GOLFING GLAMOUR

Aussie Anna’s hot stuff, on and off the links

By John MacDonald

Annika Sorenstam may have been striving for a hat-trick of wins in the Dubai Ladies Masters, but for some ‘golf fans’ that was just a sideshow.

A course marshal told me she was approached by two likely lads who asked: “Where’s the one with the legs? Whoarr! We want go and have a look at her.”

The marshal, not given to such golfing voyeurism, curtly told them: “They’ve all got legs. Who do you want to watch?”

“Oh, the blonde that’s been getting all the publicity – she a right looker, that one.”

“Sorry, if you mean Anna Rawson, you’re too late – she’s off the course.”

She wasn’t, but this marshal wasn’t having any truck with spectators more interested in birds than birdies.

And I should know, after 20 years together. By Linda’s rules, watching golf is for the excitement of ripping drives, precision approaches, and white-knuckle putts. If you’re only interested in eye-candy, go somewhere else.

It worked with the would-be gawpers. “Ah, sheesh,” was the response. “In that case, this is just boring – let’s go the Autodrome.”

Fortunately, I didn’t have the autocratic marshal interfering with my date with Miss Rawson, who’s been called ‘Golf’s answer to Anna Kournikova’, and if anything – that’s doing her an injustice.

We met at Emirates Golf Club on pro-am day, while the marshal was still engaged with on-course duties, renewing acquaintance from a telephone interview last year and meeting personally for the first time.

Since then, the 27-year-old Australian pro has cemented her position on the US Ladies Tour and become a regular money-earner in Europe.

The past year has taken her around the world, three times to Korea alone, as well as regular trans-Atlantic trips – and of course Dubai.

She’s yet to win a tournament but has clocked up a series of Top 10 finishes, and it looks only a matter of time before she lands her first championship. For a while, that looked a possibility at the Dubai Ladies Masters. Rawson was lying handy at the halfway stage, just a couple of shots off the pace, but a third round 74 marred an otherwise fine tournament.

Her four-round total of 282 gave her tied seventh position, seven shots behind the winner. That was still good enough to claim 11,580 euros in prize-money, bringing her European season earnings to almost 40,000 euros from only eight tournaments and 54th place on the Order of Merit.

“I’ve spent a lot of time on my swing and I’m striking the ball better than I’ve ever done,” she says. “My whole game’s improved and I’m mentally stronger as well.”

With a swing coach and sports psychologist in her entourage, the hard work is paying off. “It’s always been very difficult for me to concentrate on every shot, but now I’ve got more confidence in myself and I’m learning to trust my swing and that the shot will come off.”

Those who didn’t know any better might make a crack about “Typical blonde”, but they’re the ones in need of brain detection.

Rawson has a BA degree in communications from the University of Southern California behind her after achieving outstanding school results, graduating from high school with an entrance rank of 94.05 out of a possible 99.95.

She now plans to swap her clubs for her paint brushes over a year-end break back in Australia.  No, she’s not white-washing the garden fence – she’s refreshing her artistic skills.

With a minor in visual arts and graphics as part of her degree, she’s as handy on canvas as she is on the fairways. And the paint-brush wielding is to produce some artwork to decorate her new apartment in Los Angeles, her home basis since finishing university and taking up golf as a fulltime professional.

She could just as easily have taken up a full-time modelling career, having been ranked in the top ten most beautiful female athletes by Sports Illustrated. She still finds time to do the odd photo-shoot for magazines, but in the meantime, golf comes first.

In the longer-term, she has a goal of developing the Anna Rawson brand, with clothing, cosmetics, and fashion accessories (and, of course, golf kit).

Comparisons with Kournikova are almost inevitable, even if tennis’s one-time glamour girls tend to remembered more for her cover-girl assets than her on-court exploits.

But Rawson is quick to defend Kournikova, pointing out that the Russian blonde did reach the Wimbledon semi-finals:

“Anna didn’t get there on her looks alone – she was a pretty good tennis player first and foremost, and I have a very high regard for her. It’s nice to be seen as a sex symbol like the way she’s seen, but I’d like to have a longer career.”

But she’s learned lessons from Kournikova, though, and is conscious of doing a better job of handling media and dealing with the pressures that come from being as prominent on the glamour pages as in the sports columns.

And with her university degree to dispel any suggestions of blonde stereotype, she’s well-placed to do just that.

Rawson got hooked on golf when she was 13, although she freely admits to being ‘mad about all sport’ – playing tennis, basketball, and whatever came her way in her Adelaide home town.

“My whole family played golf – there was a club down the street,” she says.

You’d think with Anna around, golf would be fairly low on her brother’s friends’ priorities, but no. 

“My brother and his hot friends would come home and talk to me about golf, so I guess I got into it for the hot guys and to hang out with my brother’s friends.”

Within a year, her handicap was down to 11 and she was in low single figures by the time she turned 15.

A year later, her looks were attracting as much attention as her rhythmic golf swing.  At the age 16, Rawson was a finalist in the Australian "Dolly" Magazine cover contest, kick-starting her parallel modelling career on the catwalk, in print ads, and on television.

In 1999, she was selected to be on the Australian National Senior Squad, having finished as the leading qualifier for the Australian Amateur and winning both the South Australian and Victorian Junior championships.

In July that year, she won the Jack Newton International Junior Classic and was selected to be a member of the South Australian Senior State team. Early in 2000, she competed in the Australian Open, where the University of Southern California recruited her for a golf scholarship.

Highlight of her time there was winning the national university championship with USC in 2003, a historic ‘first’ for the institution.

“The college national championship was really it,” she said. “That’s what I’d set my sights on from first getting there.

“Now my goal is to win a Tour tournament – whether in Europe, the US, Far East, Dubai, or wherever I play. Yes, Australia would be nice, but I don’t really care where it happens – so long as I can chalk up a win.”

Her legions of fans – on and off the course – will insist that she already has that distinction. Even if the Dubai twosome were thwarted in their attempts to get a first-hand look.

By the sound of things, they seem unlikely to be Men’s Style readers, so they won’t even get consolation from our picture spread here.