Lodi’s Lisa Ferrero eyes LPGA return after bout with cancer

Sept. 04--Lisa Ferrero looks the part of the average golfer on an August afternoon at Woodbridge Country Club.

She's decked out in standard golf attire -- a tucked-in collared shirt and shorts. After making her way around the club and chatting it up with fellow golfers, she begins taking shots at the driving range, aiming at a flag 150 yards away. One shot after another rolls up within a few feet of the stick.

There's nothing out of the ordinary until further inspection.

Ferrero's turtle neck undershirt creeps higher on the neck than an ordinary undershirt on a hot day.

The shirt? It's a special compression shirt made to reduce swelling, just over a month after Ferrero underwent reconstructive breast surgery.

The stellar shots? They're explained by the fact that she's been on the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour for roughly five years.

This is how Ferrero likes it. She's not crazy about the idea of bringing a lot of attention to herself, but feels like her story could help others. It could help them get a jump on breast cancer faster than she did. Ferrero, 31, had never been seriously ill and was in the middle of a successful career before the cancer halted everything. She's undergone treatment and is to the point where a return to the tour is in sight. And she feels fortunate.

"The moral of the story is to get checked," Ferrero said. "I thought I was doing the right thing by monitoring. But it doesn't matter if you're 20 or 50, get whatever it is checked out."

Ferrero is so adamant because of the frustrating beginning to her battle.

In the summer of 2012, Ferrero discovered a lump in her right breast and had it checked by her doctor. She was told to keep an eye on it and follow up about every three months to see if it got bigger. Ferrero did as she was told and after about three or four follow-up visits, the lump did not get bigger.

The lump's stability did little to ease Ferrero's mind and she decided it was time to put pressure on her doctor for a biopsy. If nothing else, it would give her some peace of mind. The biopsy went forward in December and Ferrero says she'll never forget finding out the results.

Now living in Florida, Ferrero has had most of her doctor visits in California. She was at her parents' home in Lodi when she got the phone call and learned that she had ductal carcinoma in siti, the most common form of breast cancer.

Lisa was with her mom, Janice, and her dad, Jeff, at the time. They'd had a hunch leading up to the phone call that the news wasn't going to be good.

"I knew what was coming because of the way people were acting and not saying much at first," Ferrero said. "I was upset and told myself not to be because it's not like it was going to help. My mom was way more upset.

"You hear names like ductal carcinoma and just don't know what to think."

Not long after, Ferrero questioned her local doctor as to why a biopsy wasn't ordered sooner. The answer she got was that she was too young to be at serious risk for breast cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, a woman in her 30s has a 1-in-227 chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Ferrero decided from there on out that UC San Francisco Medical Center was the best place to go. She was initially told that the lump was about two centimeters only to find out it was closer to nine. Doctors there told her there was a 50-50 chance that she'd be all right just getting the lump removed.

Those odds didn't sit well with the Ferreros, so on Valentine's Day, Lisa had her breast removed. Just over four months later, she had reconstructive surgery.

"The pros and cons (verses lumpectomy and mastectomy) weren't even close," Ferrero said. "I may be a pro at golf but the doctors are the pros at what they do so I said just get rid of it."

The surgeries were admittedly difficult, but Ferrero says she was in good spirits through each. She lay in bed joking with whomever was nearby during the pre-ops and afterward.

The mastectomy went eight hours and included the removal of lymph nodes from her right arm pit to see if the cancer had spread, which it had not. This was the hardest part of either operation because she lost feeling in part of her arm and wasn't allowed to move it for two weeks. It took physical therapy to get her motion back and she says she still can't feel 100 percent of that arm.

The reconstruction was only two hours long and Ferrero was able to go home the next day.

She doesn't want people to think her ordeal has been easy by any means. But she says the decision for removal wasn't too bad and that the recovery was about what she expected. She was told by the team in San Francisco that she's had the fastest recovery of anyone they've ever seen.

Ferrero was cleared in July to start practicing golf again and will be back on the tour when the new season starts in January. She is thankful for the understanding of the LPGA officials because as soon as she contacted them, they told her to take whatever time off she needed. They would make sure the tour card she had earned the year before would be upheld.

Ferrero's worked hard for her card after turning professional in 2005 following an all-conference career at Texas. Before that, she was a 2000 Polo Golf Junior All-American first-team selection. She also won the U.S. amateur title that year and won the 2001 Rolex AJGA Tournament of Champions.

She notched a pair of wins on the Futures Tour in 2011 and has collected $68,935 in her LPGA career. Ever since becoming pro, she's made it a point to have good insurance and says getting treatment covered hasn't been a big issue. Ferrero's made up for the income of missed tour events somewhat by entering charity pro-ams here and there. The pro-ams are casual tournaments that golf courses put on throughout the country where ordinary golfers will pay to get to play with the pros.

She got to this point after growing up in Lodi where her parents were grape growers on some 420 acres. She began golfing at age seven and played for Lodi High for four years. By her junior year, Ferrero had won the boys and girls San Joaquin Athletic Association individual championship. Her senior year, she won the girls championship and tied for second in the boys tournament.

Steve Wolf, now retired, coached Ferrero at Lodi. He knew he had a special kind of a competitor when he matched Ferrero up with Lincoln's Ricky Barnes one tournament her sophomore year. Barnes won the league title and section title that year as a senior. She had a a lead on Barnes after nine holes before he came back to edge Ferrero.

Barnes is now on the PGA Tour and didn't remember nearly falling to Ferrero.

"If I had lost to her I bet I would have remembered," Barnes said. "I just remember her being nice and someone you rooted for. She was good competition."

Ferrero feels like she'll be good competition once again. She's hitting the ball just as far, if not further, than she did before the cancer made her take a break. The challenge will be building up the stamina that is needed to be a pro.

If Ferrero is anything like she was in high school, Wolf says she'll be fine. She'll work at it. He remembers too many times having to go onto the golf course at night and make her go home.

"I'm not surprised how far she's come and how fast she's recovering," Wolf said. "Whether its cancer or golf, she's a survivor.

"I have a feeling next year is going to be a great year for her."

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