Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 21, 1994 TAG: 9404210067
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY KING STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Reporters here. Cameramen there. Oops, there goes the telephone again. Another message on the answering machine, another somebody wanting a piece of her time.
Suddenly, Andrews can't walk outside her home in Pinehurst, N.C., without the neighbors wondering what's up.
"Now it seems everybody wants to know what you're doing," said Andrews, who visited Roanoke on Wednesday night as the guest speaker at the Roanoke Valley Sports Club meeting.
"Dealing with it all has been very time-consuming since winning the Dinah Shore," she said. "After winning the tournament, I wanted to take some time off to relax. Instead, I felt like I did interviews for two weeks."
Don't get Andrews wrong. She isn't complaining. The self-proclaimed country girl - Andrews "used to dig up salamanders" while creek-fishing in Bland County, where her mother, Helen, grew up - simply is trying to adjust to life in the fast lane as one of the rising stars of the LPGA.
"People use those kind of words like [rising star], but I don't agree with them yet," Andrews said. "But I guess that's the way I'll always will be. I don't feel that way because I know I've got so much room for improvement."
That revelation has to come as bad news for the rest of the LPGA. In the past nine months, the 27-year-old Lynchburg native has dominated like no other player, finishing in the top 10 in 10 of 17 tournaments, scoring her first three pro victories and banking $474,419.
"It's all happened so fast," she said. "I always felt like once I graduated [from the University of North Carolina in 1989] and had time to work on my game full-time that things would start developing at a more rapid pace. I always said to myself, `When it's your turn, it's your turn.' "
Obviously, it's her turn. The five-time Virginia State Amateur champion (1985-89) is the only two-time winner this season on the LPGA tour and is $37,864 shy of becoming the third-fastest LPGA competitor to reach $1 million in career earnings.
So what does a down-home Southern gal do with all that loot? Bury it in a tin can in the backyard, or splurge a little?
"I bought a horse after winning at Tucson [Ariz.]," she said. "Last year, it was jewelry. This year, it's horses. I've done my fair share of both. After I saw how much I spent last year, I decided I had to learn how to save."
Right now, she's content collecting. Some more first-place trophies, that is.
"I'm having a lot of fun these days," she said. "I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing. I just go out and do the best I can."
Lately, that's been more than enough.
by CNB