Female golf Olympians
World No. 9 and US Olympian Lexi Thompson shot for Smucker’s Uncrustables.
With the Tokyo Olympics starting this week - the Opening Ceremonies are Friday July 23 - I thought it would be cool to dig through my archive and see how many of the women golfers who are playing in the Games this year. Of the 60, I have photographed almost 40 of them. Through the years, I have done portraits for the Symetra Tour - the LPGA’s developmental tour as well as tournament coverage for different clients. A few of the portraits I have done over the years are for commercial clients. One of these was a portrait of Lexi Thompson, the current 9th ranked player in the world and one fo the United State’s golfers. I was working on a shoot for Smucker’s and their Uncrustables Sandwiches who is a sponsor of Lexi’s. We basically did photos of Lexi playing and enjoying Uncrustables. The picture above was an action portrait I set up with her on one of the greens.
A few of the portraits over the years I have done with this year’s female Olympic golfers, including MariaJo Uribe (second from right) back in 2007 when she won the US Women’s Amateur in Indiana. From left top to bottom: Kelly Tan, Madelene Sagstrom, and Min Lee were a few of the portraits done for the Symetra Tour. Sagstrom was after she won the money list, Rookie of the Year and the Symetra Swift Award after the Tour finale. On the bottom row: Nanna Koerstz Madsen and Wei-Ling Hsu were portraits with their winner’s trophy and Gabby Gonzales of Mexico with her family after the final round of Q-School.
Each year - pre Covid - I would do head shots of every player at the second stage of Q-School for the LPGA. They were always pretty straight forward, two lights on a plain backdrop and unfortunately not a lot of time other than to do a head shot since there are about 250 players coming through in one day.
The rest of the photos are obviously on-course action photos of players, including American sisters Nelly and Jessica Korda - top row left and 2nd from left. Nelly, currently the No. 1 ranked player in the world, was photographed during her time on the Symetra Tour, sister Jessica was shot at the US Women’s Open in Kohler Wis. Third from the left is current World No. 3 Inbee Park during her amateur golf days at the 2003 US Women’s Amateur in Philadelphia, Pa.
