2 young people, 2 very different types of ‘life change’ salaries

Erin, Wis. – Hailee Cooper and Julia Lopez Ramirez have crossed the paths many times. There were all those sec tours, with Cooper in Texas A&M and Lopez Ramirez interpreting in Mississippi State. It was the national amateur of women Augusta in 2023, with Lopez Ramirez ranked 2nd in the amateur world, and Cooper 101. There was also this week, through the winding nature out and back of each of the nine of Erin Hills, in Open Women, Cooper was rang to make the weekend, and when she was there was a lope and two bands. Saturday.

These intersections occur all the time. In the direction range, greet you, you cross them, see them on the street. But everyone is on another trip. Every tournament means something different.

Saturday, Cooper and Lopez Ramirez displaced. On Sunday, they gathered again, but in the most interesting way.

When Lopez Ramirez found the first road first in its last round, it seemed to all Erin Hills based on its direction. It is the longest hit in the field, playing the pleasure of this long hue for a course. With an abnormally broad, powerful attitude, it began a regular draw. This is the game we know it. Despite being a professional in just 200 days, she has been one in doing, winning those SEC championships. Two of them. She made big cuts like an am and then rubbed on her LPGA Tour card through School Q. She is only 22 years old, and at 23, she can be in the other Solheim Cup team. However, on 1, she scolded for a lost precursor.

“She was saying at the beginning of the day, the nerves are nerves,” said Lopez Ramirez’s caddy and former college coach, Lauren Whyte. “It doesn’t matter if it’s for the SEC or SH.BA open championship. It feels the same in your body.”

Sunday was not her day.

Cooper, meanwhile, was six groups ahead. In the 4th hole, she was relieved to a short for her third bird of the day. Her way to get here was a little easier. Even she made big cuts, but never was a high 60th amateur. She won a SEC championship, but as part of a team, not an individual. She is 25 and has not hit the LPGA yet, living in her development circuit – Tour Epson. Tournament payments are often measured in thousands, but after a week of expenses, rewarding your caddy, booking home trip – and later, taxes! – can whiten in hundreds.

Cooper made 12 starts at Tour Epson last season, with 11 cuts and the three best banks of $ 108,300. Is this a living salary, after all those reductions? Ask her accountant. But Sunday was her day. Cooper made six rights through the round meat and added another pair of birds before facing a 46-nipple up and down in the 72nd hole. It was not caught in broadcasting or social media. This shot is one of those mostly anonymous strikes that will exist in her golf mind for a long time. In a steep green that gave the players fits all day long, Cooper raised it to six inches, made it birds and jumped into an eventual tie for the seventh. Oh, and the greatest payment of her life: 358,004 dollars. After signing her card, a USA official entered to give the news.

“I went out and they go. Do you want to see the money?” Said Cooper. “I was like, sure. I climbed up and immediately started crying when I saw the numbers. I am like, Oh, Gosh, there are six of them.“

Three -digit left of the comma. Only pro (and perhaps their cadets, their parents or their partners) really know what they mean. Sundaydo on Sunday, the public watching golf releases Google to learn how much Scottie Scheffler won for his latest victory. For him and most of the male benefits we see on TV, everything goes to a bank account they rarely watch. The way Cooper talked about those figures, you know she knows her banking user name, her password, her pin, maybe even the course number.

“Aw is great,” she continued. “Life is changing for sure for sure. This makes professional golf much easier financially now, so it will be really beautiful.”

Scheffler cleared $ 4 millionfor the record. And he would tell you that it has nothing to do with money. It never has to do with the money. Lopez Ramirez said the same thing.

If she were less promising, or any less competitive, or any less driven to make a great result, it would be natural for Lopez Ramirez to think of money on Sunday, especially how things went down. She started the day in a solo second, which reaches $ 1.2 million. A left figure of second comma but all were quickly unfolded. She followed him first with a chip poorly executed in the second. She added weak sneezing shots in the third and fourth, letting the air quickly come out of the balloon. She only made a bird on Sunday in a round that passed in slow fashion. She was two under the week, a shot worse than Cooper with her ball in a Greenside bunker on the 18th. If you were looking, you saw the car collision start.

Lopez Ramirez hit her bunker shot on green, in a crowd and the USGA temporary tent. She trimmed her pitch from there, falling from the green side. Her fifth came out of the green and rolled back to her feet. The sixth hit made it, the seventh was tied up to the hole. Eight eighth was a tap for triple Bogey and a total one over: 68-74-68-79. When Maja Stark friends I triggered the green, Lopez Ramirez was caught in the worst type of champagne shower.

No one stopped showing her the amount she made fresh from the note. It was $ 13804, which is still the largest amount of its new career, from a factor of six. On the contrary, the only stop she made was a two-minute conversation with a reporter who was curious about what she could get this week that is not so genuine. It turns out that she had something in mind before the day began.

“Being in the last group on a major, this is one of my biggest achievements,” she said. “It is still an achievement for me, you know? Even if it didn’t end, it was definitely there. I learned a lot about myself and what will be my golf.”

And so, our new goods left Erin Hills at different times and with different humor. In the end, they were separated from four shots. Next week, the change will be measured in thousands of miles, again on their trips. Lopez Ramirez goes to play in New Jersey and Cooper goes home to Texas. The future women in the US are 51 weeks away, but already take shape. Thanks to its 10th conclusion, Cooper has a place in the field. Thanks to that 18th hole, Lopez Ramirez does not. Not yet.