She Irons Out Caddie Problem

The scene, which resembled something out of “I Love Lucy,” occurred at the 1987 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur championship.

It was the first United States Golf Assn. event for Linda Chen-Olsen of Granada Hills, who has played in 17 more.

This week at the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at Barton Hills Country Club in Ann Arbor, Mich., she advanced to match play but lost to Karen Stupples of England, 8 and 6, in the first round Thursday.

Olsen and her husband-caddie Doug Olsen were standing in the trees that day 11 years ago, surveying their predicament during a crucial moment of a match at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla.

Linda, trailing legendary women’s amateur player Carol Semple Thompson by one hole with two to play, wanted to punch out with a four iron.

Doug, worried about the impossible shot Linda would face if she hit over the green, suggested a five iron.

They squabbled for a few moments, then began a spirited tug of war with the four iron.

“He wouldn’t give me the club,” said Linda, laughing at the memory. “We were in front of all these people pulling the club back and forth fighting about the shot.”

Linda finally got her way. The ball went into a sand trap in front of the green, but she saved par and won the hole.

Semple Thompson hit her second shot over the green, to the exact spot Doug was worried about, and made a bogey.

Olsen went on to win the 18th hole and the match. She lost in the quarterfinals, but that performance jump-started what has become a stellar amateur career.

This U.S. Women’s Amateur was the sixth for Olsen, 45, who did not start playing golf until she left her native Taiwan to marry Doug in 1983.

The reigning Los Angeles City champion, she has won eight club championships at Porter Valley Country Club in Northridge and eight at PGA West in La Quinta, including the last five.

She was California team captain in the 1997 U.S. Women’s State Team Championship and won the 1997 California State Championship.

Later this year, Olsen will compete in her 12th consecutive U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur championship, a tournament in which she reached the semifinals last year. Olsen has qualified for and played in every Mid-Amateur since its inception in 1987.

Accompanying her through it all has been Doug, who brought Linda to Knollwood Country Club in Granada Hills one day in 1983 to introduce his new bride to the game he loved.

Doug, who carries a handicap index of 10, never imagined Linda would embrace golf with such enthusiasm.

“She enjoyed it so much,” he said. “Then she got so good. I didn’t envision ever playing that well. Not many people can play at that level.”

Doug, who owns a building material supply company, has been Linda’s only coach.

Some have called her crazy for allowing a 10-handicap golfer with no formal training to be her coach, but Linda wouldn’t have it any other way.

“He knows my swing,” she said. “He’s seen it from the beginning, so I have an advantage there.”

Doug understands the skeptics, but he points to Linda’s success as proof that no change is needed.

Linda’s swing is sweet and simple, a smooth, flowing motion that follows the Ben Hogan textbook style.

“If we could find a coach tomorrow that would help her, I’d be the happiest person in the world,” Doug said. “But to just go for lessons is a waste of time. Sometimes changing nothing is the best formula.”

Doug and Linda met in Taiwan while Doug was on a business trip. It was love at first sight, they said.

Despite the disapproval of her family, which lives in a small village outside of Taichung, the couple decided to leave so she could marry Doug and live in the U.S.

“It was a big family revolution,” Linda said. “My family lives in the country. To them America is such a different world, especially married to a foreigner.”

But Linda had no second thoughts.

“I trusted Doug,” she said. “When you’re in love, you think everything is going to be OK.”

But there was an anxious moment at the beginning.

“When I came off the airplane, he wasn’t there,” Linda said.

Doug actually was there, just not at the customs exit gate where Linda arrived.

“I was there for three hours,” Linda said. “I thought he changed his mind. He thought I didn’t come. Then finally I saw him sitting there with flowers in his hand.”

Linda picked up golf almost immediately, using it as a way to meet people and make friends.

Back home, that decision didn’t go over too well, especially when Linda returned home with a suntan.

“They thought I was working in a field,” Linda said. “Over there, if you are tan, you are from a farmer family. My mom thought I was married to a farmer.”

But things changed after Linda’s mother visited the Olsens in Granada Hills.

“Now he’s her favorite son-in-law,” said Linda, the eldest of five siblings.

Linda has toyed with the idea of turning professional, but has resisted because of her desire to win a USGA event. If she achieves that, she said, a pro career might follow.

If she doesn’t win a USGA event, she has an excuse.

“I’ll probably be mad at my husband,” she said jokingly.

Doug said he learned his lesson that day at Southern Hills in 1987.

“We came to a real good understanding about who’s the Indian and who’s the chief,” he said. “I don’t try and club her any more.”

They haven’t fought on the course since.