Ragnheiður Jónsdóttir | mars. 7. 2017 | 10:00

Skemmtileg grein um Ólafíu Þórunni í Women&Golf – Minnst líka á Valdísi Þóru!!!

Í tímaritinu Women&Golf mars/apríl blaðinu 2017 birtist skemmtileg grein um Ólafíu Þórunni „okkar“ Kristinsdóttur.

Ólafía er í innfeldri mynd á forsíðu tímaritsins (mynd sem tekin var af henni á Indlandi) og er fyrirsögnin „OLAFIA KRISTINSDOTTIR ICELANDER IS HOTTING UP!)

Tveimur opnum síðar er vísað til bls. 28 þar sem viðtalið birtist á tveimur opnum og meðfylgjandi er stór, sæt mynd af Ólafíu á Bahamas eyjum þar sem hún rekur út úr sér tunguna.

Þegar síðan er flett upp á bls. 28 segir að greinin sé undir flokknum „The Lewine Mair Interview“ og fyrirsögnin er „Icelander Comes in From the Cold.“

Á bls. 28 hefst viðtalið en á bls. 29 er síðustór flott mynd af Ólafíu að slá golfbolta með íslenska fánann hjá sér.

Hér verður greinin um Ólafíu í Women&Golf birt í fullri lengd:

„Despite Iceland´s long and harsh winters, golf is flourishing at a considerable rate. LPGA and LET player Ólafía Kristinsdóttir is a product of this nordic island and is destined for future success.

The women professionals will often tinker with their equipment during the winter months and when Icelander Ólafía Kristinsdóttir turned to Reykjavík after a second place finisch on the LPGA´s end-of-season Qualifying School, she did just the same.  Only in her case, the adjustment to question had to do with her teeth.

On December 15 the 24-year old Olafia had to undergo double jaw surgery to correct what was a mismatch in the way her upper teeth connected with the line up below. „It was something that had to be sorted out,“ she said.

The surgery took several hours and involved the insertion of titanium plates to her nose and screws to her jaw. It was a painful and bruising experience but one which to all-round relief, could not have worked out better. By way of staying busy post-operation, the golfer made regular postings under the title OlafiaBitesBack.weekly.com believing that it would be fun to have a record of the details – and that the information might benefit others who were faced with the same procedure. Certainly the may friends she made last year on the Ladies European Tour were riveted.

All told, Olafia spent four weeks on a liquid diet before getting back to chewing – and for that matter, chipping and generally preparing for the season ahead.

Golf trophies are probably much the same the world over but, for myself, I picture a series of glorious icicles hanging from the windows of Olafia Kristinsdottir´s home to tell of her assorted victories in Iceland and beyond. She captured the Icelandic Junior Stroke Play championship 2007 and 2008 besides claiming the top spot in the 2007 Faldo Series Icelandic Junior event. Again, since everyone admires a well-rounded golfer, it is worth mentioning that she won an Outstanding Achievement Award for Social Responsibility and Overall Excellence in 2006 as well as the Outstanding Academic Award in both Science and Danish in 2008.

It was at the end of last season, when she was playing in what was only her sixth tournament on the LET tour that Olafia fired a warning shot across the bows when she held the halfway lead in the LET´s pre-Christmas event in Abu Dhabi after opening with rounds of 65 and 66.

That second-place finish in the LPGA´s Qualifying School at Daytona Beach came shortly after. People had thought she might not be ready for so big a test but, in the metaphorical sense at least, she amply demonstrated that she had what it takes to withstand the heat. In everyday life, meantime, she actually prefers cold weather to hot.

As against the skimpy tops and shorts in which she will go about her business for much of the year in the States, Olafia has always spent golfing winters in Iceland wearing the silky long-johns and vests as made by her sponsors 66°North. She usually adds a couple of sweaters, along with the company´s weather-proof outer garments.

Always assuming she has dressed appropriately, she barely notices the conditions (Intriguingly, Hinrik Hilmarsson, the international referee who has often accompanied Iceland players to the Duke of York Champions in the UK reported not so long ago that professionals shops in Iceland had stopped selling hand-warmers on the grounds that there was insufficient demand).

It was back in the 1990´s that John Garner the former European Ryder Cup Player was summoned to Iceland to help with the developement of golf. One of the first pieces of advice that he handed out was that the locals needed to start seeing golf as an all-year round activity rather than one purely for the summer months. Again, he noticed at once that the Icelandic fraternity were so strong as they were hardy and with this in mind he encouraged them to work more on their short-games – and their flexibility.

Two sets of statistics worth a mention are as follows: in 1960 there were just four golf courses in Iceland where today there are 65 around 20 of which are 18 holes; still more improbably, Iceland has a greater percentage of its population involved in golf than Scotland with 60.000 of the 330.000 residents playing to a greater or lesser extent. Everyone, by all acounts, wants their offspring to be a golfer and there is no shortage of encouragement for those who, like Olafia, have their hearts set on making it as tournament professionals.

From now on, Olafia will mostly have to forgo those heavenly weeks when Icelanders can play virtually around the clock. Olafia has experience of local tournaments where she would play 18 or 36 holes by day and head home for supper before returnng to the course to practise for as long the mood took her. On days when she was merely going out for fun, she would often do as the tourists at setting out from the 1st tee at 10pm or later.

It was on the strength of her Icelandic results that Olafia won a scholarship to Wake Forest University from which she graduated in economics and entrepreneurship.

The late Arnold Palmer, who made that college the world famous establishment that it is today, was as interested as anyone in Olafia´s arrival and you can only imagine the fun he would have had in keeping tabs on her progress on the LPGA Tour.

Olafia enjoyed three never to be forgotten meetings with Palmer himself and on one of those occasions Palmer and his wife invited her and a teammate back to their home. Notheing sticks more in her mind from that visit than the great man´s roomful of putters. „I´ve never seen so many putters in my life!“ and a second studio filled with models of the different planes he had flown on his golfing travels.

The conversation between Palmer and Olafia apparently had less to do with golf than fishing, about which he had heard so much from his old friend Jack Nicklaus.

There were countless occasions when Nicklaus had tried to persuade Palmer to accompany him but Palmer while remaining curious could never quite bring himself to accept any of those invites. Maybe he had heard Tiger Woods talk of the time he embarked on a northerly fishing trip with Niclaus and shivered from start to finish.

Moving on from the fishing and the golf, Iceland is of course well known for its football and last year, when the Icelandic footballers reached the quarter final of the 2016 Euro championships, Icelanders talked of little else. Olafia was at home at the time and did as the rest of her family in leaping from her seat every time Iceland scored a goal in defeating Austria and England. For the purposes of the next match, the one they would lose to France, she made her way into the city centre where half of Iceland (or probably more than half) was watching the match on six giant screens set up for the occasion.

Olafia said that she herself experienced a touch of that kind of support when she was making her golfing headlines – and she´s hoping for more of the same as the 2017 season unfolds.“

Svona lýkur greininni um Ólafíu Þórunni  í Women&Golf en það er líka minnst á Valdísi Þóru Jónsdóttur í greininni og verður sá hluti líka birtur hér:

Fyrirsögnin er: JONSDOTTIR JOINS THE ICE PACK! … og er eftirfarandi:

„From one Icelandic golfer to another, Valdis Thora Jonsdottir, became the fourth player in the country´s history to play on the Ladies European Tour when she qualified in second place at the LET´s Final Stage Lalla Aicha Tour School.

Hailing from Akranes, a small town just north of Reykjavík, Jonsdottir honed her game during the short summer months, where the country´s golf-mad population make the most of the sunlight by playing 24 hours a day, but as with many of the country´s talented sportspeople, she headed to America to complete her college education.

Jonsdottir, who has spent the past three years playing on the LET Access Series, was among the attendees at Dénia La Sella Golf Resort, in Spain, for a three-day LET orientation session, designed to teach the rookies the ropes ahead of their first year on tour. First introduced in January 2015, the programme has become an important feature for the graduating golfers, with the players participating in three days of workshop sessions tutored by the LET staff, whilst also creating new friendships and making connections.

Luckily golf wasn´t on the agenda with the players arriving to find the first snow in Dénia since 1981!