Scott Radley: Hamilton’s Alena Sharp vows to reclaim LPGA Tour card after a terrible year

You don't play golf for 30 years - including a decade-and-a-half at the highest level in the world - unless you love the game. Unless you're willing to obsess over it, pour every part of yourself into it and make sacrifices to nurture it.

But what happens when it suddenly doesn't love you back like it once did?

Welcome to Alena Sharp's 2021.

I said I want to quit' more that I've ever said it," she says.

She's not being glib. The past year has been incredibly tough for this city's most successful-ever professional female golfer. She drove the ball as well as she ever has and she says her short game was terrific. She just couldn't putt.

She'd get onto the green and then miss a three-footer. Not just occasionally, either.

It was baffling. Two seasons before, she was 15th on the LPGA Tour in putting average. In other words, she was great with the flat stick. It was arguably strongest part of her game. Then, all of a sudden, things went wonky.

A few misses from in close and it started getting into her head. She'd practice and practice and practice to fix things. She'd look really good on the warm-up green. Then she'd go onto the course and miss again.

I would try too hard," she says. It was almost like I was acting like a first- or second-year (player) on Tour instead of the veteran that I am."

She tried to take her mind off it. Think about something other than golf for a while. Unfortunately, telling yourself not to think about something only makes you think about it more. So that didn't work. The fact that she's a self-described perfectionist and really hard on herself probably played into things, too. That laser focus had always helped her in the past. Now it was hurting.

The frustration wore her down. All the practising to try to find her way out of the funk had the opposite effect. It was mentally exhausting. So, she took some time off to let it go and find some balance in her life. But when she'd get back on the course, the putting troubles would be right there again.

She even tapped into sports psychologists to figure out what was going on.

I've used a million of them," she says. Nobody can help me with this but myself."

By the time the season was done, her putting had dropped from that 15th spot to 148th. It hurt her game badly. She hadn't finished high enough on the points list to keep her Tour card so she had to go to Q School (Qualifying School) for the first time since 2006. When that didn't go as she'd hoped, she found herself on the outside looking in for next year without full rights to play all the events.

Yet, she says people haven't seen the last of Alena Sharp.

I'm not going to give up," she says.

She still has some status on Tour so she'll get to play in a few tournaments in 2022. She'll try to qualify for some others and play some mini-tour events in Arizona where she now lives. She believes she'll be able to claw her way back by the end of the year.

Today, she's in the middle of a 30-day stretch of no-putting-allowed. Once she starts again, she may try a few things to see if a fix can be found. Maybe a longer putter or a different grip.

The 40-year-old believes she has at least three good years of competition left in her. More than enough time to reset and return to form. And to put an big gold star on her long career by getting her first win. That's the dream.

That would be going out on her terms rather than this way. This she can't accept as the denouement to an outstanding career that's seen her grab 14 top-10 finishes, win nearly $3 million US and represent Canada at two Olympics.

She's started to wonder if playing with nothing to lose will help rather than playing as if she has everything to lose. Stuff happens for a reason. Maybe this is that reason. Maybe her mind will be freed so she can just play. Get back to being great.

Now I need to forgive myself and kind of move on from (this season) and turn the page," she says. That's what I'm working on right now."

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com