{{ubiquityData.prevArticle.description}}
{{ubiquityData.nextArticle.description}}
Henrik Stenson has an engagingly dry sense of humour, which came to the fore when he and Annika Sörenstam were talking about the Scandinavian Mixed event which they are co-hosting this week at Vallda Golf & Country Club just south of Gothenburg, Sweden.
The 2016 Open champion had feigned disappointment when he learned Sörenstam had decided to play. Whereas, previously, he had thought he could leave the lion’s share of the off-course work to her, he now had to think again. “So, thanks for that, Annika,” he sighed.
Light-hearted banter though this was, Stenson would have known that Sörenstam, whose recent appointment as president of the International Golf Federation was about rather more than her 10 majors, would have coped admirably without any help from him, even if the tournament is a tricky one.
To explain, men and women are playing for equal prize money and the same trophy but will be hitting from different tees. These must be separated by a distance which is not going to make for the sort of arguments that took place at the Praia d’El Rey European Cup in 1997. That week, the seniors complained that the women’s tees were as good as on the greens.
Rest assured, Sörenstam will ensure no such disputes take hold in Sweden. As she has proved through the years, she knows how to handle golf’s tougher questions.
The Sörenstam I first met was a shy student at the University of Arizona who had been invited to play in the 1992 Standard Register Ping event at Moon Valley Country Club in Phoenix.
Her first day did not get off to the best of starts when the car-park attendant turned her away because he thought she was too young to be playing in the tournament. The experience did not exactly spoil her day: she returned an opening 67.
After she had told me a bit about her round, I asked if she had a specific golfing ambition. What I thought she said – and what she had in fact said – was as follows: “It’s to score in the 50s.”
Nine years later, on what had become an annual trip to Moon Valley, she had a winning tally which did indeed include a 59. In her own quiet way, she has rejoiced in the title of “Ms. 59” ever since.
“Initially, I was struck by how golf is such a small part of the (Olympic) Games, but I’m now at the point where I’m enjoying learning about all the other sports.”
Annika Sörenstam
When Sörenstam retired in 2008, she had already started on what is now her Annika Foundation. She’s brought a series of sound ideas to the project. One of the latest to catch the eye is an invitation for 6- to 12-year-olds to write an essay, with pictures, by way of qualifying for one of her squads.
“It’s about encouraging kids to enjoy themselves on the golf course,” she explained. “Their stories were cute. They were all about how much they loved being outdoors and making new friends.”
Sörenstam’s position as president of the IGF is no token appointment. “It’s been such an interesting time and all the more challenging because of the pandemic,” she said. (She was meant to be in Athens , Greece, during the week of this particular conversation but, instead, everything had to continue on Zoom.)
“How the committee views things is fascinating to someone like me who has only known golf,” she added. “Initially, I was struck by how golf is such a small part of the (Olympic) Games, but I’m now at the point where I’m enjoying learning about all the other sports.”
She feels proud of how inclusive the Olympic organisation is today, with more and more women involved on various committees. And proud of how the organisers introduced a Refugee team at the last time of asking, thereby giving hope to the proliferating number of refugees around the world.
Sörenstam has been playing her part in the various testing arrangements for all the athletes who, of course, have been in training for five years rather than the usual four. (Last Wednesday, the Olympic president said he was “100 percent certain” the Games will be going ahead despite concerns being aired on a daily basis in so many other quarters.)
It goes without saying that Annika’s journey – she is now 50 – has involved hitches as well as highlights. Of the hitches, the most recent had to do with the abuse which came her way when, with family members having come over from Sweden for the occasion, she went ahead and collected her Presidential Medal of Freedom on the day after those never-to-be-forgotten riots outside and inside the United States Capitol. Even now, she winces at the memory of how the presentation was supposed to have happened 10 months earlier.
“What happened with the violence was horrible,” she said. “You know me, I can’t stand violence of any kind.”
Where she eventually found some solace was in looking at the great names on the medal.
Moving on, it goes without saying that this week, for Sörenstam, will be all about doubling as golfer and host.
At their joint press conference, Sörenstam and Stenson both mentioned the possibility of their respective sons, Will and Karl, playing in the pro-am. What with Sweden the first country in the world to take the sensible step of promoting golf as a family affair, it would come as no surprise if that were to happen.
Top: Annika Sörenstam and Henrik Stenson host this week’s Scandinavian Mixed event.
E-Mail Lewine