Players, caddies have fun playing a different game at LPGA Drive On Championship

Amy Olson took a tight grip, set up, and looked down at the ball in her hand. Then she dropped it and hit it.

The LPGA player wasn’t using a golf club or a golf ball.

Olson was playing in the inaugural LPGA Drive On Ping-Pong tournament near the clubhouse at Crown Colony Golf & Country Club that wrapped up Wednesday evening. And she won it all.

“I just kind of stuck to the fundamentals,” she told LPGA.com. “I just tried to hit the table, swing easy, not do anything too extreme.”

LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan even played, and she wasn’t just doing it for the heck of it.

“Who doesn’t love a good Ping-Pong match?” she said. “When you put these amazing, talented competitive athletes together, there’s some fireworks. There’s a lot of trash talking happening right now.

“I’ve been known to be a little competitive myself, but particularly in Ping-Pong. I grew up playing a lot of Ping-Pong.”

Ally Ewing lost to Olson in the quarterfinals, but earlier Wednesday, she knew what she was going up against.

“I think us as competitors, if you put us on a Ping-Pong table, pickleball court, no matter what it is, we’re all super competitive, so it’s fun to have an avenue where we can step away and get in a quick game,” Ewing said. “We see the bracket in our dining. I think it’s just a cool way for the LPGA to step in this week and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to do something a little different, have some fun, get some player engagement, caddie engagement.’”

Can you guess who won the Tour’s table tennis championship trophy? 😯 pic.twitter.com/CohO72rF0L

— LPGA (@LPGA) February 3, 2022

Sophia Popov decided not to enter, even though she would’ve liked to play.

“I think everyone that knows me knows I can’t just go about 80%,” she said. “I’m always like 130% when I play Ping-Pong or pickleball or something like that.

“I’m nursing a little bit of ankle injury, so I was told not to play this week by family members. So they said, ‘You know, I know you can’t just kind of go 50%, so you’re going to have to sit this one out.’”

Dean Schneider, the tour’s director of business affairs, was appointed the tournament commissioner, after Marcoux Samaan came up with the idea.

“She’s big Ping-Pong fan and so she wanted that to be just a casual, fun way for both players and caddies to interact with each other,” he said. “(Tuesday) I was down there doing some of the caddie matches.

“They were making comments like this is fun, because we know each other, but we never get to hang out. Or it’s an opportunity to meet other caddies that they would never normally hang out. The same goes with the players too. You kind of get your player groups that like to hang out. You get some player interaction with someone they never thought they would hang out with.”

Schneider said both of the tables were ordered online, and one hopefully will stay on the road, with the other going back to the LPGA headquarters.

“We’re trying to add it to kind of a little thing for the players to do when they’re not on the golf course,” he said.

Sagstrom, Popov and 2016

While this is the first time in 47 years since the LPGA Tour has been in Fort Myers — Sandra Haynie won at Lochmoor — this isn’t for women’s professional golf.

The now-Edson Tour had the Chico’s Patty Berg Memorial for three years, from 2014-16 at Cypress Lake Country Club. The club was the home of Berg, one of the co-founders of the tour, who died in 2006.

The event ended after Chico’s dropped out as title sponsor. The final two years, the event paired with the Legends Tour.

Sagstrom edged Popov by a stroke to win, with Lorie Kane taking the Legends title.

“I don’t really remember much of the tournament,” Sagstrom said. “I remember kind of the end of it and kind of just really just pulling it off. I didn’t have too much experience. I didn’t really know what to expect. It was my third event.”

“That was really cool,” she said.

Sagstrom, 29, now is in her sixth year on the LPGA Tour, with a win and nine top-10 finishes. She credits that 2016 victory and season on the Epson Tour.

“I always tell people I’m happy I missed my LPGA card because it really prepared me for what I’m dealing with out here,” she said. “It’s a hard step going straight from college where you’re getting treated like a queen to know you have to go and do everything yourself. I didn’t enjoy it, but it was a good learning experience.”

Popov, also 29, is in her eighth season as a professional, and like Sagstrom, looks back fondly on her time on the Epson Tour.

“I  think the experience that I had on the Epson Tour, and I had a few years out there, I think was extremely valuable,” she said. “I think learning how to travel by yourself, go from tournament to tournament, be able to play under pressure while doing your own thing and trying to find almost your little routine that you like to do. … I think it’s so important before you come out on the LPGA.”