Caitlin Clark’s return to The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge is the talk of the town among the LPGA Tour fans. The WNBA star was at The Pelican Golf Club last year, and her presence revolutionized the event. To such an extent that television did something quite unusual: it televised the pro-am event in which Clark participated.
Naturally, everyone is expecting a similar phenomenon in the next edition, which will be played from Nov. 13-16. The Indiana Fever star has been out of action for several months due to injury, so even basketball fans will be watching her performance closely.
This expectation was evident during the press conference to present the event. The presser was attended by its host, golf legend Annika Sorenstam, as well as other authorities. Sorenstam did not hide her satisfaction at the positive impact Clark’s return to the pro-am will have, and even recalled her experience from the previous year.
“She lives in a different media world than I did, and still do, so just talking to her, I like to know her practice routine, her gym, what she does in the gym, but then also the correlation with golf and her sport and kind of some of her thoughts on girls and women’s sport and some of the things that she wants to do,” Sorenstam told the reporters.
The 10-time major champion also shared an anecdote that reveals the moment when Clark fully realized how demanding professional golf can be. This is no small detail, considering that some people still believe that golf is not a proper sport.
“We came down the 16th hole, maybe, and she had been traveling quite a bit, but she goes, ‘I’m so tired.'” Sorenstam recalled. “I’m thinking, ‘you can run that court 100 times back and forth, but this is a different type of physics, right?’ She was mentally tired, and she goes, ‘How do you guys do this for four days in a row?’ It’s just a different type of endurance. But just listening to a top athlete and get her to be inside the ropes with us was really fun.”
Clark is a hardcore golf enthusiast who has played in several pro-am events on the PGA Tour. At the 2024 ANNIKA pro-am, she played the front nine with Nelly Korda, who was the world No. 1 at the time, and the back nine with Sorenstam.
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