PGA wives take a break from grueling tour with spa day

While the Franklin Templeton Shootout entrants walked the Tiburon

Golf Course links Thursday, their wives enjoyed a day at the spa at

The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples.

There were manicures, massages, soft cotton robes and time to

talk and relax. At least that's what we can assume. Spa Day was

girls' day out, meaning no guys.

"That'd be like a girl walking through the guy's locker room,"

Hank Kuehne's wife, Nicole, says with a smile.

It's one of the little prizes of being a PGA wife, along with

crisscrossing the country and hanging out at the best golf courses

in America.

"It's every girl's dream," Nicole Kuehne says.

But the dream is not always mud masks and cucumber slices over

the eyelids. Tour wives are part-manager, part-maid, part-Muse.

There's laundry to do and somebody's always handing out a business

card. Their job is to make life simple so their husbands can focus

on what they do best -- play golf -- and they can work off the

course as hard as their husbands work on it.

The golfers say they couldn't do it without their wives, so when

they can spend a day at the spa, they've earned it.

The pampering the wives received this week isn't the norm, says

Laura Norman, wife of Shootout creator Greg Norman for 22

years.

Laura Norman has been the Julie on this Challenge season Love

Boat tour. She put together the spa day, the dinner and the wives'

Friday visit to the Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida, where

they worked on arts and crafts projects with children undergoing

cancer treatment at the hospital.

Yes, there is some time to sightsee during the PGA season, but

most of that time is spent doing everything possible to keep the

eyes on the prizes.

"Most of the year is spent all around golf," Laura Norman says.

"There's so much that has to do with the Player of the Year award

and the money list and the Ryder Cup that there's so much pressure.

It's nice to give them a day they can enjoy."

America has a clouded view of the life of a PGA Tour family,

some of the wives say. The golf fans sitting in front of the

television sets at home see the golfer sink the winning putt,

become the hero. They see his wife run out to the green for a

congratulatory hug and kiss.

That's just the surface, Linda Mediate, wife of soon-to-be

Naples resident Rocco Mediate, says, especially when you have kids.

The Mediates have three.

"When you start having kids, it's tedious," she says. "It's

really hard. Then the kids get sick on the road and you have to

still do laundry and you have to find places to eat and it becomes

wearing."

And it's not on the PGA's dime, as many might think. Linda

Mediate says golfers take home about 35 to 40 percent of their

winnings after expenses and taxes.

Raising the children is only part of the job, especially for the

younger Tour families. Many wives take on other jobs, like

part-time business manager and part-time fan club president. When

Greg Norman was on the rise to becoming an elite golfer, it was

Laura taking the business cards, making the reservations and

answering the fan mail.

Nicole Kuehne says she collects the business cards during the

year. Husband Hank's bazooka drives are in high demand.

"There's always someone handing Hank cards, wanting him to do

outings," she says. "I help take care of that and there are things

at home that I'm taking care of."

The golfers consider all their wives' behind-the-scenes work

essential, but they really appreciate the companionship they

provide on the road. Golf is intense as it is, and when the golfers

are done for the day, they don't always want to stroll to dinner

with the guys they're trying to beat and they don't always want to

hole up in a hotel room and get room service.

Just having someone there to talk to may be the greatest gift of

all.

"It gets so lonely on the road when you travel by yourself,"

Nicole Kuehne says. "There are so many distractions. We can help

alleviate that and help the guys go out and focus."

That doesn't change the longer you stay on the tour, Laura

Norman says.

"Greg just likes me to be there at the end of the day," she

says. "It's really important to all those guys to go back to the

room and relax. You don't have to be Greg Norman or Shaun Micheel.

It's important just to have that comfort zone."

Micheel found out how nice it was to have his wife in the

audience during the biggest day of his career, the Sunday he won

the 2003 PGA Championship in August. Micheel's wife, Stephanie, is

a successful attorney in family law in Memphis and the two await

the birth of their son sometime next week.

Stephanie Micheel normally doesn't travel with Shaun during the

season. She enjoys her career, he says, and he wants her to be

happy. But she was there at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester,

N.Y., when he won the championship.

"I tried to find her in the crowd on every single hole," Micheel

says. "I tried to find her throughout the entire day. When I hit

the shot, I was 100 percent committed, but doing that really helped

me through. Anything I could do to keep my mind off of what was

really going on."

While the travel is extensive, many wives say it can be fun.

Some of the wives put together little sightseeing tours at every

stop.

"It's like a field trip when you were in school," Nicole Kuehne

says. "It's so much fun."

It also helps if you like traveling, as many of the wives do.

Laura Norman met Greg when she was working as a flight attendant.

Newlyweds Matt and Sybi Kuchar are accustomed to the hectic

traveling schedule.

"Sybi traveled through Europe when she was playing high school

tennis," Matt says. "So she's pretty used to it."

Sybi got her first taste of Tour wife-dom at the end of the

couple's honeymoon. They were in week three of their trip and

relaxing in New Zealand when Matt got the call to come to the

Shootout.

Sybi says she doesn't mind, because she gets something a lot of

wives don't -- the ability to give her husband a hug after he walks

off the links.

"I'm just happy to see him every day," she says. "I'm just happy

to see him when he comes back from the course."

And she's happy to tell him he played well, even when he doesn't

think so.

"I think he plays great all the time," she says.

The life of a PGA Tour wife isn't all glitz, glamour and

four-star hotels. It takes love, dedication and multi-tasking

wizardry. When the golfer sinks the putt to win the tournament,

she's there with a kiss, but he's kissing right back.

That win had as much to do with her hard work as it did his.