Stacy Lewis: Veteran Of The Back Wars

Stacy Lewis knows all about playing with a fused back. Photo: Scott Halleran, PGA of America via Getty Images
LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA |  With all the talk and speculation about Tiger Woods and his latest back surgery – Will he come back? How serious is it? When will the next procedure be one cut too deep? How will he change his swing this time? And on and on – it’s easy to forget that a major champion has already been through this, as well as a pregnancy, a winless slump and questions about whether or not the game had passed her by.
That player, Stacy Lewis, won the Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Scottish Open last year and is two shots out of the lead after the first round of the Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions. As she has throughout her entire career, Lewis is doing it with fused discs, a procedure performed during her freshman year at the University of Arkansas in an attempt to correct scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that had forced her to spend upwards of 18 hours a day in a back brace throughout her childhood....