Juggling Fame And Fortune

For avid sports fans the cup indeed runneth over at the moment.  There’s the Lions’ tour of Down Under to entrance us;  there’s the cricket to keep an eye on;  there’s the amazing Eur0 victory of the gritty Lionesses;  there’s Padraig Harrington’s Senior British Open victory at gorgeous Sunningdale to admire.  And then there’s Lottie…………wow, just wow!

Lottie is Lottie Woad, a 21-year old Englishwoman, one tournament into her professional golf career and already a winner on this stage.  Last Sunday she won the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open, a co-sanctioned event on the LPGA and LET schedules.  It’s another professional national title to set alongside the Irish one she hoovered up two weeks previously when still an amateur.  This time, however, she was able to bank the cheque – a $300,000 one in this case.  I wonder just how many pros can boast that their first cheque was a six figure one?  I think my first one was £343.00 – even when you take out the decimal point it doesn’t make the six-figure mark.

She is destined, I feel, to become one of those athletes whose surname becomes redundant.  Whenever you say Lottie no one will say Lottie Who?  There’s even room for misspelling her name if you are having a thick-fingered day at the keyboard – Lottie/Lootie.  It all adds up to the same thing – a complete young player who is technically sound, physically toned and mentally strong and who will undoubtedly ascend to the very top of the world rankings, looting the coffers of the world’s golf tours for years to come.  I am hoping for a front row seat to watch her career unfold.

Thank goodness for the women’s golf.  Readers of this blog will be well aware of my sorry, but growing, disenchantment with the men’s professional game.  I find their greed and sense of entitlement misplaced and seriously unattractive and while I’m on this subject I want to register my dread (and that is not an exaggeration) at the prospect of the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black this September.  I fear golf will reach an all-time low with boorish, alcohol-fuelled, unsporting spectator behaviour which may just tip the players over into acrimonious, ill-tempered matches.  Respect, fair play and sportsmanship are words slipping away from the vocabulary of Ryder Cup crowds and also, unfortunately, from the lexicon of some of the players themselves.

But I digress……..Back to Lottie.

Normally, I hold back from jumping on the bandwagon when a new kid on the block arrives at the top of the podium but this is no overnight success or flash in the pan.  Rather, it is the culmination of more than a decade of careful nurturing by England Golf and Florida State University along with a serious commitment by the player herself as well as by a myriad of coaches of the swing, putting and strength and conditioning variety.  Not to be forgotten either is the invaluable and essential support of family and friends.  There are lots and lots of ingredients required for a recipe designed to produce a champion.

The only time I have seen Lottie look slightly out of her comfort zone is during her post-round interviews.  She looks a little uncertain, almost wary, as Global Golf Post’s Lewine Mair so aptly described it.  Although accustomed to scrutiny during her tenure as the amateur world No 1 and her successful quest to gain a full LPGA card through a new fast-track results programme, that is as nothing to what she faces at the moment.  It’s her own fault, of course, – two wins in three weeks on the pro tours with a third place in a major sandwiched in between doesn’t exactly lend itself to flying under the radar.

Will she cope?  Absolutely.  And I hope she learns to enjoy the media aspect of her career because it will be taking up a considerable amount of her time in the future.  This week at Royal Porthcawl at the AIG Women’s Open she is playing in her eighth major but first as a professional.  Seven players were slated for pre-tournament press conferences – one local player Darcey Harry, a winner on the Ladies’ European Tour this season and five major winners/Solheim Cup players.  And Lottie.

Despite her experience out on the course there is much for her to learn as she progresses in the paid ranks.  The aforementioned media attention will demand superb time management on her part so as not to be detrimental to her game.  There’s relationship-building too, both with a manager and a full-time caddie for the first time and the removal of  amateur travelling team-mate companions can leave a new pro feeling quite lonely.

These are exciting times for her but despite how it may appear,  it’s not easy and she has new skills to learn, new people to meet and new folk to trust.

She reminds me in so many ways of Karrie Webb, that wonderful Australian player and former world No 1.  To my eye, the way Lottie powers through to her finish is reminiscent of Webb and these early interviews reveal a confidence in her game similar to that displayed by Karrie.  Sitting alongside it, however is a strand of shyness at being so much the centre of attention, again strikingly similar to the Aussie.

When Karrie did, indeed, achieve world No 1 status she said she had dreamt of that moment all her life. After scaling the mountain, however, she couldn’t for the life of her understand why she had wanted it so much!  Thankfully, she did grow into the role.

Hopefully, Lottie will enjoy the process and keep loving the game – and all the trappings that go with it.