When Annika Sorenstam was 22, she was wrapping up a profitable faculty profession at Arizona and turning professional, simply starting what can be a historic profession that might finish with 97 skilled wins and 10 LPGA majors.
Quick ahead 32 years and Sorenstam is seated subsequent to a 22-year-old Caitlin Clark at The Annika Ladies’s Management Summit – two ladies who’re very totally different but additionally share similarities as a few of the finest athletes on the planet and trailblazers for ladies’s sports activities.
In 2024 alone, Clark, who’s at present probably the most common athletes in America, led Iowa to a second straight NCAA runner-up end, was drafted first general by the Indiana Fever, and had a historic rookie season within the WNBA, rapidly acclimating to the professionals and persevering with her methods as a dominant scorer and passer. In her first season, she set a WNBA report with 19 assists in a sport, turned the primary WNBA rookie to report a triple-double, and earned WNBA Rookie of the 12 months.
One of many widespread threads between Clark and Sorenstam is their why – their motivation – and, no, their objective wasn’t to change into trailblazers and inspirations. They simply wished to be the perfect on the factor wherein they had been most passionate.
For Clark, she performed a ton of various sports activities, together with golf, earlier than deciding on basketball in highschool.
“I wished to observe, and I feel that’s what was totally different,” Clark stated Tuesday at The Annika, an LPGA occasion hosted by the golf legend. “I wished to get higher at it. I wished to spend time engaged on my sport. And that was in all probability what set [basketball] aside from all the opposite sports activities I performed – [the other sports] had been simply sort of for enjoyable with my pals.”
Clark was nonetheless aggressive, it doesn’t matter what sport she was taking part in, however she didn’t take further time to work on her sport or really need to be higher than everyone else – till she centered on basketball.
The WNBA celebrity is scheduled to compete in Wednesday’s pro-am at The Annika.
“I feel it was simply the desire I needed to need to get higher at it – like, I really like simply practising it, and I feel at occasions that’s not one thing everyone actually likes to do or needs to do or is enthusiastic about one thing they love.”
Desirous to observe and put within the hours, having fun with the method, was what advised Clark that she wished to have a future in basketball. She was motivated just by “desirous to be the perfect.”
In Sweden, a number of a long time prior, Sorenstam had tried snowboarding, tennis (impressed by Bjorn Borg), and “each [other] sport however basketball.”
With golf, Sorenstam was pushed by the problem – how laborious the game is, particularly with so many variables.
“Whether or not you’re employed in your driving or your irons or your strategy photographs or placing or chipping, there’s so many alternative photographs and so they’re so totally different day by day – totally different on the grass, the lie, the wind, every thing is so totally different,” Sorenstam stated. “And I simply love the problem of making an attempt to hit it.”
A bonus for the shyer Sorenstam rising up: golf is “very peaceable more often than not.”
Sorenstam excited for Clark’s influence on LPGA Tour
Caitlin Clark displays about her low season ardour for golf on the 2024 Ladies’s Management Summit as part of The ANNIKA LPGA pro-am tour. Kira Ok. Dixon interviews Annika Sorenstam about Clark’s influence on the occasion.
These are two athletes who discovered their calling and embraced each impediment on the highway to changing into nice, but they’re humble, each out and in of their fields of experience.
Whereas Clark is normally simply “praying to interrupt 100” in golf, Sorenstam says 3-pointers weren’t actually her factor – to which Clark laments of the court docket star Sorenstam would possibly’ve been. That sums up one other widespread thread between the 2: humility and respect.
With all eyes on them, it could possibly be simple to get an enormous head, however Clark and Sorenstam satisfaction themselves on staying true regardless of the accolades and fame.
“Clearly, life has modified so much, however I attempt to reside in the identical actual method that I did once I first confirmed as much as faculty and stepped on campus and attempt to be the identical genuine individual that I’m,” Clark stated. “For me, I really feel like I’m residing in a dream, but additionally, on the similar time, it’s particular – I strive to not let it go me by.”
Each ladies are impressed by the subsequent era, the younger ladies and ladies at occasions, those who may be the way forward for their respective video games and past.
“I do know a whole lot of ladies that transfer on from taking part in sports activities and [who are] now in C-suites,” Sorenstam stated, including, “I feel everyone talks in regards to the impact that we have now on them, but additionally, they’ve the identical impact on us.”
“That’s the rationale that you simply play,” Clark added. “It’s not due to the wins and the factors you rating; it’s the quantity of pleasure you can deliver individuals and the younger ladies that may at some point develop as much as hopefully be no matter they need to be.”
Sixteen years after retiring, Sorenstam might not be within the full-time enterprise of successful tournaments anymore, however she definitely nonetheless has a purpose to maintain being a drive in golf. That’s truly her largest worry: “Waking up and never having a objective, that might be horrible.”
What appears to set the generational skills aside from the remainder isn’t just their talents, however what they do with these items – the alternatives they make.
“[Caitlin] is simply beginning her spherical of golf, if you realize [what I mean], her journey,” Sorenstam stated. “She’s simply teed off on gap one or two. I’ve made the flip already.”
If Sorenstam has achieved a lot since age 22, it’s mind-boggling to consider what’s in retailer for the younger Clark, particularly in a time when ladies’s sports activities is booming.
Think about who she’ll pave the way in which for in one other 30 years.
