In April, Clark was selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA draft by the Indiana Fever. She became the seventh WNBA rookie to be named a starter in the All-Star game, and was later named the league’s Rookie of the Year. Clark also became the fifth rookie ever to make the All-WNBA First Team.
NAPLES, Fla. — Lydia Ko promised herself she wouldn’t cry. Made a note of it, actually, on her speech.
But when Annika Sorenstam and Nancy Lopez surprsing her by coming on stage to welcome her to the LPGA Hall of Fame Wednesday night at the Rolex Awards, Ko put the bouquet flowers in front of her face to hide the tears.
“To think that I’m in that prestigious club with them, it’s honestly hard to wrap my head around that,” said Ko after her opening round at the CME Group Tour Championship. “But just how welcoming they’ve been. Every time I win or play well, Nancy texts me like messages with, like, so many hearts and she’s just become more than just someone that played generations ahead.
“She’s been like an aunt, somebody that’s taken me in and I have really relied on. I’ve been fortunate to actually been able to spend some time with Juli Inkster and Pat Hurst the past few weeks before Pelican.
“To hear some of their stories it’s funny, but back of my mind I’m like, oh, my God. I’m in the Hall of Fame with her. It’s just crazy.”
My favorite moment from last night! Lydia Ko said she wouldn’t cry, but Nancy Lopez and Annika Sorenstam got her! Special moment welcoming her to the toughest Hall of Fame in all of sports. pic.twitter.com/hkKzDIqdCc
Before Ko even walked on stage to accept the Heather Farr Perseverance Award, the emotions started to kick in as she watched a highlight reel. The LPGA had sent her a similar video earlier in the year that showed her winning putt at the Olympics before transitioning to the putt that won her first LPGA title at age 15 and everything that followed.
“It’s weird because that’s really the only video I’ve been watching,” said Ko, “but I think it’s because it’s just like given me like flashbacks of all those moments. You know, the things in between as well that I can vividly remember.
“Like I have actually sat in the car and like watched that and shed a tear as well.”
Lydia Ko is recognized by Nancy Lopez and Annika Sorenstam for qualifying for the LPGA Hall of Fame during the 2024 LPGA Rolex Players Awards at Tiburon Golf Club. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
Ko opened the season-ending CME with a 5-under 67 to trail by three. A three-time winner this season on the LPGA, Ko won her third career major at the AIG Women’s British Open at St. Andrews two weeks after winning Olympic gold.
The winner of this week’s event earns a record $4 million. Ko won $1.5 million the the first time she claimed the CME title in 2014 (for winning the tournament and $1 million bonus). In 2022, she claimed the $2 million winner’s check.
The crowd following Clark’s foursome on Wednesday was larger than many final-round groups on the LPGA.
BELLEAIR, Florida – “Please, don’t push!”
“Guys, you’ve got to stop pushing.”
“Caitlin, please! Caitlin, please!”
“Breathe, everybody.”
Caitlin Clark mania descended upon the LPGA Wednesday, transforming what’s normally a sleepy pro-am day into a must-see event. After splitting her 18-hole round alongside World No. 1 Nelly Korda and Annika Sorenstam, Clark made her way to the rope line behind the 18th green at Pelican Golf Club to sign autographs. The frenzied crowd swarmed to get to her, holding out posters, jerseys and basketballs.
Security officials encouraged everyone to relax amidst the crushing support. The crowd following Clark’s foursome on Wednesday was larger than what many final-round groups attract on the LPGA.
From the moment Clark stepped on the first tee just before 7 a.m., fans lined the fairway for a rare close-up view of the WNBA superstar. Terry and Tina Beert came down from Davenport, Iowa, to watch Clark. Tina wore a sign on her hat that said, “It takes an Iowa village.”
Terry and Tina Beert take in the sights at The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican Golf Club (Photo: Beth Ann Nichols/Golfweek)
Five-time LPGA winner Barb Mucha, now 61, drove over from Orlando, Florida, to watch the pro-am. She didn’t watch women’s basketball until Clark came on the scene.
“The way she draws everybody together,” marveled Mucha, “She’s like a Michael Jordan, like a Billie Jean King.”
Current LPGA player Maria Fassi chased Clark down the 18th fairway so that she could beat the rush of fans. She wanted a photo, but she also wanted to say thank you.
“Being out here and supporting us, but also what she’s doing for women’s sports,” said Fassi, “it goes beyond the basketball court or the golf course. I think she’s changing a lot of people’s lives, and I wanted to make sure she heard it from me as well.”
Fassi, for the record, also didn’t watch women’s basketball before Clark, echoing a common refrain.
Clark showed up on the range 18 minutes before her 7 a.m. tee time and hit fewer than 20 balls. She started off with a worm-burner but found a groove, easing in by teeing up a few irons.
On the first tee, Clark played her left-to-right shot to perfection, finding the way to the delight of the adoring crowd. She played from the same tees as Korda and playing partners Dan Towriss, president and CEO of Group 1001 and Gainbridge, and Jason Rickard, who played collegiate golf at Iowa.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DCUZWwXROsN/?hl=en
“It was so amazing,” said Korda. “She’s so sweet, so nice. It was nice it kind of get to spend some time with her. We’ve messaged a little on Instagram beforehand but to get to spend some time with her and to see the influence that she has on people, bringing people out here, and to see how amazing of an influence she is just for sports, was really cool to see firsthand today. … We just felt like two friends hanging out.”
Clark engaged regularly with fans outside the ropes and smiled profusely. Bad shots did nothing to spoil her day.
“She’s super mature for 22,” said Sorenstam. “I’m going like, wow, she’s 22; I’m 32 years older. Yeah, she’s an older woman in a younger body if you know what I mean, in a good way. She handles herself really well and good with people, says the right things.”
Clark loves to pound drivers and wasn’t afraid to step up and give it a rip. The natural athleticism and star power were on full display.
“It’s captivating,” said Mucha.
Sorenstam gave Clark a few pointers along the way, noting that when it’s windy, it’s important to find good tempo and get the clubface square to the target.
“She hits it a little quick,” said Sorenstam. “She played with Nelly on the front and Nelly is about power, so of course when you play with someone like that you want to swing harder and faster.”
That actually happened on the par-3 ninth, where she missed one left with fans lined from tee to green.
“Thanks for the good kick, whoever I hit,” Clark joked as she walked up to her ball. She then autographed a ball for the fan and apologized.
“I got hit, too!” another fan yelled.
Professional basketball player Caitlin Clark reacts on the eighth green prior to The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican 2024 at Pelican Golf Club on November 13, 2024, in Belleair, Florida. (Photo by Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images)
More than a dozen junior players from Miami made the trip up to watch Wednesday’s pro-am round. The LPGA-USGA Girls Golf crew held handmade signs for Clark. It was a good day to skip school.
“The young girls that are at our games having the time of their lives, all lof of them, if you go up to them start crying,” said Clark during Tuesday’s leadership summit. “It’s cute, but also I was just in their shoes however many years ago, I was begging my dad or my mom to take me to whatever sporting event it was and I was screaming, ‘I want to meet the players,’ whether they were a high school team or the pros or college because it was so impactful.”
She was well aware of how many young faces followed her for more than four hours on Wednesday.
Clark signed on with Gainbridge before she even turned professional, and her appearance this week was a natural fit for the partnership. The hope, of course, is that Clark returns to the tour for years to come. There’s a void of female celebrities in the game, making Clark’s presence all the more potent.
“It was so fun,” she said. “Obviously getting to see them do what they do up front, like people would pay for that. I got to do it for free and have fun with them. … Very lucky and fortunate.
Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida, was buzzing early Wednesday morning as world No. 1 Nelly Korda and WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark warmed up for their nine-hole pro-am at The Annika, one of the biggest non-major events on the LPGA schedule.
It’s not often you get two of the biggest stars in women’s sports together, and fans took advantage of the opportunity. They came out in droves to watch Korda and Clark, with tournament host and women’s golf GOAT Annika Sorenstam and LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan making an appearance on the first tee.
After Korda and Clark finish the front nine, the No. 1 pick from the 2024 WNBA draft will play the back with Sorenstam.
Here are must-see photos from an incredible morning at Pelican Golf Club.
For those wondering how wide Caitlin Clark’s impact on the world of women’s sports has reached, look no further than the updated Golf Channel schedule for the LPGA’s upcoming The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican Golf Club in Florida.
“I love golf, so the opportunity to play in the pro-am for a tournament with a legend like Annika Sorenstam’s name on it is so exciting,” Clark said in a release. “Gainbridge is a leader in supporting women’s sports, and that’s clear through their commitment to me, this event, Billie Jean King, and Parity Week. I’m looking forward to seeing all the LPGA players on the driving range, being part of the Women’s Leadership Summit, and, of course, teeing it up in the pro-am with Annika.”
Clark is a fellow Gainbridge ambassador, so it made sense to have her be a part of one of the LPGA’s newest and biggest events.
But her appearance in the pro-am has made this a major TV event as well. Clark will play the front nine with the world’s No. 1 player, Nelly Korda, and then the back nine with the tournament’s namesake, Annika Sorenstam. Andretti Indycar drivers Colton Herta and Marcus Ericsson will walk inside the ropes as guest caddies.
Because of increased attention due to Clark’s participation, the folks at Golf Channel — a wing of NBC Sports — have beefed up the coverage of the early portions of the week. A release from the tournament explained the enhanced schedule:
Golf Channel will expand its Golf Today studio programming to start at 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday and will include highlights, live tournament look-ins and expanded tournament preview coverage of Clark’s Wednesday Pro-Am. Throughout the day, video highlights and reports will be posted on GOLF Channel, NBC Sports, LPGA Tour and The ANNIKA social media channels, including a live stream of Clark’s warm-up range session on Wednesday, an in-round-walk-and-talk with the WNBA star and more.
Clark is also scheduled to be a panelist at the Women’s Leadership Summit on Tuesday (Nov. 12) at Pelican Golf Club, taking place from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. ET. LPGA.com and NBCSports.com are scheduled to live stream the summit in its entirety.
The penultimate event of the 2024 LPGA Tour season and hosted by World Golf and LPGA Hall-of-Famer Annika Sorenstam, The ANNIKA will take place at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Fla., where the field will compete for a share of the $3.25 million purse, one of the largest on the LPGA Tour.
The field is loaded for the event with five players who have held the top spot in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings all expected to play and all but one of the 24 players in the 2024 Solheim Cup in attendance.
While that may be lofty, considering she’s dominating one sport as it is, she’s going to spend plenty of time with the best female golfers in the world next month. On Monday, it was announced Clark would be a special guest at the LPGA’s The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican Golf Club in Florida.
Not only is Clark scheduled to play in the pro-am competition on Wednesday, Nov. 13, she’s also set to be a panelist at the Women’s Leadership Summit on Tuesday, Nov. 12.
“I love golf, so the opportunity to play in the pro-am for a tournament with a legend like Annika Sorenstam’s name on it is so exciting,” Clark said in a release. “Gainbridge is a leader in supporting women’s sports, and that’s clear through their commitment to me, this event, Billie Jean King, and Parity Week. I’m looking forward to seeing all the LPGA players on the driving range, being part of the Women’s Leadership Summit, and, of course, teeing it up in the pro-am with Annika.”
Clark is a fellow Gainbridge ambassador, so it made sense to have her be a part of one of the LPGA’s newest and biggest events.
The ANNIKA Intercollegiate is one of the premier events on the schedule.
LAKE ELMO, Minn. — It may be a season-opening event for most teams, but the ANNIKA Intercollegiate is a premier women’s college golf tournament.
Every year, the tournament kicks off the season in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, at Royal Golf Club, a course that was co-designed by Annika Sorenstam, who crafted the front nine, and Arnold Palmer, who designed the back. Plenty of the nation’s top teams make an appearance, and the list of individual champions is filled with stellar names.
Maria Fassi (twice), Rachel Kuehn, Lottie Woad, Patty Tavatanakit and others have conquered the tournament in past years, often predicting future success not only the remainder of the season but also for years to come.
In a fun twist to this year’s tournament, Annika Sorenstam, who makes an appearance each year, hosted a Q&A with players, coaches and select members Monday afternoon following the first round. Then, the tournament held a small party near the clubhouse, featuring games, food trucks and plenty of fun.
Even Sorenstam was out there playing football with players from numerous schools. The Hall of Famer isn’t just good at one sport, as you can see below.
This year, the ANNIKA Intercollegiate also hired physical therapists to assist players with pre-round stretching and post-round recovery, a rarity at college events.
To no surprise, the ANNIKA Foundation continues to find ways to make its collegiate event one of the best in the country.
Here’s a look at some of the best photos from the ANNIKA Intercollegiate, from the Q&A to action on the course.
JoAnne Carner, 85, shot 80 on Friday, the eighth time she has shot her age or better in the event.
Kaori Yamamoto fired a second straight 4-under 67 on Friday to lead the 2024 U.S. Senior Women’s Open but two of the winningest golfers in LPGA history are in striking distance.
Juli Inkster posted a 3-under 68 in the second round at Fox Chapel Golf Club in Pittsburgh and is 2 under for the tournament, six back of Yamamoto. Right there with Inkster at 2 under is Annika Sorenstam, the 2021 USSWO champ.
Sorenstam leads the LPGA all-time with 72 wins. Inkster is tied for sixth with 31.
“I’m a bit afraid of Annika Sorenstam and Juli Inkster,” Yamamoto said, adding, “but I’m actually excited to escape from them.”
Yamamoto, 50, earned her spot in this year’s field after winning a qualifier by six shots. Her back-to-back 67s gives her the 36-hole tournament record.
A year ago, she was at the USSWO but as a caddie for her best friend, Eika Otake. Now she’s leading it.
“So far I can’t believe my position,” she said Friday. “But yeah, I’m doing well. I’m proud of my golf today.”
Kaori Yamamoto discusses strategy with her caddie on the 15th hole during the second round of the 2024 U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Fox Chapel Golf Club in Pittsburgh. (Jeff Haynes/USGA)
Yamamoto is playing in a tournament in the U.S. for the first time.
Lisa Grimes got to 5 under, good for solo second, before play was halted for darkness at 8:22 p.m. ET. Stefania Croce is solo third overnight at 4 under and Mikino Kubo is solo fourth at 4 under.
Sorenstam and Inkster are tied for fifth with Christa Johnson. Catrin Nilsmark is ninth at 1 under. No other golfers are under par through two days.
JoAnne Carner, 85, shot her age Thursday and then posted an 80 in Friday’s round. She has now shot her age or better eight times in the U.S. Senior Women’s Open, and has done it in six of her last seven rounds in the championship. But, Carner’s two-day total of of 23 over left her 15 shots off the overnight projected cutline of 8 over.
There’s an event within the event Carner in the field.
Annika Sorenstam is disappointed. She came into the sixth U.S. Senior Women’s Open feeling good about her game, but left Fox Chapel Golf Club Thursday evening hardly satisfied after an opening even-par 71.
“I really didn’t release the club, and it was just very cautious golf,” she said. “As you know, there’s a fine line of being aggressive, but then also being patient and having a strategy, and I just felt I really didn’t have the courage.”
On the other hand, if a round of even par turns out to be her worst round of the week, she said, this start will be OK. The LPGA icon trails Japan’s Kaori Yamamoto by four in Pittsburgh, where bad weather washed out Tuesday’s practice round.
Sorenstam, who won this event in 2021, is one of five past champions in the field. Leta Lindley, who has finished runner-up in her last two appearances, sits alone in fourth after an opening 69.
Though Sorenstam lives in Orlando, she has spent the past two months at the family’s Lake Tahoe home. She planned to take a cold plunge after the round.
The heat was so brutal in Pittsburgh that a woman fainted while Sorenstam’s group was teeing off. Sorenstam’s son Will rushed over to get the woman a chair and offer assistance.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C-JJt9mpTYn/?hl=en
While the top of the leaderboard is always of interest, there’s an event within the event at the Senior Women’s with JoAnne Carner in the field. The eight-time USGA champion is the oldest player to ever compete in a USGA championship, and it’s become tradition to see how many times the legendary player can break her age.
Carner, now 85, managed the feat for the seventh time at this championship, carding a 14-over 85. Carner made it clear, however, at the start of the week that her goal was to make the cut.
She notched one birdie on the par-4 seventh hole and stumbled through three double-bogeys on the back nine.
When she got the 18th tee, she needed a par on the closing hole to break her age. After piping her drive, someone in the gallery said, “You hit a nice one!”
“That’s cause I’m headed to the bar,” Carner replied.
Not surprisingly, Carner was not at all pleased with a bumpy round that included a four-putt. It’s a course, she said, that requires more than one practice round, which is all she got with the weather.
JoAnne Carner, making her 50th start in a USGA championship, just teed off at the U.S. Senior Women’s Open. The eight-time USGA champion is 85 years young! 🙌🏻
When asked after the round if she was happy to shoot her age, Carner said no, it was terrible.
“I played really bad on the back,” she said. “I didn’t putt well. Then I lost my swing temporarily. I hit a couple shots that I thought were good, but not having played the course but one time, I ended up in trouble, in one of those bunkers, and you just have to hit it out.”
Carner turned professional at age 30 and won 43 times on the LPGA, including two U.S. Women’s Opens in Pennsylvania.
She inspired a young Nancy Lopez, who wanted to be just like her when she grew up.
“She always looked like she was having a good time … never saw her angry,” said Lopez. “She was always very animated.”
Another LPGA Hall of Famer, Beth Daniel, gives Carner credit for improving her wedge play her rookie year.
“When I first came on tour I was a horrible wedge player,” said Daniel. “I’d miss greens with a pitching wedge.”
Carner helped her fix that problem, as she so often came to the aid of fellow players.
Though she’s lost some distance the past couple years, Carner felt she was trending heading into the championship after a recent lesson. She’d like to hit it 220 again, and right now averages between 205 and 210.
Thursday’s test proved to be a tall task.
When asked if an evening of storytelling might lie ahead, Carner said everyone might be too tired.
“At least I am,” she said. “I’ll go back and cool down, take a shower and sit and have a nice cocktail.”
Even the best players in the world are prone to an errant shot every once in awhile.
Last month at the Valspar Championship, rookie Chandler Phillips was in contention to win his first PGA Tour event when his 4-iron at the par-3 seventh hole during the final round headed well right of the green and into a gathering of spectators.
A husband and wife were sitting next to each other and the ball beaned the wife, bouncing off her head and then smashing into the noggin of her husband, a rare two-for-one special.
When Phillips arrived on the scene he noticed he’d gotten an incredible break, his ball kicking out of trouble from a likely bogey to an easy up-and-down for par. That’s when he first saw the ice pack being applied to the husband’s head. A few yards away to the right, Phillips’s caddie, Braden Smith, spied the injured fan’s wife spread out on the ground on her back with a towel drenched in blood compressed to her head.
“Oh, my gosh, that’s not good,” he recalled thinking, and began digging into the bag to get a golf glove for his boss to sign, the go-to way for a player to say, “I’m sorry I hit you.” (Phil Mickelson was known to sign $100 bills.) “I didn’t know what else to do,” Smith said.
Phillips took the bloody scene to heart.
“After that, I wasn’t right,” he said.
Following the round, where he finished a career-best third at a Tour event, he said to the woman who suffered the direct hit, “If she’s seeing this, I’m truly sorry. Obviously I’m not meaning to do that.”
But it happens all the time at professional events. These players are good but they also aren’t immune to the stray shot. At the 2010 Memorial, Tiger Woods hit three spectators in a single day. Just this week at the RBC Heritage, Sepp Straka bloodied a spectator on the first hole at Harbour Town Golf Links and struggled to put it out of mind even if it was out sight.
“That was tough,” he said after his round. “Hopefully I’ll be able to reach out to him this afternoon and see how he’s doing.”
Smoltz: Just a bit outside
John Smoltz could throw a baseball with pinpoint precision from 60 feet, 6 inches. On the few occasions that he hit a batter, he admitted it usually wasn’t by accident.
“I’ve been given instructions to do that,” Smoltz said.
But with a golf ball, it’s a different story.
“I feel terrible if that happens,” he said ahead of playing last week’s Invited Celebrity Classic in Dallas on the PGA Tour Champions. “Luckily, I think it’s only happened one time in my life. And it happened in my very first kind of celebrity golf with Ken Green, Mark Calcavecchia and Lee Trevino. I was actually having the round of my life and I hit somebody who was walking towards the green. I was trying to reach a par five and two, and it hit him and the ball didn’t go on the green so I was a little disappointed about that. But then I saw that it hit somebody and he was laying on the ground and he ended up being OK, but yeah, that’s not a feeling I would even want to have happen.”
Andrade and a cast
Billy Andrade, a competitor in the pro portion of the Invited Celebrity Classic, has struck a couple of fans during his more than three-decade career, including a young girl in the arm at a tournament in Washington D.C.
“She came back the next day with a cast on it and asked me to sign it,” Andrade recalled. “So, of course I signed it, and I gave her like everything I had in my bag. And yeah, it happens and when it does it never feels good.”
Annika and her assistant take one for the team
World Golf Hall of Fame member Annika Sorenstam is considered one of, if not the, best ball strikers of all time. But you’d guess she would have a foul ball or two that’s pelted a fan at some point along the way, right? But Sorenstam claims that she’s never drilled a spectator in all these years.
“Knock on wood, I hope it stays that way,” said Sorenstam, who played in the celebrity division of the Invited Celebrity Classic, too. “But I’ve played in events where somebody has, and it’s not a fun thing. It makes me sick to my stomach.”
In fact, Sorenstam was playing in the LPGA’s Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions event when there was a backup on the par-5 15th hole. “I really didn’t know what was happening and then somebody said that somebody got hit around the green area. And I’m like, ‘Oh, bummer. I hope they’re OK.’”
After they teed off, Sorenstam found out who got hit: her assistant, Crystal Davis, of all people was the victim. She was out watching her boss with Sorenstam’s daughter, Ava, and she was hit in the leg by a celebrity golfer trying to protect Ava. She succeeded in part of her objective but when her leg swelled quickly, Davis fainted.
“The ball was coming her way, so she jumped in front of (Ava), which is, you know, a case for a raise,” Sorenstam said.
