It would be an exaggeration to portray Anne van Dam’s journey towards the Solheim Cup as unorthodox. Yet of the 24 participants at Gleneagles this weekend she stands apart in many ways. Van Dam was not raised in England, Spain or Florida, where golf forms part of the standard vernacular. At face value the Dutch city of Arnhem is to golf what steak dinners are to vegetarians. This 23-year-old has broken the mould.
“Among my friends golf was not really a sport; they’d ask why I needed to practise so much,” Van Dam says. “Now they all love it because they see what it brings me. For kids of a certain age [in the Netherlands] it isn’t an option or a sport they think about. That was difficult for me because I couldn’t really share my pleasure and experiences with people my age. But the more time I put into it, the better I got; winning tournaments and travelling internationally made me think about where my potential could take me. But at the start it was hard; golf is not a big sport in Holland and the season isn’t great there either. By the time I was 16 I was travelling a lot with golf and by then I had the inner drive to keep going, to see how good I could be.”
Written by Ewan Murray
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/sep/09/anne-van-dam-solheim-cup under the title “Anne van Dam takes strength from offbeat route to Solheim Cup debut”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
