They met playing against each other in rec league hockey. Now Alena Sharp and her caddie, Sarah Bowman, are honeymooning on the golf course.
The honeymoon began, as so many do for golf-obsessed newlyweds, with 18 holes. The skies were blue, the sun was warm and the Spanish moss hung from the oak trees like nature’s tinsel, draping the scene in tranquillity. What better way to officially launch a shared lifetime of come-what-mays than as competitors at the 75th United States Women’s Open? For Alena Sharp,39, a soft-spoken Canadian, and her U.S.-born caddie and wife, Sarah Bowman, life in the cumulus cloud that is 2020 has come with a powerful ray of light. Sharp’s first-round four-over 75 at Champions Club’s Cypress Creek course was the couple’s first competitive appearance since they were married in the backyard of their Arizona home on Nov.23. The ceremony was officiated by their therapist. As part of their vows, exchanged in front of nine witnesses and more than 100 virtual guests from around the world, Sharp commended Bowman’s positivity and her personality, which she said “shines bright all the time.” And Bowman complimented Sharp’s grit, determination and resiliency. For a union sealed in the middle of a pandemic, there are worse qualities to bring to the table than positivity and resiliency. Bowman said: “People always talk about meeting someone that makes you want to be better in every way, and I always thought that was so stupid, but then I met Alena. And I can’t believe I’m saying it, but it’s real. She honestly makes me feel that way.” From Sharp came a barely audible, “Thank you.” Sharp and Bowman met in the face-off circle at a Chandler, Ariz., ice rink in 2013. They were opposing centers in a women’s recreational hockey league game. “She’d always win them,” said Sharp, who exacted her revenge with some well-executed forechecks. “She laid me out a few times,” Bowman said. Sharp played hockey as a child and turned to it to as an adult to escape her overactive golf mind and its constant churn of negative thoughts. Bowman,44, a one-time competitive skier from Pittsburgh, was looking for an escape from her work at a neuro-oncology lab where she was laying the foundation — or so she thought — for a doctorate in psychology.
