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2012Olympic Golf
Not many people realise that golf has already been an Olympic sport and that the sport is being reinstated in the 2012 Rio games. The sport was part of the Olympic mens and womens program at the 1900 Paris games. Mens golf was also competed at the 1904 St Louis games. Four nations competed in the sport in Paris – Greece, France, Great Britain and the United States. Two competed in the womens event in Paris – France and the United States. Two competed in the mens event in 1904 – Canada and the United States.
The 1900 games were competed at the same time as the world exhibition in Paris – from May to October 1900. Because of the exhibition and the long time span of the games, the golfers didnt realise that they were competing in an Olympic event at the time. Multiple sources quote the gold medal winner as mentioning she didn’t know she was competing at the Olympics. Small cups or trophies were presented to the winners rather than medals.
Two golf clubs have hosted an Olympic competition, Golf de Compiègne in Compiègne France and Glen Echo Country Club in Normandy, Missouri. The womens event at Compiègne was competed over nine holes.
Womens Golf olympic medal winners:
Gold: Margaret Abbott (USA)
Silver: Pauline Whittier (USA)
Bronze: Daria Pratt (USA)
Full list of competitors & scores: Margaret Abbott (USA) 47, Polly Whittier (USA) 49, Daria Pratt (USA) 53, Mme. Froment-Meurice (FRA) 56, Ellen Ridgeway (USA) 57, Madeleine Fournier-Starloveze (FRA) 58, Mary Abbott (USA) 65, Baroness Lucile Fain (FRA) 65, Rose Gelbert (FRA) 76, A. Brun (FRA) 80.
links:
Nordea Update
Congrats to Anna Dahlberg Söderström, the winner yesterday of the A6 Ladies Open on the Nordea Tour. She won by one stroke ahead of Norways’s Cecile Lundgren at Örebro City Golf & CC. Next up on the Nordea Tour is the SM Match by Österåkers Kommun, 14-18 August.
Anna Dahlberg-Soderstrom (Sweden) out of a bunker near the 10th green during round 1 at the 2012 Ladies Norwegian Challenge
500k and growing
DogLegMedia and Poodle are about to achieve a small milestone in our effort to publicise womens golf, improve sponsorship of the pros, and increase female participation in the sport. Though the main galleries are here at DLM with complete sets of photos, over the past couple of years we’ve posted some of the photos on Flickr from the tournaments that we’ve attended. To our complete surprise, our Flickr photo gallery should reach 500,000 views sometime in the next few days.
link: Poodle / DogLegMedia on Flickr
We certainly didn’t expect that kind of response when we started this humble project. It reflects the growing popularity of the sport and the individual golfers and hopefully will spark everyone to consider sponsoring the tours, the tournaments and the golfers.
Lydia Hall teeing off from the 10th during round 2 of the 2011 German Ladies Open
Charity Work
Welsh Pro Lydia Hall has organised a charity pro-am scheduled for 17 October at Vale da Pinta, Algarve (Portugal). Proceeds to benefit Velindre Cancer Centre. It’s a great cause, so we hope that you’ll consider signing up. For more information, email dabespokegolf@gmail.com
Lydia has also started a “birdies for breast cancer” campaign to raise money for Velindre. Donate via this link.
