Symetra Tour Eagle Classic
Soul
Survivor
by LISA D. MICKEY
S
A signature moment
in a difficult road back
from cancer recovery
as a child, Kueny won
the Symetra Classic last
May in Charlotte, N.C.
Laura Kueny, a Symetra Tour player who has battled cancer, is no stranger to challenges
a fourth-year professional on the LPGA’s
Symetra T They have called her “inspiring”
our.
and sought her out at tournaments.
And indeed, when Kueny, 26, was
featured in The New York Times last June as
a childhood leukemia survivor who had just
won her first professional golf tournament,
the shy player from Whitehall, Mich., was
forced to walk out of her comfort zone to
shake a few more hands.
But yet another turning point came in
Kueny’s life and golf career last December
when she moped around the LPGA Final
Qualifying T
ournament with her swing coach,
Patti Butcher, as her caddie. Kueny did not
earn LPGA membership for 2014, and it was
as if a dark cloud followed her from hole to
hole at that Florida event. When it was over,
Butcher asked her student a pointed question.
“When we got to the parking lot, she said,
‘Do you want to feel like this for the rest of
your life?’ ” Kueny remembers. “It was almost
a relief to have my coach say something to
me. After all I have been through, I knew I
had no reason not to be happy.”
10
EARLY OBSTACLES TO OVERCOME
That’s because she is a survivor. At age 3
in 1992, Kueny was diagnosed with acute
lymphocytic leukemia. To fight the blood
and bone marrow cancer, she endured
chemotherapy, raging fevers and spinal taps
as a 4-year-old.
Still lingering in her memory are the
treatments that required Kueny to lie on a
table in a fetal position while a long needle
was inserted into her spinal cord. More times
than she cares to remember, nurses held her
down while doctors tested her bone marrow.
She underwent chemotherapy for two and
a half years and endured the physical and
emotional effects of that treatment. She also
lost her hair and became bloated from the
drug, prednisone, which sometimes made
her the butt of children’s teasing.
Worst of all, Kueny recalls a bronchial
inhalation procedure as part of her
leukemia treatment. The child was placed
alone in a tiny, airtight chamber, into which
antibiotics were sprayed while Kueny
inhaled the vapors.
“I remember crying and banging on the
door and screaming for my parents to let
me out,” recalls Kueny, who learned to take
pills to avoid having to return to the enclosed
chamber for treatments.
While her mother, Karen, a registered
nurse, understood the medical aspects of
her daughter’s illness, Kueny was too young
V I R G I N I A G O L F E R | J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 4
to grasp the severity of the disease. All she
knew was hospital visits were mostly painful
and scary.
“I knew there was something different
about me, but I had no idea what was going
on,” Kueny says.
LIFE-ALTERING CONNECTIONS
Ironically, it was during a charity golf outing
to raise money for Kueny’s medical expenses
where she first picked up a cut-down golf
club and gave a ball a whack. She was 4, and
the event was held at Lincoln Golf Club in
Muskegon, Mich., where her father was the
club’s pro for 30 years.
“She was really sick and very weak, but
she’s obviously a fighter,” says her father,
Jim Kueny.
By age 6, Kueny’s symptoms had stabilized
and she was active in sports. She played
soccer, Little League Baseball and was hitting
golf balls with her father. By age 10, she was
competing in junior golf tournaments.
Kueny’s activity level remained high as
she returned for regular checkups with
her doctors. At age 18, she was finally
issued a clean bill of health. She also had
earned a scholarship to play college golf at
Michigan State University.
Kueny went on to win three college
tournaments and was a three-time all-Big
Ten Conference selection, as well as the
Big Ten’s 2010 Women’s Golfer of the Year.
w w w. v s g a . o r g
SCOTT A. MILLER
She’s not a household name in golf,
but people across the
nation have reached
out to Laura Kueny,