2 young pros, 2 very different types of ‘life-changing’ paydays

ERIN, Wis. — Hailee Cooper and Julia Lopez Ramirez have crossed paths plenty of times. There were all those SEC tournaments, with Cooper at Texas A&M and Lopez Ramirez starring at Mississippi State. There was the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in 2023, with Lopez Ramirez ranked 2nd in the amateur world, and Cooper 101st. There was even this week, through the winding out-and-back nature of each of Erin Hills’ nines, at the U.S. Women’s Open. Cooper grinded to make the weekend, and when she did there was Lopez Ramirez, one shot ahead and two groups behind her on Saturday.

These intersections happen all the time. On the driving range, you say hello, you pass them by, you see them down the road. But everyone is on a different journey. Every tournament means something different.

On Saturday, Cooper and Lopez Ramirez diverged. On Sunday, they came together again, but in the most fascinating way.

When Lopez Ramirez found the 1st fairway in her final round, it seemed all of Erin Hills leaned in her direction. She’s the longest hitter in the field, playing this long-hitter’s delight of a course. With an abnormally wide, powerful stance, she launched a tidy draw. This is the game we’ve come to know her by. Despite being a pro for just 200 days, she’s been one in the making, winning those SEC championships. Two of them. She made major cuts as an am and then breezed to her LPGA Tour card through Q-School. She’s just 22 years old, and at 23, she might be on the next Solheim Cup team. On the 1st, though, she tapped in for a missed-opportunity par. 

“She was saying at the beginning of the day, nerves are nerves,” said Lopez Ramirez’s caddie, and former college coach, Lauren Whyte. “It doesn’t matter if it’s for the SEC Championship or the U.S. Open. It feels the same in your body.”

Sunday was not her day.

Cooper, meanwhile, was six groups ahead. On the 4th hole, she eased in a short one for her third birdie of the day. Her path to get here was a bit windier. She made major cuts, too, but was never a top 60 amateur. She won an SEC Championship, but as part of a team, not an individual. She’s 25 and hasn’t cracked the LPGA yet, living on its developmental circuit — the Epson Tour. Tournament payouts are often measured in thousands, but after a week of expenses, rewarding your caddie, booking travel home — and later on, taxes! — it can be whittled down to hundreds. 

Cooper made 12 starts on the Epson Tour last season, where 11 made cuts and three top 10s bank you $58,300. Is that a living wage, after all those reductions? Ask her accountant. But Sunday was her day. Cooper made six straight pars through the meat of the round and added another pair of birdies before facing a 46-yard up-and-down on the 72nd hole. It wasn’t captured on the broadcast or social media. This shot is one of those mostly anonymous strikes that will exist in her golfing mind for a long time. On a sloping green that gave players fits all day, Cooper pitched it to six inches, made birdie and vaulted herself to an eventual tie for seventh. Oh, and the biggest payday of her life: $358,004. After signing her card, a USGA official stepped in to deliver the news. 

“I walked out and they go, do you want to see the money?” Cooper said. “I was like, sure. I walked up and I immediately started crying when I saw the numbers. I’m like, Oh, gosh, there are six of them.”

Three digits left of the comma. Only pro golfers (and perhaps their caddies, their parents or their partners) really know what that means. Every Sunday, the golf-viewing public launches Google to learn how much Scottie Scheffler earned for his latest win. For him and most of the male pros we see on TV, it all goes into a bank account they rarely look at. The way Cooper talked about those digits, you know she knows her banking username, her password, her pin, maybe even the routing number.

“It’s awesome,” she continued. “It’s life changing for sure. It makes professional golf a lot easier financially now, so it will be really nice.”

Scheffler cleared $4 million, for the record. And he’d tell you it’s not about the money. It’s never about the money. Lopez Ramirez said the same. 

If she were any less promising, or any less competitive, or any less driven to just make a great score, it would be natural for Lopez Ramirez to be thinking about money on Sunday, especially how things went down. She started the day in solo second, which cashes $1.2 million. A digit left of the second comma. But it all quickly unraveled. She followed that par on the first with a poorly executed chip on the second. She added poor tee shots on the third and fourth, letting air out of the balloon quickly. She made just one birdie on Sunday in a round that passed by in grindingly slow fashion. She was two under on the week, one shot worse than Cooper with her ball in a greenside bunker on 18. If you were watching, you saw the car crash begin.

Lopez Ramirez bladed her bunker shot over the green, into a crowd and the USGA’s temporary scoring tent. She shorted her pitch from there, falling off the side of the green. Her fifth came up short of the green and rolled back down to her feet. The sixth shot made it on, the seventh cozied up to the hole. The eighth was a tap-in for triple bogey and a one-over total: 68-74-68-79. When Maja Stark’s friends rushed the green, Lopez Ramirez got caught in the worst kind of champagne shower.

No one stopped to tell her the amount she made fresh out of scoring. It was $138,804, which is still the largest sum of her young career, by a factor of six. Instead, the only stop she made was a two-minute chat with a reporter, who was curious what she might be pocketing this week that isn’t so literal. Turns out she had something in mind before the day even began.

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

And so, our young pros left Erin Hills at different times and in different moods. In the end, they were separated by four shots. Next week, the difference will be measured in thousands of miles, back on their own journeys. Lopez Ramirez heads to play in New Jersey and Cooper heads home to Texas. The next U.S. Women’s Open is 51 weeks away, but already taking shape. Thanks to her top 10 finish, Cooper has a spot in the field. Thanks to that 18th hole, Lopez Ramirez does not. Not yet.