Born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, Alena Sharp played many sports. In the winter it was hockey, and in the summer it was golf.
"Growing up, I knew I had passion for sports. I played hockey, soccer and golf. I realized as I got older, I was becoming better at golf and there was also a future in that sport," she said in a blog for the PGA .
It's a good thing for Team Canada that Alena Sharp chose golf, as she'll represent Canada at the 2024 Olympics in Paris in the sport. She won bronze at the 2023 Pan American Games, and has been a member of the LPGA Tour since 2005.
Hockey has remained in Sharp's blood as she continued playing the game well into her LPGA career. A decade ago, Sharp joined the Chandler Polar Ice Women's League in Arizona where she resides, and hockey immediately became a portion of her offseason regiment.
"This off-season I have taken some time off and played some hockey. It was great competing on a team and playing hockey brought out my dominate personality I would like to see more of on the golf course. I also hit the gym 3-4 times a week.
Sharp also enjoyed hockey for the team aspect, rather than golf's solo set up. She also stated it helped her competitive focus on the golf course.
"Getting out on the ice and skating is fun," Sharp told the Globe & Mail in 2012 . "I missed it [during the years she didn't play] It seems more fun now, I guess. It's the social aspect of it, too, that I like – meeting people in Phoenix that aren't golfers. It's nice to have friends that don't even care if I play golf. They'll come out and watch but they don't ask you all the time, 'How you'd play today?'"
While it's nice to talk to non-golf folks, Sharp also uses hockey as a conversation starter on the golf course while playing with others.
"When I am paired with a friend we talk about a lot of different topics. One of them is sports - especially hockey," Sharp said in 2008, lamenting over her favorite team, the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs.
Hockey has brought much to Alena Sharp's life, including her wife. Sharp met her wife, Sarah Bowman, who she married in 2020, during a pick of game of hockey in 2013 in Arizona. Since then, Bowman has served as Sharp's caddy on the golf course.
On the ice, Bowman questioned Sharp's style as it related to their relationship.
"Oh, she would lay me out,” Bowman recalled in a 2017 interview with The Score . “I thought, ‘Is this the Canadian version of flirting?’”
The 2024 Olympics in Paris will be Alena Sharp 's third Games representing Canada. She'll do so alongside another former hockey player in Brooke Henderson. Round one of the Paris women's Olympic golf tournament begins August 7.
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