LPGA player marries caddie at Superstition Mountain Golf Club before LPGA returns to AZ

GOLD CANYON, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) — The LPGA is back in Arizona for the first time since 2019. Superstition Mountain Golf & Country Club, which previously hosted the Tour from 2004-2008, is the site of the Drive On Championship. The course in Gold Canyon also hosted a wedding between a player and her caddie over the weekend. “We meant to get married earlier,” says Mina Harigae. “It just never happened. Couldn’t find the time to do it. Then out of the blue, we’re like, ‘Let’s go get married Saturday at Superstition on the patio.’”

It was an appropriate spot for the couple, rocking matching Air Jordan sneakers to tie the knot. Harigae met her beau, Travis Kreiter, at Superstition Mountain six years ago. She was the first LPGA honorary member at the Golf Club, and he was an assistant pro there. “He ended up taking my money,” Harigae laughs. “The first time I ever played with him.”

Harigae’s winning the money now. She finished second at the U.S. Women’s Open last summer and played on the Solheim Cup team the year prior. She’s come a long way since Arizona’s Family first interviewed her in 2020 when Harigae was playing the minor league Cactus Tour during the pandemic to make ends meet and try to find her game again. “It’s a total flip of my life. Yeah, things have drastically changed,” she says. “My play on the Cactus Tour definitely helped propel me because I was able to shoot the scores I was shooting without feeling like I was doing anything super extraordinary. I was just playing very well, and to be able to play that well for a pretty long period of time. I think that made me feel very comfortable with my game.”

Today, Harigae’s ranked Top 50 in the world. But she might be No. 1 regarding course knowledge for this week’s tournament at her home club. Asked how many rounds she’s played at Superstition Mountain in the last couple of years, Harigae replied, “I can’t even count. I mean, I pretty much played every day last week. So, hundreds. Yeah, hundreds and hundreds.”

As for whether or not the Drive On Championship counts as a honeymoon for the happy couple? “Um, no,” laughs Harigae. “I want an actual honeymoon. But I think it’s really cool to be playing here, like, a couple days later.”

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