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You might rush to the tee chomping on a bagel with three minutes to spare and without any time to hit range balls. As for pros? Not so much. Here’s how three-time major champ Anna Nordqvist spent her warmup during a tournament round in May. Take notes, as there’s plenty we can learn from how pros practice.

Anna Nordqvist’s warmup

When: May 12, 2021
Where: LPGA Founders Cup, Clifton, N.J.

12:20 p.m. Arrives on the putting green. 

12:25 p.m. Works on start-line drills with a putting mirror, then moves on to longer putts. 

12:29 p.m. Heads to driving range. Stops to sign a fan’s hat. 

12:31 p.m. Arrives at range, sees a familiar face in the gallery. Stops for a hug and chat. 

12:34 p.m. Starts with short pitches; works up to full shots. 

12:48 p.m. Heads to short-game area. Chips from different lies. 

1:11 p.m. Back to the putting green. Puts on lip balm, chats with her caddie and rolls a few more putts. 

1:23 p.m. Heads to 1st tee, greets playing partners and volunteers. Grabs two bananas from the starter’s tent for her bag. 

1:32 p.m. Tees up driver, takes a deep breath and rips one down the fairway

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Welcome to Teachable Moments, GOLF’s weekly instruction column that will help you improve your game through the excellence and expertise of the Tour stars of the week. Class is now in session.

Nordqvist’s key to victory

Anna Nordqvist conquered Carnoustie Golf Links last week as she claimed her third major victory at the AIG Women’s Open. Her ball striking was superb over the weekend as she shot 65-69 over the weekend to hold off the three runners-up by a shot.

The ball striking was no doubt an integral asset to the Swede’s success over the weekend, but she Nordqvist also showed creativity and finesse around the greens to keep bogeys off the card. She dropped just one shot over the final 36 holes, thanks largely to her excellent play around the greens.

Each time she got in trouble, there was no risk of putting up a big number — or even a bogey. Nordqvist often opted for the low-risk option around the greens, using a putter to nudge her ball up near the cup.

Instruction

“I think the links golf, you kind of have to,” Nordqvist said of her decision to repeatedly use the Texas wedge around the greens. “When you’re out of position, I just feel like I need to get myself back in position and give myself a par putt.”

Norqdvist said she put an emphasis on speed control on the greens in her preparation for the week, knowing she’d faced lots of long putts for birdie that she’d need to get within tap-in range to avoid bogeys.

“The best lag putt of the day was the one on 18 when it mattered the most,” she said.

Flop shots and low spinners might be sexy, but the Texas wedge is often the most reliable club in the bag around the greens.

Playing well when you lose your swing

Golf is not a game of perfect. It’s a rare day when you go to the course and everything in your swing is feeling great. It’s true for weekend hackers and professionals alike. Sometimes, the ball just will not do what you want it to.

When you start to lose your swing, it can be easy to panic. But fortunately, there are strategies you can use when your swing heads south.

Here are two things major-winner Sophia Popov does to hold her game together when she doesn’t feel her best.

Know where to miss

“If I know I can’t attack the pins because I’m not feeling good, my swing’s not good, I try to focus on where I wanna miss it in order to give myself the best opportunity and best chance to make up and down and get away with par or even drop a longer putt for birdie.”

Positive visualization

“Visualize a certain shot that you actually like hitting. I think in my head, ‘What’s my favorite shot?’ I love to hit a low cutty shot. It’s my go-to when things aren’t working out. Then I just try to channel that and trust it.”

Want to overhaul your bag? Find a fitting location near you at GOLF’s affiliate company True Spec Golf.

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Anna Nordqvist stared down a birdie putt, gave it a good stroke and watched it grab a piece of the cup before settling just an inch away. And then she smiled, barely. That par tap-in to win the AIG Women’s Open — her first victory in almost four years — was not a putt she was going to miss.

Nordqvist was mistake-free late in her round on Sunday at Carnoustie in Scotland, and her five pars and one birdie over the final six holes was good enough for a three-under 69 and one-stroke win over three others.

It was her first win since her last major, the 2017 Evian Championship. In the time between one of her hurdles was mono, which she said she battled for three years and took a toll on both her mental and physical endurance. In her winner’s press conference she was asked about the struggles and what continued to drive her during the winless slump.

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“I hate losing probably more than I like winning,” she said. “I think all the controversy and all the downs, and having my caddie and husband there pushing me every day being a rock; I hate to give up. I feel like things have been coming together, and I saw a lot of good things coming last year and a lot of good things happening this year.”

Nordqvist tied for 12th at the Women’s Scottish Open last week, and she said the way she hit the ball and played in the wind was a big confidence booster.

She also said that last year, when Covid-19 hit, it gave her an opportunity to slow down.

“My life has always gone at 110 miles an hour,” she said. “I think that was probably the break I needed a couple years ago and just never gave myself. It was hard because I kept pushing but it was hard because it was like your feet kept slipping and I didn’t have that extra gear I was always used to. When things got tough, I could always push it through mentally, but I just never had anything and I just felt really weak. So to be able to build myself back up again and have the support of people around me. I moved back to Arizona a couple years ago and I absolutely love it there. I have a lot of great support there. I’m married now and I think just a lot more happy like off the course, so I have a good balance there. I’ve done this long enough now where I feel like you can’t really force anything.”

“There was times I doubted if I ever would win again, and you know, for it being quite a few years in between victory, I think sitting here now, winning the British Open is a dream I could, I mean, I couldn’t really dream of anything more,” she continued. “It was definitely worth the wait, and definitely worth a lot of those struggles and being able to push through. But it’s been a lot of hard work to get here, too.”

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The post Three the hard way: Anna Nordqvist wins third major title on one of golf’s toughest tests appeared first on Golf.

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For many of us, Maui in January is an escapist fantasy. The fellas, all those winners, are out in Hawaii, playing golf in warm trade winds while we’re wondering where we last saw the ice scraper. Well, this was that and more: In the dog days of August, with Henri and Delta and Kabul in the air, the greatest women players in the world were playing one of golf’s greatest courses — Carnoustie! — in one of the game’s greatest championships:

The Open.

More formally, the AIG Women’s Open.

AIG, an insurance company, is the event’s longtime sponsor. Golf needs sponsors, especially right now, when gate traffic is meager. Last year’s Open winner, Sophia Popov at Royal Troon, won $675,000. This year, the first-place haul was upped to $870,000. The increase is a nod to the renaissance women’s golf is and to the broad desire for equity.

Yes, the gap is still a chasm: Collin Morikawa earned $2 million for his British Open win at Royal St. George’s last month. But the dream will never die. 

For a while, during Sunday’s final round, Carnoustie was bathed in sunshine. You don’t associate Carnoustie with sunshine. Carnoustie brings to mind Hogan in black-and-white, winning there in ’53, in his only Open appearance. Jean van de Velde, climbing into the burn on 18, pants hiked to mid-calf, golf’s oldest trophy slipping away from him. Affable Francesco Molinari, winning the Open there in 2018 but looking more like a mortician all the while.

The fairways, this year, were so green the Scottish linksland looked like Ireland in spring. For many of us, watching the TV broadcast was the next best thing to being there. This summer of ’21, like the summer of ’20 before it, never fired on all cylinders. Do you know anybody, this year or last, who has made the mecca journey, packing spikes and waterproofs, from the United States to the motherland? I don’t. Things are still broadly off. But this Women’s Open was as on as on could be.

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By the time the broadcast moved from Golf Channel to NBC — high noon if you were in Henri’s path, 5 p.m. if you were golfing in the kingdom — a gray cover had moved in, the players slipped on windbreakers and jumpers and Carnoustie looked like Carnoustie again.

This only needs to be said once: nasty.

Nelly Korda, winner of the PGA Championship in June and the Olympic gold medal in July, shot a humdrum even-par 72 in the fourth round, unable to sniff a top-10.

Brooke Henderson, the same.

Lexi Thompson, not even.

Minjee Lee, looking to post low and early and enjoy the view from the house, got the break of breaks on the last, her ball skipping over Barry Burn, but she still made bogey. Eleven under would have had a chance. Ten under — some score at Carnoustie — had almost no chance, not with talented players coming in after her.

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Among them, and new to the scene, attention must be paid to Louise Duncan, a 21-year-old Scot playing in Scotland, and for now — for now — an amateur. Despite her freckles, the impassive face of a golfing assassin. You’ll see her claw putting grip at the Augusta Women’s Amateur in April, and, you have to think, in the women’s professional game in the years to come. 

The afternoon’s final two golfers were Anna Nordqvist, the 34-year-old Swede, a six-footer with a big swing and a big footprint. (Her first LPGA title, in 2009, was a major. Her eighth, in 2017, was, too.) Her playing partner was Nanna Koerstz Madsen, a 26-year-old Dane. They were tied for the lead through 54 holes, at nine under. They were tied for the lead at 12 under through 71 holes.

But Koerstz Madsen had a JVD moment on the last, as the Carnoustie we love and fear reverted to form. Koerstz Madsen didn’t go full Jean. And she, of course, did not have the Frenchman’s three-shot lead. But her double-bogey 6 on the last included a nothing-but-nerves approach shot that left her with an all-but-impossible downhill, sidehill greenside bunker shot. She hoseled that shot into the rough beyond the green and from there did well to make double. “I was nervous all day,” Koerstz Madsen later admitted. “On 18, I tried to not make a mistake and that was the only thing I shouldn’t do.”

The Dane’s troubles meant, in the end, that Nordqvist had a two-inch par putt to win. For the second time in three weeks, a Swede has won a major. Annika Sorenstam won the U.S. Women’s Senior Open at Brooklawn on Aug. 1. Nordqvist won by a shot over Georgia Hall of England, Madelene Sagstrom of Sweden (what a swing!) and Lizette Salas, the LPGA veteran by way of Southern California and USC.

“Huge congrats,” Annika tweeted out to the winner moments after it was over. Sorenstam included a snapshot of the two of them, Nordqvist towering over her fellow Swede. Sorenstam won the Open in 2003, at Royal Lytham.

Nordqvist now has nine LPGA wins. Before she’s done, she might be the second-best Swedish golfer ever, after Sorenstam. Next month, she’ll play a prominent role in the Solheim Cup at Inverness. Next year, she’ll defend her title down the road, at Muirfield, another legendary Scottish course. She’s married to a Scotsman. Her caddie is a Scotsman. She just won in Scotland. She won in Scotland at a course all golfers want to play once, despite its deservedly scary reputation.

The sun had returned by the time Nordqvist tapped in to win. The jumper stayed on. In victory, her first in three years, you could see the joy in her face, for sure. But you could see relief, too. Golf will do that, to its veteran champions, when they return to the winner’s circle after a time away. Carnoustie will do that to anyone.

Michael Bamberger may be reached at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com

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The final women’s major of the year belongs to Anna Nordqvist.

The 34-year-old Swede shot a final-round three-under 69 on Sunday at Carnoustie in Scotland and made a drama-free two-putt par on the brutal par-4 finisher to win the AIG Women’s Open.

Nordqvist and Nanna Koerstz Madsen of Denmark stepped to the final tee tied for the lead at 12 under, as three others at 11 under, including American Lizette Salas, anxiously waited in the clubhouse and hoped for a playoff. But after Nordqvist found the green in regulation, Koerstz Madsen hit her approach into the bunker and then her third shot off the hosel; her ball shot hard right of her clubface and ran through the back of the green. Nordqvist needed just two putts, and her first caught the lip and came to rest an inch away. Nordqvist marked, waited for her playing partner to finish and then tapped in for the win.

It’s the ninth LPGA win and third major title for Nordqvist, who also won the 2017 Evian Championship and 2009 Women’s PGA Championship. This win also snapped a lengthy winless drought, as Nordqvist’s last victory came at the that 2017 Evian almost four years ago.

“I think this is the most special one,” Nordqvist said. “Just because it’s taken me a couple years and I’ve fought so hard and questioned whether I was doing the right things.”

Nordqvist and Koerstz Madsen shared the 54-hole lead at nine under and made up the final pairing, but 12 players started the day within three of the lead, among them World No. 1 Nelly Korda, two-time major-winner Ariya Jutanugarn and Lexi Thompson, who had a local caddie on her bag.

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Minjee Lee was the first one to make noise. One month after she came from seven back to win the Evian Championship, she teed off four hours before the leaders on Sunday and charged up the leaderboard. Her only bogey came on 18, where she failed to take advantage of a lucky break when her ball bounced in and out of the legendary burn where Jean van de Velde’s Open dreams drowned in 1999.

Still, Lee shot a six-under 66 and set the clubhouse lead at 10 under, which stood until England’s Georgia Hall signed for a 67 about an hour later.

Nordqvist had the lead early on the back nine but let a couple of shots slip away on 11 and 12. On 11, she missed a short birdie putt that would have given her a two-shot lead, and on the par-5 12th she hit her drive into a hazard right of the fairway and made bogey.

Her playing partner, Koerstz Madsen, took advantage with birdies on 11 and 12 to grab the solo lead. After both birdied 14, Koerstz Madsen drove it in the fairway bunker on 15, was only able to advance it 25 yards and made bogey. That made it a two-way tie at the top at 12 under, but two groups ahead Madelene Sagstrom joined the mix. She played Nos. 9-14 in three under, and her birdie on 17 made it a three-way tie at 12 under.

Sagstrom could have set the new clubhouse lead, but her drive on 18 barely trickled into a fairway bunker and led to a two-putt bogey, as she joined Hall at 11 under. In the next group, Lizette Salas, who didn’t make a bogey the entire final round, also got in at 11 under. Salas shot 69.

After pars on 17, Nordqvist and Koerstz Madsen stepped to the par-4 18th, the hardest hole on the course, with a one-stroke lead and three players waiting in the clubhouse hoping for a playoff.

Nordqvist played her approach first and found the green from 195 yards out to put the pressure on Koerstz Madsen, who flared her approach out to the right and into the bunker. Needing to convert a difficult up-and-down from the sand, Koerstz Madsen misplayed the shot and made double. Nordqvist had two easy putts to win to conquer Carnoustie and become a major champ once again.

“Me and my caddie, Paul, were chatting when Nanna was putting,” Nordqvist said. “It just seemed so unreal and just to have a little tap-in for the win, like I couldn’t ask for anything better. Just to share the experience with him and knowing how hard he’s worked, and keeping patient all these years, yeah, it’s such a great experience sharing that with close friends and family.”

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Lexi Thompson has split with caddie Kevin McAlpine in the lead-up to the LPGA finale, according to a report from Golfweek.

McAlpine confirmed to Golfweek that he will not be caddying at this week’s CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Fla., for either Thompson or anyone else. Thompson, 23, declined to comment through her agent, Bobby Kreusler.

It has been an up-and-down couple years for Thompson on the course. She has alternated top finishes with mini-controversies, most famously a four-stroke penalty handed down at last year’s ANA Inspiration in the midst of the final round. She remains the only American ranked in the world top 10, despite going more than a year without a victory.

In August, Thompson skipped the British Open “to take some time to work on myself.” Last month, she took to Instagram to discuss her battles with body image.

McAlpine had a brief professional playing career of his own, but traded that in for a job selling junior golf clubs until coincidence had him link up with Thompson. The ANA rules debacle came in just the pair’s fourth start together, but both drew praise for their handling of the event.

“I had never experienced anything like that before so I just had to do what I could to help her refocus. In the end, it was tough to lose in the playoff but I was just glad that I was able to help at that moment in time,” McAlpine told bunkered.

McAlpine is in a relationship with another LPGA star, Anna Nordqvist, which created a particularly interesting battle when Thompson and Nordqvist faced off in an all-time match at last year’s Solheim Cup. When the match ended in a tie, McAlpine admitted some relief. “I kept my job and kept my girlfriend!” he said.

It was not immediately clear who Thompson will have on the bag in Naples as she seeks to pick up her first victory since September 2017.

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The post Former champ Anna Nordqvist among those tied for ShopRite LPGA lead appeared first on Golf.

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GALLOWAY, N.J. (AP) — Two-time champion Anna Nordqvist shot a 5-under 66 on Friday for a share of the first-round lead with Laura Diaz and Celine Herbin in the ShopRite LPGA Classic.

Nordqvist won the 54-hole event in 2015 and 2016 on Stockton Seaview’s Bay Course and finished second last year. Teeing off Friday in the afternoon when the wind was stronger, the 30-year-old Swede closed her bogey-free round with a birdie on the par-5 ninth.

“Honestly, I have a lot of good memories from here,” Nordqvist said. “It’s a place that makes me happy. I seemed to be striking the ball better today than for most of the year, so I was very consistent, gave myself a lot of chances. I was trying to stay patient out there and I’m very happy to post a good round.”

The eight-time LPGA Tour winner is seeking her ninth career victory, has missed the cut in three of her last five events. She is currently 54th on the LPGA money list with more than $132,000 in earnings.

The 43-year-old Diaz made the field as an alternate. She played in the morning when the greens were smoother and the wind more benign and carded five birdies.

Her 12-year-old son, Cooper, was on the bag for her first competitive LPGA Tour round of the year.

“It’s more special because I have my son with me,” Diaz said. “It was great. He wasn’t nervous. He was perfect. So it’s a calming influence. I think I spent more time worrying about him.”

Herbin, 35, birdied the final two holes.

Lydia Ko, In-Gee Chun and ANA Inspiration winner Pernilla Lindberg were at 67 with Sandra Gal, Su Oh, Beatriz Recari, Amy Yang and Wayne, New Jersey native Marina Alex. Defending champion I.K. Kim had a 68.

Shanshan Feng, at No. 4 the top-ranked player in the field, shot 69.

Leona Maguire, the former Duke star from Ireland, had a 69 in pro debut.

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The U.S. won five singles matches on Sunday to beat Europe in the biennial Solheim Cup.

The U.S. won five singles matches on Sunday to beat Europe in the biennial Solheim Cup.

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Team USA and Team Europe clash in Germany for the 2015 Solheim Cup. See some of the best photos from the weekend here!

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