LPGA golfer Anne van Dam in desert for a triathlon challenge and a good cause
For Anne van Dam, the most challenging part of the Trainual Ironman 70.3 Indian Wells-La Quinta on Sunday will come at the start.
“Definitely the swim,” said van Dam, the Dutch star golfer and member of the LPGA and the Ladies European Tour. “When I swim, I’m used to being in a pool, with walls and a line at the bottom of the pool to follow. I’m not so used to being in open water.”
For the 27-year-old van Dam, a five-time winner on the LET, a member of the LPGA since 2019 and known as one of the longest hitters in women’s golf, competing in an Ironmen event is a new experience, but one that she has thought about for some time.
“It’s definitely the challenge,” van Dam said. “I have wanted to do this. I run and I ride my bike whenever I can, and just combining them was something I was interested in.”
Van Dam may want the personal challenge of a triathlete – a race featuring swimming, bicycling and running – but she is also competing for a cause. Van Dam will be raising money for Grace Godfrey, the two-year-old daughter of fellow LPGA Tour player Jane Park and her husband, tour caddie Pete Godfrey. Grace suffered severe brain damage in 2021 after a series of seizures when the family was in Dallas for an LPGA event.
Jane Park has been off the tour and caring for her daughter’s long-term needs, including regular hospital visits, medications, mobility, feeding and physical therapy.
“Pete and Jane have been friends of mine on tour, and I just thought we could raise some money and hopefully some awareness for them by doing this,” van Dam said.
Long-distance trip between events
Van Dam is in the desert just days after competing in the LET’s Andalucía Costa del Sol de Espana in Spain, where she finished tied for 10th. Despite a schedule that includes playing golf around the world, van Dam said she always finds time to train.
“You can run pretty much anywhere, so I always have my shoes,” she said. “My bike is always at home, so when I am there I ride a lot. And then the swimming comes along with that.”
The idea of a golfer being a triathlete might seem to go against what many fans think of golfers as athletes, but van Dam, a member of the 2019 European Solheim Cup team, says the myth that golfers aren't athletes should be finished by now.
"There is a lot of running, a lot of training on the tour," van Dam said. "Maybe not for things like triathlons, but there is training for most of the players."
The Indian Wells-La Quinta race is a 70.3 race, also known as a half Ironmen, meaning the race covers 70.3 miles. That starts with a 1.2 mile swim in Lake Cahuilla in La Quinta, followed by a 56-mile bike ride along desert roads and then a half-marathon that will finish at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Like all good triathletes, van Dam has brought her own bike to the desert.
With half-Ironman events available across the United States and around the world, van Dam said selecting the desert race didn’t have anything to do with having played twice in the desert in 2019 and 2020 in the now-departed Chevron Challenge. It was simply a matter of timing.
“It was definitely the calendar,” van Dam said. “I couldn’t do it during the (golf) season”.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: LPGA: Anne van Dam to run in desert half-Ironman to support fellow player
