At the Senior Women's Open, the caddies are the players' kids

Rachel Hetherington flew from Australia to Michigan with her 15-year-old daughter Annie and made two campus stops on the way: Stanford, then the University of Michigan. Annie plays off eight and wants to play college golf in the United States. This week she is caddying for her mother, an eight-time LPGA winner who now works as a lawyer for a member of parliament back home.

Just to open her eyes up and see opportunities.

Who else has a child on the bag?

Enough of them that Barton Hills Country Club has taken on the atmosphere of a family reunion. Catriona Matthew's eldest daughter Katie finished her first year at the University of St Andrews and flew over to carry the bag; a swimmer rather than a golfer growing up, she is heading toward a finance degree, and her mother says the job description this week is good company and a positive attitude.

Donna Andrews, the 1994 Dinah Shore champion, has 16-year-old daughter Sarah caddying. Jane Geddes, one of six U.S. Women's Open champions in the field, has son Karson on her bag. Suzy Whaley, the former PGA of America president and a current USGA executive committee member, intends to use both daughters, Kelly and Jenn, across the week.

The pair who have done this before

Martha Leach, sister of World Golf Hall of Fame member Hollis Stacy, is competing in her 84th USGA championship with daughter Madison Gerstle caddying. In 2015 the two were the only mother-daughter pairing in the field at the inaugural U.S. Women's Amateur Four-Ball at Pacific Dunes, where Gerstle holed a 30-foot downhill par putt at the last.

Gerstle had spent years avoiding the family business. With a six-time USGA champion for an aunt and a career amateur for a mother, she played basketball and soccer instead, quit golf at nine and did not pick it up again until she was 25. She now works in finance for a Cincinnati law firm and plays mostly social golf. Her mother has not slowed down at all.

What Matthew is still chasing

Matthew won the 2009 Women's British Open at Royal Lytham and St Annes 11 weeks after giving birth to her daughter Sophie, and remains the most recent mother to win an LPGA major. She has never won a USGA championship, which is the straightforward reason she is at Barton Hills this week. The family lives at North Berwick Golf Club in Scotland, though she plays most of her golf at Gullane, and not often, perhaps once a month.