She just turned 39, has a new baby and several business ventures, but retired LPGA Hall-of-Famer Annika Sorenstam is thrilled that golf will be part of the 2016 and 2020 Olympic games."Golf is in the Olympics!” Sorenstam wrote on her Annika59 Twitter page Friday. “So excited to have been a part of the presentation to [International Olympics Committee]. Great B-Day gift today."
Olympic officials voted Friday to return golf to the Olympics for the first time since 1904, and Sorenstam, Tiger Woods, Michelle Wie, and a host of professional golfers wholeheartedly embraced the decision.
“I think it’s great for golf,” Woods told the Associated Press from San Francisco where he and Steve Stricker are making mincemeat out of their competition in the Presidents Cup. “It’s a perfect fit for the Olympics, and I think we are all looking forward to golf getting into the Olympics.”
Calendar challenge. Of course, Woods has yet to commit to playing in the Olympics, which the IOC has proposed to schedule between Aug. 5-12, 2016, in Rio de Janeiro. That would be around the same time as the PGA Championship, a potential calendar clash that PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem vowed to make work.
"We know there are going to be some scheduling challenges," Finchem told the AP Friday at the Presidents Cup. "And we knew that going in and we have all just agreed to fix it. So every four years we'll have to move the schedule around. … We just have to move some tournaments around and make it work."
Go for the gold. Could Sorenstam’s unbridled enthusiasm for going for the gold bring the revered women’s golfer out of retirement? The 10-time LPGA majors champ with 89 career wins shed no light on her future plans, and she will be 45 by the time the games begin.
Even so, golfers can play competitive golf well into their dotages; just ask Tom Watson.
In the meantime, Wie, for one, can’t wait to tee it up in Rio.
"I can dream about doing something that neither Tiger nor Ernie [Els] have ever done, and that is to make the final putt to win an Olympic gold medal,” Wie told the AP. “ If this dream comes true, somewhere in the world there will be another 4-year-old who sees me on that podium and perhaps starts her own Olympic dream."
Woods and Stricker are an unstoppable force at the Presidents Cup. Read about their blowout victories at U.S. takes slim edge into weekend matches.
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