Jan Stephenson, a Paige Spiranac with portfolio, paved the way for influencers

Her post-LPGA life keeps her busy enough, she says, and her ability to utilize her celebrity status survives because of all the leg work she put in 40-plus years ago. And, she says, there was more to it than posing for the cover of Sport Magazine or “soaking” in a tub of golf balls for a calendar shoot — those two images, by the way, still show up regularly in her mailbox, in the form of autograph requests (“the bath tub picture is always one of my favorites,” she says).

“If I hadn’t done all that, I would’ve probably won more,” she says. “Back then, I was making a lot of money. I was making second-place money by doing exhibitions. We didn’t play for much back then. Nowadays if you were making second-place money, you’d be making a lot of money.”

She says it was common for her to finish a tournament on Sunday and fly that night to New York on behalf of the tour.

“The commissioner would set me up for dinners and meetings and golf with potential sponsors,” she says. “We signed a lot of five- and 10-year contracts. The LPGA was really struggling financially.”

Stephenson says when she was originally asked to take advantage of her appeal, she begged off and said, “I just want to play golf.”

Tour leaders’ reply to that request opened her eyes.

“They said, ‘There may not be any golf if you don’t help.’ So it was, wow, OK.”

While doing a lot of promotional lifting for the LPGA Tour, Jan Stephenson also won 16 tour tournaments, including three majors, and is now in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

At that time, Lopez was winning a lot of tournaments and therefore commanding a certain amount of eyeballs, while Stephenson was commanding eyeballs but also mixing in some big wins. Tour officials adjusted in appropriate fashion, Stephenson recalls.

“We always teased, saying the men would watch me and the wives would watch Nancy,” she says. “So they always tried to have us on different tee times — one in the morning and one in the afternoon, so we could keep the gallery there all day.”

She also likes to point out, it wasn’t (and probably isn’t) just about women serving as objects of attention. She recalls being paired with Fred Couples for a 1983 win in the old JC Penny Mixed Team Classic.

“When I played with Freddie in the mixed-team, all of the women would ask me, ‘Is he as cute as he looks on TV?’” she says. “They all kept saying how gorgeous he was.”

As for today’s social-media darlings, former college golfer Paige Spiranac has become the megastar, but she has imitators and outright competition these days. None will win three majors and three dozen other professional tournaments, much less land in the Hall of Fame.

But Jan Stephenson begrudges no one.

“No, you look at some of the girls who haven’t won a tournament, but they have a great career because of it,” she says. “I’m happy for them. Anything you can do to bring attention to golf … it’s the way it should be.”

— Email Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Jan Stephenson was a Paige Spiranac with trophies, Hall of Fame plaque