Dutch golfer Dewi Weber, who finished her first round at this week’s Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give at 2-over par and quite far from the leaders, knows that “golf is a sport where you are going to lose a lot more than you win.”
“I still have trouble assuming that, every now and then,” said Weber, who defines herself as “the most competitive person she knows.”
“I need someone to tell me I am still doing the right things,” she said.
That someone for Dewi is her girlfriend, Jen.
“I can talk to her about anything. When I start spiraling about the results and how I am hitting the ball, she reminds me that the goal is not to play one tournament but to gradually get better,” said 26-year-old Weber, a rookie on the LPGA Tour, about her partner of almost four years.
“As soon as Jen and I started dating and it became quite serious is when I told my parents about my sexual identity because it finally felt very natural and very good,” said Weber, who started trying to figure it out when she was 14.
She remembers how the kids who were out at her school in The Netherlands were outcasts. “I haven’t been on the LPGA long enough, but I think in general people dance around the word, which I personally associate with almost shame,” said Weber, speaking of the word “queer,” which she uses “because it is a little bit everything and I just happen to be in a gay relationship.”
Weber played collegiate golf at the University of Miami, where she finished her degree in 3.5 years, won three tournaments, and finished second in the NCAA individual championship. “From the moment I went to college, I did not really care what anyone thought about my sexual life. My two roommates from college were both Dutch, and they knew from the second we met. They are still my best friends,” said Weber about her college experience in Miami.
Weber started her pro career in March 2019 on the Epson Tour, where she earned 12 top-10 finishes. Her personal experience during her three years on that Tour is that “there was never a hard conversation to have.”
“My first year, someone asked me if I had a boyfriend, and I said, ‘no, I have a girlfriend, and her name is Jen.’ So that was the end of it. So it was very much you are a person, and I am a person, and that’s the general reaction that you are going to get on that tour,” said Weber.
“I think on the LPGA that is not the average reaction yet. I think sometimes people are a little afraid of what sponsors and the target demographic might think,” said Weber, professing her admiration for English LPGA player Mel Reid, a prominent gay-rights activist on Tour.
“Mel is a really cool person, and she is doing cool stuff by not making gender identity a big deal. I think that’s what we should be striving for. The second that people don’t feel like they have to tell, that’s a great world to be in,” said Weber, who dreams of “an ideal world where people don’t have to come out. A world without gender closets.”
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