Kristyl Sunderman Rediscovers Golf After Long Medical Setback

By the time she turned 21, Kristyl Sunderman had won two Junior World titles in her native San Diego, played golf with future major champions/World Golf Hall of Famers Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, competed at UCLA and Texas Christian University, and was complimented on a bunker shot by none other than four-time U.S. Open champion Ben Hogan.

By the time she turned 22, Sunderman had stopped playing golf.

It wasn’t a case of burnout, even for someone who started playing at age 6 and was a nine-time San Diego Junior Golf Player of the Year. Instead, she was betrayed by her body.

After experiencing increasing pain in her back, shoulders, and hands during her last season at TCU, where she played the final two years of her collegiate career, Sunderman was diagnosed in 1995 with rheumatoid arthritis, derailing any dreams of playing professionally.

“That kind of changed my whole life's trajectory, because I thought if I can't rely on my body on a day-to-day basis, it makes the consistency I need to compete on the LPGA Tour difficult,” said Sunderman. “So I knew I couldn't make a living at it.”

She barely watched the game on TV for the next decade, let alone pick up a club. Yet life went on. Sunderman got married, had a daughter, got divorced, and embarked on a successful career in graphic design and marketing, all while managing her condition with medication and almost daily yoga.

Then in 2011 while living in Riverside, Calif., she noticed a driving range not far from her office and started hitting balls solely for fun on her lunch hour. A year of doing that led to more serious thoughts of returning to competition. The following year her health and game were good enough that she qualified for the 2013 U.S. Women’s Mid- Amateur at Biltmore Forest Country Club in Asheville, N.C., her fourth career USGA championship but first in 22 years. That led to more USGA championships, including the 2024 U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Fox Chapel Golf Club, in Pittsburgh, Pa., and this week’s U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur at the Broadmoor Country Club, in Seattle, Wash. 

“It was like coming home,” explained Sunderman, despite not advancing to match play. “Golf was so tied into my self-esteem as a junior golfer and as a college golfer, especially since I had success in it. When I started playing again and competing, it was such a confidence boost. I was a different person than I was when I played in my first USGA championship (U.S. Girls’ Junior) in 1988.”

Sunderman qualified for five more U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateurs, advancing to the Round of 32 in 2015 and 2016. Then the coaching bug bit. Sunderman was named head women’s golf coach at the University of South Carolina-Beaufort, an NAIA school, in 2016. Two years later she assumed that role at the University of North Dakota, an NCAA Division I school that competes in the Summit League but not exactly a mecca for college golf.

“I was super candid in my recruiting there, and ironically, really successful,” she said. “I had a specific qualifying structure for my team. I didn't do any coaches picks. You qualify for the spot, you earn it, right? Because that's how golf is. The kids that I recruited appreciated that transparency.”  

She left that job to spend more time with her family and moved to Georgia, where she has compiled multiple wins in statewide events, including three this year. But she had a much larger goal in mind. “I wanted to play in a U.S. Senior Women’s Open,” she said.

Although she felt her game was ready after qualifying this year at Fox Chapel, Sunderman found herself vexed by the challenging Seth Raynor greens, shooting 80-78 and not qualifying for the weekend. “I'm usually a really good putter,” she said. “The par-3 third was a U.S. Open green with a U.S. Open hole location. I had a 20-foot break on about a 23-foot putt, and it just didn't stop. I had a five-putt, and it wasn't like I rolled a bad putt. I like to think that my nerves, and then that hole, were kind of why I missed the cut.” 

Much more enjoyable was seeing many old friends from her junior golf days, like three-time USGA champion Jill McGill, whose titles include the 2022 Senior Women’s Open, and eventual champion Leta Lindley, a fellow San Diego native who now resides in Florida. The overall experience moved Sunderman in an unexpected way.

“Having been through the rheumatoid [arthritis] and having been a single mom, I'm pretty darn tough,” she said. “I don't cry a lot. If I get emotional on the golf course, I get hot. I don't get weepy. So to actually feel a little tender out there was just amazing. How far I had come from thinking I would never play competitively, let alone play regularly, again.”

Sunderman played plenty of golf growing up in San Diego, often with Mickelson at Stardust Country Club, now known as Riverwalk Golf Club, a public facility not far from the city’s airport.

“My dad was the Mickelson's family dentist, and my mom would give Phil and I rides to junior tournaments in the area,” she recalled. “There was an incredible short-game area at Stardust, and I remember Phil being maybe 13 or 14 and working on what became his famous backwards flop shot. He even told me, “Kristyl, someday you're going to see me do this on TV.’ And I would just laugh.”

Sunderman also was good enough to join the likes of Tiger Woods on the West Team for the 1991 Cannon Cup, the American Junior Golf Association’s Ryder Cup-style competition contested that year at the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Eisenhower Golf Course, in Colorado Springs, Colo.

“Kirstin Krosgrud Hakke and I played a best-ball, practice match one day there against Tiger and [fellow San Diego native] Chris Riley,” she said. “We won, but they were a few years younger than us!”

Her encounter with Hogan came during a TCU practice round one day at his longtime home course, Shady Oaks Country Club, in Fort Worth, Texas. Sunderman was playing the par-4 ninth hole when her approach landed in the right-greenside bunker. “It was the worst place to miss on that hole,” she said. “But I had been working a lot on my short game as my physicality was declining. So I'm like, we're just going to flop this out as best I can and try to get it to stop. I caught it just right. The perfect little flop that landed so soft and so dead, about a foot from the hole. I thought nothing of it.”

But as she waited for her teammates to finish, a coach provided an urgent heads-up. “’Kristyl, Mr. Hogan is walking out here right now, and I have a feeling he's going to talk to you.’ I thought I had done something wrong.”

“Mr. Hogan comes up to me, and I extended my hand immediately. He asked me my name and I said, ‘Kristyl.’  ‘Well, give me your last name, too, kid.’ So I did. He was still shaking my hand, holding my wrist with his other hand. He said, ‘That was the best shot out of that bunker I have ever seen in all the years I've been here.’ Wow. I was speechless. He said, ‘Good luck in your career,’ and then walked back to the clubhouse. It was just surreal.”

For several decades, there weren’t many heroic shots for Sunderman, thanks to her medical condition. But as she heads into the 62nd U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur in Washington, she hopes to replicate a few from her past.

“Somewhere in my head I know I have all the pieces,” she said. “It's really about managing my body right as much as it is my game. I don’t feel great every single day. The longer I play, the more problematic it can be. Then the odds increase for there to be a bad day and I wonder if I can I function on the golf course.”

Still, Sunderman is grateful to once again have that competitive fire that once burned as a junior growing up in Southern California.

Sunderman isn’t the only player in the field who has battled this affliction. Three-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion Sarah LeBrun Ingram, the victorious 2021 and 2022 USA Curtis Cup captain, also recently returned to competitive golf after getting the condition under control. If anything, Sunderman can draw inspiration from this decorated amateur.

“Life really is about the journey, and the journey in golf for me, with my rheumatoid arthritis, is that the game keeps me out outside and active,” she said. “It's keeping me stronger and more flexible. It's keeping me mentally happy and goal-oriented. So I know that by setting higher goals I'm extending the quality of my life exponentially. But I still want to win.”

Tom Mackin is an Arizona-based freelance writer whose work has previously appeared on USGA websites.