Fever’s Caitlin Clark draws big crowd for LPGA pro-am

BELLEAIR, Fla. — Caitlin Clark brought her golf game and a big buzz to the LPGA Tour on Wednesday when the basketball star played in a pro-am that attracted a bigger crowd than the tour often gets for its tournament rounds.

Clark played nine holes with Nelly Korda, the No. 1 player in women’s golf who is competing for the first time in nearly two months after a minor neck injury. She played the back nine at Pelican Golf Club with Annika Sorenstam, host of a tournament called The Annika.

During a brief interview with Golf Channel, the WNBA Rookie of the Year was asked whether she picked up any tips from Korda.

“I’ve watched and she’s amazing,” Clark said. “But golf is hard.”

The gallery packed behind the ropes to watch Clark, and she signed autographs for hundreds of fans when the pro-am was over.

Clark has an endorsement deal with Indiana-based Gainbridge, the presenting sponsor of the LPGA’s penultimate tournament on the schedule. She also took part in a women’s leadership summit hosted by Gainbridge.

“It can only help grow women’s golf,” Brittany Lincicome said Tuesday, bringing a basketball for Clark to sign for her daughters.

Korda comes from a top sporting family. Her older sister, Jessica, played in the Solheim Cup, and younger brother Sebastian is No. 23 in the men’s tennis rankings. Their father, Petr Korda, won the 1998 Australian Open in tennis.

She said she has messaged with Clark on Instagram, but nothing topped spending time inside the ropes.

“To see the influence that she has on people, bringing people out here, and to see how amazing of an influence she is just for sports, was really cool to see firsthand today,” Korda said.

Clark said she likes getting away to play golf — she played in the John Deere Classic pro-am last summer on the PGA Tour — and she contributed one putt from about 3-point range.

“It was great to see how relaxed she was,” Korda said. “Obviously with the media attention she has gotten probably in the past year-and-a-half, two years, you can see how she’s comfortable playing in front of a larger crowd. And she was just really enjoying it. You can tell.

“She’s definitely very talented. She was picking the ball really clean. She was losing a couple shots to the right, but I asked her how many times a week she plays and I think with the amount of obligations she has, she probably gets to the golf course once a week.”

Korda last played at the Kroger Queen City Championship on Sept. 22, a week after she led the Americans to a Solheim Cup victory. She spoke of having migraines and thinks her neck injury that kept her from the Asian swing might have been related.

Korda already has clinched LPGA Player of the Year for the first time. She leads the Race to CME Globe but still needs to win the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship next week, which awards $4 million to the winner.