Candy Hannemann had been sidelined from the LPGA Tour for several years because of wrist operations when she learned that golf would return to the 2016 Olympic Games.
But it was not just the return of golf to the Olympics for the first time since 1904 that interested her. It was that Hannemann’s hometown, Rio de Janeiro, would be the host.
Because Brazil is the host nation, at least one Brazilian will be invited to compete in the field of 60 players in the women’s tournament. Hannemann wants a shot at that spot.
“I now have a very specific goal — to play in the Olympics — and I’m really focused on it,” said Hannemann, 35, who lives in Boston with her husband, Adam Grossman, a Boston Red Sox executive.
On a trip to Rio, Hannemann discussed the Olympics with members of her home course, Gavea Golf and Country Club. Hannemann said that before she left, one of the men pulled her aside and told her: “You can’t let this opportunity go by. Whatever you need, go do it, and we’ll help you.”
Hannemann began her professional career in 2002 on the Futures Tour, now known as the Symetra Tour, the development tour for the LPGA. She won two titles in 2003 and finished third on the Futures Tour money list to earn an exempt LPGA status for the 2004 season.
She went on to earn nearly $500,000 on the LPGA Tour, but she played her last competitive round in 2009, before succumbing to the pain in her right wrist. She did not touch a club in 2010 or 2011. She settled in Boston, married Grossman and gave birth to their daughters, Stella in 2012 and Luiza in 2014.
But with her wrist pain gone and a new goal in sight, Hannemann decided to return to the Symetra Tour this year, and she headed to Florida in March.
“I was playing a practice round and chatting with two young pros this spring when I told them I had kids,” Hannemann said. “They looked at me like I was an alien, and that’s when it hit me that I’m at a really different place in my life. I was like them once, with no other worries than just playing golf.”
Hannemann started the season traveling with her daughters and a full-time nanny, but as the season wore on and tournament sites became more scattered, the children stayed at home with their father.
“There’s so much stuff you have to take when you travel with kids,” Hannemann said. “On one trip when we flew, I had nine items, including a crib, a stroller, two car seats, my golf clubs and a bunch of bags.”
Hannemann was the only player on the Symetra Tour traveling with children. She was also playing on a tour where the average age is 25.
“When she won the NCAA championship, that was 14 years ago,” said Grossman, who first met his wife in the Duke library after reading about her in the campus newspaper. “And a lot of players she’s competing against now were about 3 years old.”
Beth Bauer Grace, a former teammate of Hannemann’s at Duke, said representing Brazil at the Olympics would mean a lot to Hannemann.
“I cannot imagine all that she has to balance with two young girls and trying to play professionally at the highest level to reach this goal,” said Grace, who was on Duke’s 1999 NCAA championship team with Hannemann. “But anything is possible, and I am definitely rooting for her.”
Hannemann’s return started slowly. She played in 11 Symetra Tour events and missed seven cuts. Her best finish was a tie for 36th in August at a tournament in Massachusetts held 45 minutes from her home.
“It was a plus to be able to go home each day and not worry about what the kids were doing,” she said.
She also played in three tournaments in the LPGA, where she still has playing status, but missed the cut in each. It was a far cry from her last healthy LPGA season, in 2006, when she posted two top-10 finishes.
“I haven’t played great and I know that, but this is a process, and I’m not discouraged,” she said. “It’s been very humbling, but I don’t feel like I’ve lost that edge you need to compete. It’s still there, but it’s taking time to get the physical and the mental parts to match up.”
Grossman regularly watches top athletes battle back into form and has remained supportive of his wife’s effort to play in Rio next summer, but he said there was a vast difference between players fighting for roster spots and individuals trying to regain form on their own.
“With baseball, there’s an infrastructure around anyone who is part of our team, whether that’s with Red Sox players or minor leaguers,” he said. “And there are resources our club provides in which we put a lot of time, effort and money into making sure we are giving our players the best possibility to perform at the highest level.”
He added: “With Candy, she is the CEO, the manager, the player, the coach, the caddie and even the person who knocks on doors and asks different courses if she can practice there.”
Hannemann will play in the LPGA’s Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Mexico this week and will return to LPGA qualifying school in December. She will continue competing in 2016, trying to improve her Rolex women’s world golf rankings by the summer deadline when Olympians will be selected based on the rankings.
It was Ochoa, the former world No. 1, who Hannemann defeated to win the 2001 NCAA individual title. The two have been friends since they were 13, and a good showing in Ochoa’s tournament could improve Hannemann’s rank. Four golfers from Brazil are ranked, but Hannemann is not.
Dan Brooks, the women’s golf coach at Duke, said that Hannemann, his former player, had the determination to move up the rankings but that preparation would be key because of the other demands in her life.
“Candy is a competitor, and she’s a very, very good golfer, but she needs to be as productive and as concentrated as possible when she practices to maximize her efforts,” Brooks said. “If anybody can do this, she can.”
