Finkbine golf course sits on the western edge of the University of Iowa campus, a few hundred yards from Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Tee up a golf ball—and get a few pavement-aided bounces through the parking lot—and one might be able to reach the school’s basketball arena with a big drive. But on days when Caitlin Clark is really cooking, it seems like she could connect the two spots with one of her jaw-dropping jump shots.
The rising senior has long had the attention of her home state, but she captivated the country last season by leading the Iowa women’s basketball team to the NCAA championship game. More than a decade after Jeremy Lin and “Linsanity” swept the NBA, it was “Clarksanity’’ that reached its peak with a Final Four upset over undefeated defending champion South Carolina. After recording the first 40-point triple-double in NCAA tournament history in the Elite Eight, Clark scored 41 points with eight assists in the semifinal. The matchup drew better ratings on ESPN than any NBA regular-season game on the network. You don’t have to watch the Hawkeyes for more than a few minutes to see why.
The six-foot Clark is a one-woman offense, dazzling with her dribbling, passing and scoring skills. Her ridiculous range sets her apart from about any woman—or man—in the game’s history and has drawn comparisons to the way Stephen Curry has revolutionized the NBA. “I would love to play him in a game of P-I-G,” Clark says of the Golden State Warriors star, one of her basketball idols.
These two sharpshooters have yet to meet but have another strong connection in their love of golf. In fact, over the summer, Clark is just as likely to be on the course as she is on the court. Just nine days after the Hawkeyes lost to LSU in the national title game, Clark shared an Instagram story from Brown Deer Golf Club with a golf emoji and two words: “So back.”
“That’s what I was looking forward to the most with basketball ending,” says Clark, who swept all the major national player-of-the-year awards. “Our coaches were like, ‘You need to get away from the gym,’ even though that’s really hard for me to do sometimes. I still want to be active and do something, so I’m going to go to the golf course.”
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
