One of golf's best loved legends, Laura Davies isn't going anywhere soon. Just two points short of the LPGA Hall of Fame, she talks her swing, nerve and keeping her bottle to Coutts Woman.
It hasn’t been a good year for Laura Davies. The pro-golfer, famous worldwide for being one of the most accomplished and longest-playing females in the game, admits she’s taken a few gambles of late.
She had Liverpool to win the Premier league earlier this year. "And that didn’t happen," says the 47-year-old, eyebrows raised. And then Tiger Woods to win the US Masters in April which, as the whole world knows, didn’t happen either.
Davies loves a flutter. Having turned pro in 1985, aged 22, it’s one of the many things we’ve learnt about her over her stellar career. We also know she loves football, fast cars, and that she’s exactly the same on the course as she is off it. Which, in the light of Tiger Woods’ transgressions recently, counts for something.
"It's the same girl every Thursday wanting to win the tournament and disappointed on Sunday when you know you can't. That's the way it's always been really," she shrugs.
She's hoping it won’t be one of those weekends later this month when she takes part in the 2010 British Open. This, she admits, will come down to her frame of mind on the day. "Obviously the courses change and weather changes but at the end of the day, you’re either playing well or you’re not. And it’s mainly in the mind, whether you can control yourself mind-wise."
If her current form is anything to go on, then the odds look good. In fact, her good results on the course are to blame for her dismal ones off it. Preferring to ‘go down, cash in hand’ rather than bet over the Internet, there’s less and less time to do it these days, what with travelling to tournaments 33 weeks of the year.
“The courses change, the weather changes but, at the end of the day, you’re either playing well or you’re not. And it’s mainly in the mind”
Take the last few months. After winning the New Zealand Open in March, it was onto the US Open, then Menton in Europe, followed by the Turkish Open, Dutch Open, another win at the German Open, then the Slovakian Open, back to the States and home to Berkshire for a few days in-between.
Being back on British soil always feels good. On the professional front, she says of the British Open: "It's certainly one of my favourite tournaments, the home gallery, the support and the links courses here are always fantastic." But it's also nice personally. "You miss the normal things like driving your own car, playing with the dog, cooking, seeing family and friends, it's always nice to come home to that sort of thing."
Davies does enjoy life on the road though. After a quarter of a century, the people she works with and competes against are like a second family. "I see them more than my real one," she laughs. "It's the same people week-in, week-out and always the same players in the locker room or the caddies on the range. It's a nice thing really, a home away from home."
But it’s home to fewer and fewer British women. Women’s golf may be gaining more status, sponsorship deals and TV time than ever before, but it’s Asian women making the most in-roads in the sport professionally.
She admits the lack of British women players is ‘disappointing’, with Sophie Walker showing great form early on and Melissa Reid only making a professional impact in recent months, following her win at the Turkish Open.
"There’s so much choice for girls in sport now and I think that's half the trouble," she sighs. "They play football and cricket and maybe golf just isn't on the radar. In Korea and Japan, it's always been one of the very popular sports, and in America you can go through university on golf scholarships. There's just not much of that here."
But back when Davies was starting out, women's golf wasn't exactly big either. Which is one reason she stood out. The other was her sheer presence, towering over other lady golfers at 5ft 10", and with double and triple their swing power.
Playing from age seven, it wasn't until Davies was 14, and playing against her brother Tony, that she realised it was all she wanted to do. After a relatively uneventful amateur career, Davies went on to take the pro-world by storm. Winning the British Open in 1986, she defended her number one position the following year, and won the US Open with ease. Suddenly hers was the name on everyone's lips.
“Golf’s a strange game compared to others in that there’s no age limit. If you’ve still got the swing and the nerve and the bottle, you can still be a great competitor”
Always entertaining off the field, she is just as much so on it. One famous incident involved her taking a handheld TV onto the course of the Evian Masters final, to watch the England football team playing against Spain in the quarter-finals of the 1996 European Championship. She went on to win the tournament but was fined after the game for her conduct, saying: "It was probably a bit silly to do it, but it [the football] was an important game."
Today, she's on her 74th career title, and is Europe's number one female player. She is also just two points (one win) short of becoming a member of the LPGA Hall of Fame, which she is determined to enter, no matter how long it takes.
Because Davies is going nowhere fast. With no intention of retiring soon, she’s explains: "Golf’s not like tennis or football where there's an age limit on it. If you've still got the swing and the nerve and bottle more than anything, you can still be a great competitor and make a nice living on it. So it's a strange game compared to most others."
A win at British Open would be particularly sweet, but she's not about to bet on it. She will, however, be taking a flutter on the men's game, and putting her money on two players in particular. A long-time fan of Tiger Woods, she acknowledges he’s been ‘silly’ off the course and is 'trying to undo the damage' he's done to his family and career, but on it, she’s unequivocal that 'he's brilliant'.
Her other bet will be Lee Westwood. "They might have finished second and fourth in the US Open but they're form players. I think they’ll be round again," she says. Laura Davies knows a thing or two about that.
The 2010 Women's British Open takes place between 29 July and 1 August.
By Barbara Walshe
