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When Japan’s Hinako Shibuno won the 2019 Women’s British Open at Woburn in 2019, she knew that life back home would never be the same again. The so-called “Smiling Cinderella” was treated like a superstar from the moment she touched down in Japan, with the airport packed with fans, photographers and TV crews.
Believe it or not, Iceland, with its population of 350,000 to Japan’s 126,113,578, is the latest country to accord star status to its women golfers. Ólafía Kristinsdóttir found herself being recognised in the streets after she won her LPGA card in 2016, while Jóhanna Lea Lúðvíksdóttir will no doubt find much the same when she arrives back from Barassie, Ayrshire, after becoming the first Icelander to reach the final of a Women’s British Amateur championship. (Though she had recovered from three down with five to play in the semi-final, she failed to pull off the same trick in the final after lunching three to the bad against Stirling University’s Louise Duncan.)
The three Icelanders at Barassie were seldom out of the news over the week. First, Ragnhildur Kristinsdóttir won the qualifying event with scores of 74 and 66. Next came a draw which, would you believe, saw the other two, Lúðvíksdóttir and Hulda Clara Gestdóttir, playing each other. And immediately Lúðvíksdóttir notched two-hole win over her compatriot, there was an eye-opener of an unlikely incident.
On the course and right in front of the clubhouse, there was an unmissable R&A noticeboard reading, “Absolutely no handshakes, elbow bumps, fist bumps or high fives.” The Icelandic party may or may not have noticed that there was no mention of hugs, and, either by accident or design, there were hugs all round involving the girls and their fathers-cum-caddies as they came off the 18th. Officialdom, if they were watching, would have been aggrieved but, on the other side of the coin, they would have approved the spirit in which the match was played out.
With the top qualifier having lost to Ireland’s Aine Donegan, Lúðvíksdóttir was on her own as she successfully negotiated the next four rounds.
It was only on the Friday before the championship week that this three-time Icelandic Junior champion learned that the German scholarship agency whose help she had enlisted had found her a place at the University of Northern Illinois. She had accepted on the spot.
An all-rounder, this 18-year-old, A-grade student had enjoyed all of swimming, football and playing the piano until four months at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, at the start of 2021, convinced her that her future lay in golf.
Twenty or so years ago, Icelandic girls used to busy themselves riding plump Icelandic ponies by way of a hobby. Then, in the 1990s, golf began to attract attention when a team of Icelanders won the Nordic Men’s Amateur Team championships – a three-round contest at the Reykjavik Golf Club which involved six-a-side teams from Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. The Icelanders, most of whom were boat-builders, finished no fewer than 10 ahead of the Danes and 33 clear of the Swedes at a time when the latter were bursting to the fore on the world stage.
What is more, the general assumption that the Swedes had sent along a second-rate side could not have been further from the truth. All but two were plus-handicap men and full-time golfers who had spent the previous fortnight warming up for the big fixture in Florida.
Football was the big thing when, in 2016, the Iceland team defeated Austria and England in reaching the last eight of the Euro Championships – an unheard-of feat. Meanwhile, Ingi Tislason, the head coach at Reykjavik Golf Club, said the juniors at his club – he had 200 of them in his squads then and more now – took their lead from the footballing fraternity. “We asked ourselves why we shouldn’t do the things they were doing if we put in the work,” he said.
Ólafía Kristinsdóttir was the first to take off and, from then on, Lúðvíksdóttir and many another, wanted to be “like Ólafía or the Korda sisters!”
At a time when much is being made of the need for parents to give their golfing youngsters a bit of space, Lúðvíksdóttir explained how the Icelandic Federation were dealing with that side of things. “They are very strict about parents going over the top and if, say, the girls notice that a particular father is making life tough for his daughter, they will follow instructions in going together to report the situation to the Federation,” she said. Apparently, it works.
The other thing that works is winter golf in Iceland. Though the season only runs from April until October, the indoor facilities in that northerly land are second to none, not just for the leading players but the club brigade.
Lúðvíksdóttir has never seen the university where she will study philosophy, but she already knows enough about it to be entirely happy with where she is bound. “The golfers play at Rich Harvest Farms,” she said, excitedly. Which, of course, is where the Americans won the 2009 Solheim Cup.
Even now, it will have struck her that an Icelander is going to make the European team at some point.
Top: Jóhanna Lea Lúðvíksdóttir
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