MIDLAND, MICHIGAN | Friendship makes everything better. Dinners taste sweeter when shared with friends. Seeing your team win a big game is always more memorable when you have friends nearby to celebrate. And the lows of life are always put into better perspective with a buddy by your side. When it’s more than a casual friendship – different from the ones you have with acquaintances at the gym or colleagues you see at the office; a relationship that extends into near kinship – then the normal anxieties of tournament golf tend to melt away with a smile and a shrug.
In an event like the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational, some teams are built based on golf – long hitters paired with deft short games (Bianca Pagdanganan/Andrea Lee and Lexi Thompson/Brittany Altomare as examples A and B), or birdie machines with steady players who almost never make a bogey (surprise tournament co-leaders Annika Sorenstam and Madelene Sagstrom come immediately to mind).
Other teams come together based on disparate personality types – one fiery and one as chill as a winter dip in Lake Michigan (Mel Reid/Leona Maguire and Ana Belac/Fatima Fernandez Cano are examples of that).
Of course the sisters make sense – the Jutanugarns, who are the defending champions at Dow, and the Kordas, who have been Solheim Cup stalwarts together. But the teams that always seem to exceed expectations are the deep, close, personal best friends.
Sophia Popov and Anne van Dam are one such duo. Anne has only made two LPGA Tour starts in 2022 and her best finish is a tie for 65th, while Sophia has missed eight cuts this season, including three in a row in her last three starts before arriving in Midland. But together they hung tough, even in alternate shot, the toughest format in all of golf, carding a first-round 70 and sitting tied for 26th at Even.
One of the most impressive teams of true friends in round one was Katherine Kirk and Amy Olson, best mates who fired an impressive 2-under par 68 in alternate shot on Wednesday. The duo – who has competed in all three playings of the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational as Team Soul Sisters – shot a 2-under 68 on Thursday and are tied for seventh after the opening round.
“We had, obviously, the rain to start with, and it was really soft, played really long our first couple of holes,” Olson said. “Then just had to sit and wait around for a little bit (during a rain delay that came through on their third hole of the day) but I think that worked out pretty well for us. We came out and made a few birdies after the rain delay and got some momentum going.”
Kirk piped in with, “Amy hit some great shots in. We rolled a birdie in on 11.”
That prompted an interruption by Olson, who said, “You rolled a birdie in, yeah.”
But Kirk’s praise continued. “She had a great shot in on 13. Helped me read the putt. It was a good team effort out there today.”
The two couldn’t stop smiling before, during or after the round. Even the rain delay didn’t dampen their spirits. Olson came in and grabbed a plate of bacon and a coffee and said, “Oh, well, we’ll see how things go when it stops.”
Things went remarkably well. Three bogeys were offset by a slew of five birdies, including three in a row and four in a five-hole span on the back nine.
“It's really fun. It's fun to be able to play with one of your best friends,” Olson said. “I think for me, it was interesting. We bogeyed the first hole, and the first thing I did was smile because I'm like it's fine. That's not your typical response when it's just you.”
The two are in the same fellowship group on tour and they are in constant contact with each other on matters of faith, family and life in and out of the game.
“There is just something about having a partner, someone who has your back, and you're, like, it's going to be fine, we got this,” Olson said. “That kind of helps you boost yourself up while you're trying to lift your teammate up.”
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