Tag: ANNIKA Award

Natalie Srinivasan has a tendency to let phone calls go unanswered if she doesn’t recognize the number. Knowing this, Furman coach Jeff Hull told his senior a few weeks ago to make sure she answered one that would be coming in the next morning.

“I think somebody wants to interview you,” he told her nonchalantly a few minutes later. She still didn’t think much of it.

Srinivasan had just pulled up to the golf course the next day when “No Caller ID” flashed on her phone screen. She dutifully answered and would have recognized the voice right away even if, “Hello, this is Annika,” weren’t the caller’s first words.

It felt like minutes passed before Srinivasan could make a sound. On the other end of the line, Annika Sorenstam was explaining that Srinivasan had won her namesake ANNIKA Award as the best player in women’s college golf.

Srinivasan already was named the Women’s Golf Coaches Association player of the year last month. The ANNIKA Award, however, is based on a vote by her peers, plus coaches, golf media and SIDs.

“Annika’s name, it’s her award and she’s the greatest player in women’s golf, ever,” Srinivasan, said. “It’s just an honor to be associated with that. All the other girls who have won have gone on to become awesome leaders and role models in this game.”

Srinivasan grew up 45 minutes from the Furman campus in Spartanburg, South Carolina. She won three times in an abbreviated senior season that included only six starts. Playing in the Southern Conference, Srinivasan flew under the radar despite winning the league title as a freshman and earning All-America honors as a sophomore.

Sometimes it’s hard to put yourself in the category of best players in college golf. That may be easier for Srinivasan to do now. It’s different when you see it in print, whether that’s at the top of the Golfstat rankings (Srinivasan is No. 4 in the Golfweek/Sagarin Rankings) or etched onto the base of the ANNIKA Award.

The awards are piling up, and it’s hard to say what else Srinivasan might have accomplished, particularly in the postseason. She’d have every reason to be bitter about the abrupt end to her senior year caused by the coronavirus.

“Things happen and I think that’s what’s so good about playing college golf and being a student athlete, it teaches you to deal with the unexpected,” she said. “There have been so many tournaments that have gone not as I thought, professors throwing things your way, having that mindset of not being able to control it.”

A global pandemic is just the ultimate example of that. Srinivasan had attended a U.S. Curtis Cup practice session in December. She likes to think she’d have made that team – the June event was postponed a year to 2021 –but she’ll never know.

The Furman campus was on spring break when the women’s golf team returned from the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate in Hilton Head, where Srinivasan was runner-up individually, and Hull dispatched his players for a few days of rest. The next meeting they had was about the season being called off. Hull told his players to keep it sharp – the Southern Conference Championship was still a distant possibility – but eventually that fell off the table, too. Everything did.

A conversation about returning for a fifth year in Greenville was brief, Hull said. Srinivasan’s path is forward. She has Symetra Tour status and says LPGA Q-School is on the horizon. The ANNIKA Award comes with an exemption into the Evian Championship, an LPGA major.

A natural fit

Srinivasan landed at Furman as a consistent, if not all-world, junior player. Hull was the Furman assistant coach then. Srinivasan thinks he and then-head coach Kelley Hester (the same woman who recruited Stacy Lewis to Arkansas in the early 2000s) saw a talent in her, and ultimately Hull would be the one to cultivate it. He took over as head coach the same year Srinivasan came in as a freshman.

When Srinivasan climbed out of the van in Minneapolis for that first college start in the fall of 2016, she didn’t know much about how this whole thing worked.

“Nobody told me it was 36-18 until two days before we left,” she said, “so they literally threw me into the fire. Thirty-six your first college round.”

But that tournament week also included a trip to the Mall of America. Srinivasan was instantly enamored with her teammates. College golf has suited her.

The conference title at the end of her freshman season was the first of four career wins, but Hull sometimes boils her career down to just one shot: a pure 5-iron into the 18th green in the final round of the 2017 NCAA Lubbock Regional – all the postseason pressure on her shoulders.

“She hit the prettiest 5-iron I’ve ever seen anybody hit,” he said. “It just literally came off the club, climbed up in the sky, fell right on the flag. We still talk about that shot.”

When he brings it up, Srinivasan smiles, maybe gives him a nod, but generally plays it cool.

By the numbers

Srinivasan admits she wasn’t always sure where the ball was going when she arrived at Furman. She and Hull doubled down on her wedges, her in-between shots and go-to shots. She learned how to play much smarter, learned where to “miss it” and that you don’t always have to take less club and swing harder.

“Even when I’m not hitting it well now, I can kind of manage that with that type of shot,” she said. “Even in qualifying, Jeff will give me some ideas and a game to play with myself where I play with more club or less club depending on the hole.”

They spent hours at Furman’s golf facility, particularly on the putting green. It was an investment of time that went both ways.

“We tried to work on a couple extra shots she would need to get to that next level,” Hull said. “When she had to hit a shot, she knew she could.”

On the greens, Srinivasan spent much of the past year working on “makeable” putts, those in the five to 15-foot range. Hull says Srinivasan’s growth in mental game has been huge.

Furman has produced some of women’s golf’s greatest over the years, from Betsy King to Beth Daniel to Dottie Pepper. No Furman player has won the ANNIKA Award, first awarded in 2014. Brad Faxon, Furman alum, won the Fred Haskins Award (the men’s equivalent) in 1983.

That’s not lost on Srinivasan. If there’s any way to return the investment Hull & Co., have made in her, then this is it.

“It’s just awesome to put Furman back on the map,” she said. “It’s been a little while since we had this recognition.”

List of ANNIKA Award winners

2020 – Natalie Srinivasan, Furman

2019 – Maria Fassi, Arkansas

2018 – Maria Fassi, Arkansas

2017 – Leona Maguire, Duke

2016 – Bronte Law, UCLA

2015 – Leona Maguire, Duke

2014 – Alison Lee, UCLA

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