Among us women, it was different. None of us gave in to the fear of mosquitoes, and we all valued our participation. Only four male players are going to the Olympics for the third time in a row this year. It is fifteen among women!

What else would my life as a golfer be about right now other than the Olympics?

JUST ENJOYING IT

Back in 2016, I got influenced by recommendations from other experienced Olympians to just enjoy the games. But honestly, that’s not the case at all.  Maybe only in the Olympic Village among all the athletes, everyone enjoys it a lot, but the tournament is not “just one of many.” It’s a celebration and a major promotion of our sport. It happens once every four years, featuring the best from each country, playing for national pride, and each of us automatically becomes part of history. The old Coubertin motto, “the most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part”, no longer applies. Everyone wants to get to the games aiming to finish among the top three.

This year was quite close. Until the Beroun tournament, it was a battle for two spots among four players. In the end, Sára Kousková and I are going together! Who wouldn’t be emotional after the announcement?

The rankings are kept for over two years, giving a chance to only sixty players, so it’s a two-year stress for most of us. Whether I admit it or not, the pressure only lifted after I finished the last ball of the final round in Beroun before the Monday cutoff. Unlike Sára, I knew since the beginning of the year that my third consecutive participation was certain, but you never know what might happen until the last moment. Sára cried with joy, I cried with emotion. We couldn’t hold back the tears, they had to come out.

HONOUR AND LOTS OF WORRIES

Going to the Olympics is a great honour, but it also means a lot of worries and preparations. I’m not talking about training or honing skills, but arranging all the things that need to be arranged. You receive a manual detailing what you can and cannot do, and you double-check everything with the Czech Olympic Committee. The list of rules itself is a few evenings’ worth of reading. Golf isn’t athletics, tennis or other well-established sports, and it has many specifics. What logos can you have on your equipment? Can you, for instance, have an Eiffel Tower silhouette, a lucky heart or your own logo on the bag? We are fortunate to be under the protective wings of Martin Doktor and the entire excellent team of the Czech Olympic Committee. We don’t need to search for answers – we just ask them and they always patiently explain.

NOT ALL BAGS ARE EQUAL

This time, I was lucky with my bag. The Czech Golf Federation financially helped both Sára and me, and they were made for us in Switzerland. The brother of Ladies European Tour player Caroline Rominger, former European Tour player Martin, specializes in custom bags for many teams and helped us with ours. He has years of experience, and many national teams and players have used his bags. For the graphic design, we collaborated with academic painter Milan Jaroš and graphic designer Zdeněk Kovář, both of whom have been working with the Czech Olympic Committee since Vancouver 2010.  Maybe you don’t know their names, but you might recall the running figure of Emil Zátopek with his typical painful and determined expression for Rio or the elegant Czech gymnasts for Tokyo (I had them on my bag and covers in Japan). We consulted the bag design with Milan and Zdeněk, and I think we achieved something really nice. It’s probably one of the nicest bags I’ve ever played with.

It has it all: national colours, a hidden silhouette of the Eiffel Tower as a symbol of Paris, the French tricolour as a mark of respect to the host country, and it’s elegantly and beautifully colour-coordinated. The Czech national colours serve as the basis – in the correct order and nicely from top to bottom. White dominates, representing purity in sport at the Olympics. For me, it represents the better in us. Red on the sides refers to our past and the fight for freedom, connecting the upper and lower parts. For me, it’s the path that led me to Paris. Red also forms the middle part of the Eiffel Tower on the front of the bag, connecting its blue base with the white top. The bottom of the bag, its entire base, is blue – the colour of the sky, hope and a better future.  It evokes in me the ability to never give up, wish for the best and not fear what’s coming, whatever it may be.  Gold lines then tie everything together like a thin thread into one package. When a big box arrived at my home, it was like getting a Christmas present. I couldn’t wait to unwrap it.

JOY, NOT WORRY

The Olympics are simply extraordinary, and putting everything together is like getting new equipment for the first time just as you want it. It’s an exciting, joyful process to design these things and then wait to get them finished. Each piece is unique, each has its own story, and you feel that every detail is designed and made just for you. Even though each is slightly different, all the details match. Like when you have a perfect round of golf, riding a wave that never ends. I have that feeling now, from every little piece, including the smallest white tees with a subtle gold print.

A RACE AGAINST TIME

But let’s get back to the life of us golfers. It’s not that different from ordinary life. We just do something a little different, and perhaps our workplace is situated in beautiful, well-kept nature. It might look on TV that we have plenty of time for everything, that we just stroll around the course, but the opposite is true. We have our time limits set, and not just on the course. Sometimes it’s a rush, like the end of the month, and everything has to, or should, fit together nicely.

You make a plan, calculate everything twice, book accommodation and buy tickets. And then the weather intervenes.  This year especially has been wild. So many tournaments were interrupted or full rounds cancelled! Sometimes, a storm can delay the final round, and while waiting in the clubhouse you know it’s going to be a race against time. After finishing, you just quickly sign the result and a car is already waiting to take you straight to the airport. You grab a baguette on the plane and then take a shower a thousand kilometres later.

So when you see one of us in the departure hall with golf shoes still on and a glove hanging out of the back pocket, know that she is catching a flight at the last moment and there was no time to change. It’s precisely the situation where every minute counts and you are rushing to the next tournament that is played in three days in a few countries away, fearing what the unpredictable forecast will bring about again.

Let’s hope that at least in Paris the weather will be kind to us and there won’t be storms in the first week of August so that I and Sára can ride that wave in the national colours, and perhaps bring joy to you as well.

Photo: Archive of Klára Davidson Spilková