‘It’s more of an obsession with other people than it is with me.’ : First Win Isn’t a Concern for Baugh

When Laura Baugh of Long Beach burst onto the LPGA tour in 1973, she looked like a promoter’s dream.

She became the darling of the media and the galleries.

Better yet, she could play, and they couldn’t wait for her to win. Thirteen years later, they’re still waiting, but it may not be much longer.

Baugh has a one-stroke lead halfway through the $330,000 Uniden LPGA Invitational at Mesa Verde Country Club in Costa Mesa.

The question of whether she’ll ever win a tournament is long beyond her concern. She laughs.

“It’s more of an obsession with other people than it is with me,” she said.

She can almost pinpoint when it was overtaken as the dominant force in her life.

“Probably when I decided that when you win a golf tournament, you go back to your room or your house and you’ve won a golf tournament, and that’s really good, I would imagine,” she said. “But whether I win or lose, I go back home and I’ve got my daughter and my dog and a very successful life.”

Victory will have to come on her terms now. Baugh is playing only her second event this year. She skipped the Florida openers and won’t go to Kauai with the tour next week because she hates flying and being too far away from Chelsea, her 3 1/2-year-old, and her desert home in La Quinta.

“I’ll be away four days this time,” Baugh said Friday. “I left her because she’s got a dance class and she’s also a snowball, which is ice skating. She’s decided that she’s got things to do at home. I call her about six times a day.”

Baugh’s mother, Louisa, is a live-in baby sitter. The household also includes a white dog with green eyes named Chardonnay and a pair of lovebirds.

“I cook every night,” Baugh said. “Anything Italian, some French. I haven’t mastered pizza, but chicken cacciatore, linguine . . . I make really good omeletes. I don’t have a maid. I do my own house. I enjoy it.”

There’s only one missing ingredient in this recipe for domestic bliss. Baugh, formerly Laura Cole, has returned to using her maiden name.

Baugh’s husband is Bobby Cole, a South African golf pro. The two are separated. A few years ago, they alternated between the men and women’s tours while trying to build a marriage, but now Cole is back playing alone in South Africa.

“I don’t think it hurt me,” Baugh said. “He’s always said it hurt his career, but I don’t think it hurt mine at all. He’s always been a great help to my career.

“I think Bobby’s a very good golfer. I’m very happy he’s Chelsea’s father. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about Bobby.”

Baugh credits Cole with giving her a new golf swing that “repeats under pressure,” something she couldn’t say for her more mechanical swing of before. But she won’t speculate on a reconciliation.

“I love marriage,” she said. “I want a lot of kids. I wanted four to six kids, and I always wanted to be married.

“I don’t know what’s . . . I don’t know anything. Bobby’s over in South Africa, and he has been for quite a while. He won the South African PGA and is doing real good. I haven’t heard from him in a couple of months, so I don’t know exactly what he’s doing, but when he won his tournament, he called me.

“I said I wouldn’t make it final until he got back home, and he’s gonna be home the 16th.

“New Year’s Eve was a little rough this year. I took a break to try to figure out how much longer I wanted to play golf and what I wanted to do. I’ve been out here so long I feel like I’ve been out here long enough, but there are rookies that come out at 29. I’m 30.

“Age-wise, 30, 35 or 40 is great as a golfer. I just figure I’ll play a little longer and see how much better I can play.”

Baugh isn’t sure she’s always given herself the best chance to win.

“The early years, yes. Then after I’d been out (on the tour) a couple of years, no. I was very sidetracked, growing up. I didn’t date until I was 21-years old. There were a lot of things that happened from like 22 to 25 (that) sidetracked my dedication toward golf.”

She once was deeply involved in Japanese golf promotions, requiring frequent trips to the Orient. But five years ago, she was six months pregnant and had a bad flight returning home. She miscarried and hasn’t felt the same about airplanes since.

“I’ve had some very, very difficult flights with a lot of real problems,” she said. “Foamed runways and electricity goes out, engines go out. It got me quite scared of airplanes. I do fly, but I’m not good at it. I’m basically scared of it.”

All of that required some soul-searching before she returned to the tour this year. She asked her mother to move in three weeks ago “when I decided that I really was gonna play.”

Her motivation is all those mouths to feed and bills to pay.

“I had Chelsea, and she’s my responsibility completely,” Baugh said.

Baugh, at 5-feet 4 1/2-inches, seems more slight than ever but is hitting the ball farther off the tee.

“I was bigger then, but I’m stronger now. I work out a lot. I’m heavy into aerobics with weights on my legs and hands. I do ‘em for two hours every other day. That’s probably why I’m so little.”

She won’t tell her weight, except to say, “Not very much. I don’t tell anybody because everybody always tells me I’m too little. I’m about the littlest out here--not the shortest, but the lightest.

“But I feel like I can hit the ball better than I ever hit it. Now if I can just be there, I’m fine.”

She is there, and her fans are loving it. She remembers some faces in the gallery.

“They’re so sweet,” she said. “A lot of ‘em I recognize from 10, 15 years ago. I may not know their names, but I recognize ‘em. I like that. What I dislike is when I don’t come through. It frustrates me, not only for myself, but because they’d also like me to play well.”

More important, they would tell her, don’t change. Winning isn’t everything.