Helen Alfredsson hasn’t played competitive golf since last year’s U.S. Senior Women’s Open, but she doesn’t sound overly concerned about that fact. The 2019 Senior Women’s Open champion sold her home in the U.S. last March and now lives full time in her native Gothenburg, Sweden. She likes to take long walks with her American Bully Bella, a mixture of Pit Bull Terrier and American Staffordshire Terrier.
“She’s similar to me,” said Alfredsson. “Quite strong, quite moody but very loyal.”
Alfredsson, 57, heads to Kettering, Ohio, this week for the fourth edition of the Senior Women’s Open at NCR Country Club (South Course). One of the all-time great characters in the game, Alfredsson graduated from the U.S. International University in 1988, and after a short stint as a model, joined the Ladies European Tour, where she won 11 times.
In 1992, “Alfie” joined the LPGA and earned Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year honors. She won seven LPGA titles, including the 1993 Chevron Championship, and twice finished runner-up at the U.S. Women’s Open.
Golfweek recently caught up with Alfredsson to talk about her Senior Women’s Open title at Pine Needles, Swedish golf, her amateur golf schools and mental toughness.
What follows are excerpts from that conversation:
Winning a USGA championship
Obviously we didn’t play (Pine Needles) as hard as it was for the younger girls, but I think it’s an extremely tough golf course. You have to be aware on every single shot where you place it. The consequences can be so extraordinary. It’s not like it just falls off – it falls off 40 yards.
When the juices fly and you feel like you’re in control of your game, I think that’s the ultimate feeling. That’s what we all strive for. I felt extremely grateful to have one type of USGA trophy.
The importance of mental strength
I was one of those that played eight in a row, no problem. Now, after one week your brain is fried. You realize how much mental … everybody says golf is 90 percent mental, and yes, it is. You have to focus all the way around and, as you get older, your brain is so scattered.
Amateur mistakes
We focus a lot on the basics for the amateurs. Women and men, from 16 to 92 we’ve had, and it’s so fun to see them, just by concentrating on P.G.A. – the posture, grip and alignment – they improve a lot with not so much headache.
Ninety-nine percent (of amateurs) aimed right. In the evening, we talk about the consequences of things for them to understand the game. Just take a little thing like, if you’re aimed right, you have to come over the top, you have to have your weight back on your right foot to move away … I mean there are so many aspects. When they get to understand, when they see what the body is doing, it’s fun when you come up and they hit the ball and you ask them, so what did you do there?
An old teacher I had on the national team that Lotta (Liselotte Neumann) and I played on, would say, if you’re out on your own and you understand what you’re doing, and what your faults normally are, the ball is your best teacher. You can see how the ball flies and backtrack.
A true competitor
I actually get goosebumps because (the Swedish National Team) was one of the most fun times of my life. We had fun; we laughed a lot together. We are still good friends. We were so lucky we had a good coach, a good captain. There were no shortcuts.
It wasn’t every minute of the day was golf. There was always room to laugh and have fun and go crazy. Golf for me was fun. It wasn’t the burden. It wasn’t like I couldn’t have go out and go crazy. It wasn’t like I couldn’t go out and have a candy bar. It was part of my real life that I lived. I could play squash. I could go and play handball. I would go and run. For me, that’s the way I let out steam. As you know, I had to let out steam.
'I probably wasn’t the most conforming person'
They wouldn’t allow me to be on the team now. I probably wasn’t the most conforming person. We were late sometimes for dinners, but we were practicing golf. We thought that was more important. We probably sometimes, in training camps, escaped. Lotta was a part of it. Sometimes we had champagne if we won. That was not allowed. I’m glad I came when I came. I don’t think I would’ve had much of a shot unless I would’ve done it all on my own.
Tough genes
I did a corporate day yesterday, and we were talking about mental toughness. There’s been so many books written about how you become tough. I think a lot of it is actually in your genes already. There’s a lot of people with extraordinary talent, but if you don’t have the drive or you get scared or don’t want to face things …
'I don’t want young women to be followers'
There are two things that make people unhappy, I read somewhere. To compare yourself with others and to live in the past. I think the comparison to others, one of the things that I have the hardest time with and I get very provoked, is the influencers. I don’t want young women to be followers. I want young women to stand up and be who they want to be. … I didn’t fit in as a young child and my parents were fantastic. They thought that I would be on my own at recess and stuff. My mom would ask me, when they’d have those 15-minute talks with the teachers, and I’d go ‘No, they’re not fun and I did my thing.’ And then I had my sports.
I’m certainly not somebody that has any answers, I just think that it’s OK to be different. But I think it’s harder now to be different.
I think that we don’t help our kids by being a little too weak sometimes and not having some consequences. It’s OK for a kid to feel bad, you just have to help them. But you can’t make them not feel bad or have failures. These are such old things. Whoever has been successful always talks about their failures. … I think it starts at home. Make the kids a little tougher.
