LPGA winner Gemma Dryburgh set for Christmas Eve baby, new lifestyle
- Scottish golfer Gemma Dryburgh and her partner are expecting their first child on Christmas Eve.
- Dryburgh plans to utilize the LPGA Tour's daycare facilities as she balances her career with motherhood.
- She finished her eighth season on the highly competitive LPGA Tour with two top-10 finishes.
- Dryburgh, a past tour winner, believes a new baby will provide fresh perspective on her golf career.
When you play golf, you can end up accumulating a heck of a lot of stuff.
Go on, have a rummage in that tatty bag over there, the one slumped forlornly in the corner like some Victorian class dunce, and you’ll find balls, tees, gloves, caps, crumpled waterproofs, crushed gilets, empty juice bottles, half-eaten chocolate bars, a mouldering banana and clump of something completely unidentifiable.
Amid the general bumf and paraphernalia, it's amazing there’s any room for the clubs. As a touring golfer for the past 10 years, Gemma Dryburgh has been used to packing this, that and the other for her regular trips here, there and everywhere.
“We never travel light, but I can just about pack with my eyes shut,” she said. This well-established routine could change a bit in 2026, mind you.
Dryburgh’s partner, Anne-Lise Bidou, is set to give birth on Christmas Eve. “We don’t know if it’s boy or a girl, but I’ve already got the baby a knitted cloth putter,” she cooed. Start ‘em young, eh?
While the New Orleans-based Scot will travel alone to the LPGA Tour’s early-season events in the Far East, the return of the circuit to U.S. soil will see it become more of a family affair.
“Tour life will be a bit different,” added Dryburgh. “Thankfully, there are daycare facilities at every tour venue so that will be helpful.
“A lot of girls travel with their kids, so I’ve been asking around for advice. They’ve given me lots of tips on what prams to bring and what to travel with; simple things but important things to know when it’s all new.
"It’ll all be about streamlining the process. There will probably be much less of my stuff, too.”
As long as Dryburgh remembers the tools of her trade, she should be fine.
The 32-year-old has just completed her eighth season on the LPGA Tour during which she made 16 cuts from 23 starts and posted two top-10 finishes.
Solid rather than spectacular would probably be a fair assessment of the 2025 campaign.
“This is as strong as I’ve seen the tour,” said Dryburgh of a strength in depth which spawned a record 29 different winners over the course of the season.
“So many girls can win. Look at Nelly Korda? She won seven times in 2024 but didn’t win once this year. It’s getting tougher and tougher.
“The girls coming from the qualifying school seem to be ready to win and then you have the likes of Lottie Woad coming straight from college golf.
“It certainly keeps you on your toes. You can’t afford to stand still.”
Dryburgh, of course, was a tour winner herself in Japan back in 2022 as she became just the fourth Scot to triumph on the world’s leading female circuit.
“I definitely feel there’s another win in there,” added the former Solheim Cup player, who has always maintained a cheery, philosophical outlook in the face of golf’s fickle fortunes.
“It can be hard to stay upbeat in this game. There are times that challenge you more than others but over the course of my career I’ve always managed to stay pretty positive and level-headed.
“For many, golf can be the be all and end all. I’ve tried to look beyond that. A new baby will give me plenty of fresh perspective on it too.”
In these relatively fallow times for Scottish women’s golf, Dryburgh continues to plough something of a lone furrow.
There was nothing much to write home about from the Scots on the Ladies European Tour this year while the likes of Hannah Darling, Louise Duncan and Lorna McClymont, all terrific talents in their amateur days, are still finding their feet in the pro game.
“It’s hard getting a foothold,” noted Dryburgh, who was a golf scholarship student at Tulane University in New Orleans before making the pro plunge.
“You are going from a relatively comfortable place at college golf and into the real golfing world. Nobody cares what you did as an amateur.
“It took me a few years to get onto the LPGA Tour and in my first season I only made two cuts.
“The first year can be daunting too. You’re on the range next to players you looked up to, and you think, ‘what am I doing here?’.
“But you get over that, you understand that you deserve to be there and you start believing in yourself. It’s all stepping stones.”
Dryburgh’s maiden tour win in 2022 saw her land one of golf’s more peculiar prizes; an all-singing, all-dancing toilet from Japanese luxury bathroom product manufacturers, Toto.
“The wee one may enjoy playing with it,” chuckled Dryburgh of a triumphant throne boasting a remote control, heated seat and bidet.
Toilet training, when it comes, should be a hoot.