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LPGA Rookie With a Stellar Game: Madelene Sagstrom

By Elizabeth Bethel

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Madelene Sagstrom is no ordinary LPGA rookie. She’s coming in hot and she has game!

Despite her disappointing early rounds at the Pure Silk Bahamas LPGA Classic, Madelene Sagstrom has a game in her bag that blends power and finesse. LPGA fans are in for a treat in 2017. The 24-year old Swede who swept the Symetra Tour 2016 Race for the Card looks more than ready to step onto golf’s big stage and make her presence felt. By mid-season she could well be Team Europe’s secret Solheim Cup weapon.

Sagstrom clearly stole the Symetra Tour 2016 show from literally the first round of the season when she carded a 64 in Beaumont, California. She went onto record three wins and 12 top ten finishes in 15 starts. Nobody in the history of the Symetra Tour has ever tallied 12 top 10 finishes in a single-season.

Coming out of LSU, Sagstrom was a 4-year All-American and 2015 SEC Player of the Year. She started her pro career on the Symetra Tour ranked No. 1074 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings and closed out her 2016 season at No. 216. Where she’ll finish 2017 is anybody’s guess but I’m looking for her to be in the top 50 in the world rankings by December.

Take a look at Sagstrom’s swing and the power that’s driving it:

Watch your backs, Ariya Jutanugarn, Lexi Thompson, and Brooke Henderson!

Sagstrom’s Performance Stats

The Swede’s performance stats will make her very competitive. In the 2016 season she averaged 277 yards off the tee – that puts her right up there with Lexi Thompson – and hit the fairways on about 70% of her drives – slightly worse than Megan Khang and Gabby Lopez.

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She was hitting 72% of the greens in regulation – right there alongside Brooke Henderson. The Swedish dynamo finished the 2016 season with a putting average of 29.52 putts per round. As a point of comparison, Lydia Ko led the LPGA field in 2016 with 28.39 putts per round.

Sagstrom isn’t the only member of the 2017 rookie class who’s going to come off the tee hot and ready to play golf, but I watched her make her way around the Links at Stoney Point track during the Symetra Tour’s Women’s Health Classic last year. She delivered an singularly impressive performance.

Even though Sagstrom missed the cut this week at the Pure Silk Bahamas LPGA Classic, I’m not too worried for her.  She was nervous. It was a new course. She mishit a few balls and found herself in some challenging situations.

And after all, Tiger, The Pink Panther, and Charley Hull missed the cut this week too.

I can hardly wait to see how Sagstrom’s season unfolds.

Next: How did Lexi Thompson & Bryson DeChambeau get paired for the Franklin Templeton Shootout?

Which LPGA rookies have caught your eye? I know it’s early in the season, but which rookies do you think are likely to contend for the Rookie of the Year award this year?

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