a bad shot, and with one daughter playing the game professionally and another one playing high-level junior golf, she knew they were watching.
“The shots I hit good or bad, the scores I shoot good or bad, don’t define me,” said Nicki of what she’s learned.
Wood taught Sticker to hit shots from one of the three c’s – calm, confident, certain. Rather than put numbers down on a scorecard, she’d write which “c” she hit from.
Beginning on Saturday at the 61st U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur at Troon Country Club, there will be numbers on the card. It’s the first tournament Stricker has competed in in some 20 years, and the first USGA championship since the 1992 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Kemper Lakes.
With Steve working as an assistant captain this week at the Ryder Cup in Rome with eldest daughter Bobbi by his side, and Izzi playing in the postseason for high school golf, Nicki won’t have any family by her side in Arizona, though she will have Wood, who will caddie.
Nicki, of course, has caddied for Steve throughout his career. Bobbi played tennis through high school and didn’t take up golf until college. Izzi, a high school senior, won a Wisconsin state golf title last year. It’s not uncommon for the two sisters to take on their parents in a match.
“The game keeps us together,” Bobbi told Golfweek last year. “We travel with (dad), we practice with him.”
Steve was getting a lesson from Nicki’s father Dennis Tiziani at Cherokee Country Club (now TPC Wisconsin) the day they met. Nicki, who was a lifeguard at the club, went over after her shift ended to see her dad and there was Steve.
“My dad had said something after,” she recalled. “ ‘You know the guy you met? He asked for your number.’ ”
After waiting for three days, Nicki finally decided to call Steve and ask him out. Nicki was going into her freshman year of college at Wisconsin and Steve was a junior at Illinois.
The couple married in 1993.
Steve, now a 12-time winner on the PGA Tour and a 17-time winner on the PGA Tour Champions, including six titles this season, won the 2019 U.S. Senior Open with Nicki on the bag.
All that time caddying for Steve changed Nicki’s approach to a golf course, how she looks at green complexes and how she views the importance of short game. She shot 7-over 77 at Glenview Park Golf Club in Illinois to secure her spot in this week’s field of 132. She’d love to advance to match play and see what happens.
“They’re super proud of me,” said Nicki of what her kids think of mom back in a USGA Championship. “Which to have your child say that they’re proud of you for something obviously warms my heart … makes me choke up a little bit.”
