Built Mom Tough
Rachel Rohanna pulled off a heroic (and gross) mom maneuver in middle of her U.S. Open first round
Patrick Smith
LANCASTER, Pa. -- Look, we're just going to say this up top: If you're squeamish about the bodily functions of human beings who are not potty trained, maybe pass this post up. There's no shame in it. We think what happened is hilarious, but your mileage may vary.
So, Rachel Rohanna. She came into the U.S. Women's Open with one of the quirkier stories in the field already. At 33, the Ohio State alum is two years removed from her last season with full status on the LPGA Tour, when she played full-time while raising a daughter and running a literal cattle ranch in Greene County, Pa. with her husband Ethan Virgili. This year, she's trying it out on the Epson Tour, now with two daughters and all the usual home responsibilities, and she managed to ace a sectional qualifier to get in the field at this week's second major. Pretty great!
But now we must turn to that new daughter, 8-month old Greenlee, who took a starring role on the 12th hole. If you followed the action Thursday, you might have already read about one disaster at that hole, when Nelly Korda made a 10. This disaster was a little different, and we'll let Rohanna tell it in her own words:
"There was a back up with the playing and then there was, you know, the opposite of a back up in the stroller," she said, showing a facility with tactful speech around a messy subject. "There was like I think four groups or something on the tee box. I was talking to my husband and looked down and happened to see that my youngest was just — went to the bathroom all over the place."
Again, a very dignified way to put it. But anyone who has been a parent of a young kid, and probably everyone who hasn't too, knows exactly what went down.
"I was like, Ethan!" she continued. "So I brought them inside the ropes and we went into a roped off area and changed her. It was a two-man effort to get that taken care of."
That bad?
"Yeah, no, it was everywhere," she concluded.
You really have to hand it to Rohanna. Here she is, playing her most important tournament of the year, and in the first round she drops it all to take care of what might be a parent's most unenviable task. And we hate to throw Ethan under the bus here, but come on man, no such thing as a two-man effort when your wife's playing the U.S. Open! You gotta step up!
Jokes aside, kudos to Rohanna for a very strange but impressive moment of multi-tasking. She shot 76 on a tough day at Lancaster Country Club, and proved her bona fides as a mom in the process. She's hoping to squeeze in a few LPGA Tour events the rest of the year, and we have to say, if anything's worth a sponsor's exemption, it's this. At the very least, get this woman an endorsement deal from Pampers.