Хелен Альфредссон: Путь шведской гольфистки

Swedish professional golfer

Helen Christine Alfredsson (born 9 April 1965) is a Swedish professional golfer who played primarily on the U. S. based LPGA Tour and is also a life member of the Ladies European Tour. She won the LPGA major Nabisco Dinah Shore and twice finished second in the U. S. Women's Open. She also won the Women's British Open once and the Evian Masters three times before those events were designated as majors in women's golf by the LPGA Tour. In 2019, she won a "senior slam" by winning both of the senior women's major championships.

Alfredsson was born in Gothenburg, Sweden and at age 11 began playing golf at Gullbringa Golf & Country Club north of Gothenburg. At young ages, she represented Sweden on both junior level and in the national amateur team. She attended United States International University, San Diego, California, playing in their golf team led by coach Gordon Severson and graduated in 1988. During summer time she played in Sweden and won the Swedish Match play Championship three years in a row 1986 through 1988, as an amateur while the championship since 1986 had become open for professionals and part of the Swedish Golf Tour for women. In 1987, she was a member of the winning Swedish team at the European Ladies' Team Championship at Turnberry, Scotland. She was member of the European Solheim Cup team as a player eight times: 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2009. She was appointed captain of the 2007 European Solheim Cup team, losing to the United States team 12 16. When she qualified for the European Team at the 2009 Solheim Cup, she became the first, and still the only, player on both teams, to qualify as a player after she has been the team captain a previous year. While playing golf, Alfredsson has been known to curse long and loud in Swedish. The Financial Times of London once editorialized "They can be louder and more richly worded than many of Lenny Bruce's best performances". Alfredsson said about cursing "You have to stay so focused on the tour, you work so hard, you don't want anything to interfere. But then all of a sudden this little devil comes crawling out, saying, 'It's time to do something. You've been good too long." "

In September 2013, Alfredsson officially announced her retirement from the LPGA Tour. She is a life time member of the Ladies European Tour. After her retirement from competitive golf on the regular tour, she came back, playing on the women's senior tour, the Legends Tour, primarily in the senior majors, with great success. She tied for third in the inaugural Senior LPGA Championship in 2017 and improved that by finishing tied second at the 2018 Senior LPGA Championship. She won both of the two senior ladies major championships in 2019, the U. S. Senior Women's Open and the Senior LPGA Championship, completing the same "senior slam" as Laura Davies achieved in 2018.

At young age she practiced ice skating and team handball. Her father Björn was a six time Swedish handball champion and a keen golfer himself. The father and daughter won the 1999 Swedish Two Generations Mixed Championship, played as 36 hole foursome. After graduating in 1988 with a degree in International Business and Marketing, she tried a career in Paris, France as a model and stayed for six months.

No. DateTournamentWinning scoreMargin ofvictoryRunner(s) up127 Jul 1986SM Trygg Hansa Cup (as an amateur)4 & 3 Sofia Grönberg Whitmore226 Jul 1987SM Trygg Hansa Cup (2) (as an amateur)6 & 4 Cecilia Lundin32 Jul 1988 Swedish Matchplay Championship (as an amateur) 3 & 2 Carin Koch424 Jul 1988Swedish International Trygg Hansa Open (as an amateur) +2 (69 74 70 77=290)8 strokes Sofia Grönberg Whitmore