PARIS (Via PLDT Home) – Twenty-two brave and extraordinary athletes have competed and are still competing in the Olympics.
But I’m singling out one athlete for that extra prayer – Dottie Ardina, who will forever be my favorite golfer.
Sure, there have been more successful ones like Yuka Saso (now a Japanese citizen) and her fellow Asian Games gold medalist Bianca Pagdanganan, and younger sensations like Rianne Malixi and Harmie Constantino.
But Dottie will always have a special place in my heart because of my link to her family. Her dad, a former golf teaching pro, who everyone calls Tiger Ed, her doting mother Gina, and brother Matt, a former barangay kagawad and an always-absent road manager of my band, are personal friends.
So call me a biased sportswriter when it comes to Dottie.
I have heard of glowing tales about her golf skills when she was just five years old, of how she would let that golf ball fly to unimaginable lengths even at that tender age.
Because she was so young at that time, me and my “Sports Column on Air” co-host Bong Boado decided instead to have Dottie’s brother, Matt, as a guest on our Sports Radio program to talk about his sister.
“Matt, kumusta naman si Dottie? Balita namin, napakagaling na batang golfer. May mga napanalunan na ba siyang mga tournaments?” I would ask Matt.
“Ay wala pa, kasi nagsisimula pa pa lang,” Matt replied.
To which Bong would blurt out angrily: “Eh bakit ka namin gi-nuest dito?!”
That would be followed by laughter, the last we would ever have at that radio show because we were told not to return the following week.
But our friendship with Matt, Dottie, Gina and Tiger Ed would go on, with occasional visits at their Canlubang home. At the same time, Dottie continued her streak as she won countless golf titles and awards. As an amateur, Dottie was a five-time winner of the US Kids Golf Championship from 2002 to 2006 and a three-time winner of the Callaway Junior World Golf Championship in 2002, 2006, and 2008. In 2011, she was a finalist in the US Girls Junior Championship.
Before turning pro in 2013, Ardina won the gold medal for the Philippines in the 2009 Southeast Asian Games in the women’s team event.
As a pro, Ardina won the 2020 Ballarat Icons Pro Am title and two years later, she ruled the Copper Rock Championship.
In one of those amazing streaks of triumphs, I would put Dottie’s feat as my banner story even when there were more deserving ones that day.
“Dottierrific!” screamed the Manila Standard sports banner head as an ode to “Tigerrific!” every time Woods won a major.
As Dottie’s legend grew year after year, it also became a running joke between me and Matt, who I always introduced to friends as the brother of a world champion.
“Kapag hindi na world champion si Dottie, Matt na lang ang introduction namin sa iyo ‘no? ‘Uy si Matt nga pala’,” we would always kid him. “Hindi na — ‘Si Matt nga pala, brother ng world golf champion.’”
So you get the drift – this connection with the Ardinas.
Two weeks ago, Matt (did I say he was our roadie?) appeared at my band’s gig, some 15 minutes when our set was already over. But we weren’t angry.
We were ecstatic, as a matter of fact, to embrace Matt, this time the brother of an Olympian.
“What if, manalo ng gold si Dottie ‘no? After all, tinatalo na niya ‘yung karamihan sa LPGA tour ‘di ba?, ” I told Matt.
“Magdilang anghel ka sana, kasi sa golf may tsamba,” said Matt.
If that day indeed comes, that would be ‘Dottieriffic’ not only for Matt, Tiger Ed, and Gina but also for this sportswriter – the family friend of an Olympic gold medalist.
(Dottie Ardina and Bianca Pagdanganan begin their Olympic campaigns today at the Le Golf National)
