Helen Christine Alfredsson (born 9 April 1965) is a Swedish professional golfer who played primarily on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour and is also a life member of the Ladies European Tour. She won the LPGA major Nabisco Dinah Shore and twice finished second in the U.S. Women's Open. She also won the Women's British Open once and the Evian Masters three times before those events were designated as majors in women's golf by the LPGA Tour. In 2019, she won a "senior slam" by winning both of the senior women's major championships.
Early life
In 1965, Alfredsson was born in Gothenburg, Sweden. At the age of 11, she began playing golf at Gullbringa Golf & Country Club north of Gothenburg. At young ages, she represented Sweden on both junior level and in the national amateur team.
At young age she practiced ice skating and team handball. Her father Björn was a six-time Swedish handball champion and a keen golfer himself. The father and daughter won the 1999 Swedish Two Generations Mixed Championship, played as 36-hole foursome. During summertime she played in Sweden and won the Swedish Match-play Championship three years in a row 1986 through 1988, as an amateur while the championship since 1986 had become open for professionals and part of the Swedish Golf Tour for women.
In 1987, she was a member of the winning Swedish team at the European Ladies' Team Championship at Turnberry, Scotland.
She was member of the European Solheim Cup team as a player eight times: 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2009. She was appointed captain of the 2007 European Solheim Cup team, losing to the United States team 12–16. When she qualified for the European Team at the 2009 Solheim Cup, she became the first, and still the only, player on both teams, to qualify as a player after she has been the team captain a previous year.
While playing golf, Alfredsson has been known to curse long and loud in Swedish. The Financial Times of London once editorialized "They can be louder and more richly worded than many of Lenny Bruce's best performances". Alfredsson said about cursing "You have to stay so focused on the tour, you work so hard, you don't want anything to interfere. But then all of a sudden this little devil comes crawling out, saying, 'It's time to do something. You've been good too long." "
In September 2013, Alfredsson officially announced her retirement from the LPGA Tour.
After her retirement from competitive golf on the regular tour, she came back, playing on the women's senior tour, the Legends Tour, primarily in the senior majors, with great success. She tied for third in the inaugural Senior LPGA Championship in 2017 and improved that by finishing tied second at the 2018 Senior LPGA Championship. She won both of the two senior ladies major championships in 2019, the U.S. Senior Women's Open and the Senior LPGA Championship, completing the same "senior slam" as Laura Davies achieved in 2018.
Personal life
During her college years in San Diego, California, she met Leonardo Cuéllar, the school's soccer coach and a former World Cup and Olympic soccer player for Mexico. The couple later got engaged.
In 2005, Alfredsson married former National Hockey League player Kent Nilsson and became stepmother of his son, hockey player Robert Nilsson. Kent Nilsson was en elite amateur golfer himself, with a handicap below scratch. They divorced in 2016, but came back to live together.
- In 1989, Ladies European Tour awarded her their Rookie of the Year honors.
- In 1990, she was awarded the Swedish Golfer of the Year.
- In 1992, she was bestowed by the Swedish Golf Federation the Golden Club, the highest award for contributions to Swedish golf.
- In 1992, the LPGA Tour honored her with Rookie of the Year honors.
- In 1998, Alfredsson was awarded honorary member of the PGA of Sweden.
- In 2024, she was inducted into the Swedish Golf Hall of Fame.
Amateur wins
- 1981 Swedish Junior Match-play Championship
- 1982 Belgian Open Junior Championship
- 1983 Swedish Junior Match-play Championship
- 1985 Swedish Junior Match-play Championship
Source:
Ladies European Tour wins (11)
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"
!No.
!Date
!Tournament
!Winning score
!Margin of<br>victory
!Runner(s)-up
|-
|align=center|1||5 Aug 1990
|Weetabix Women's British Open|| −4 (70-71-74-73=288)
|Playoff
| Jane Hill
|-
|align=center|2||16 Jun 1991
|Hennessy Ladies Cup|| −8 (70-71-71-68=280)
|Playoff
| Marie-Laure de Lorenzi, Corinne Dibnah
|-
|align=center|3||23 Jun 1991
| Trophée Coconut Skol|| −12 (73-68-73-75=276)
|3 strokes
| Dale Reid
|-
|align=center|4||12 Jul 1992
|Hennessy Ladies Cup (2)|| −17 (68-70-67-66=271)
|1 stroke
| Trish Johnson
|-
|align=center|5||30 Aug 1992
|IBM Ladies' Open|| −14 (68-70-71-69=278)
|2 strokes
| Liselotte Neumann
|-
|align=center|6||12 Jun 1994
|Evian Masters|| −1 (71 73 73 70=287)
|3 strokes
| Sarah Gautrey, Laura Fairclaugh
|-
|align=center|7||7 Jul 1996
|Hennessy Cup (3)|| −8 (68-70-71-71=280)
|Playoff
| Trish Johnson, Liselotte Neumann
|-
|align=center|8||10 Aug 1997
|McDonald's WPGA Championship of Europe|| −12 (74-65-67-70=276)
|4 strokes
| Kathryn Marshall, Charlotta Sörenstam
|-
|align=center|9||6 Jun 1998
|Evian Masters (2)|| −11 (70-69-73- 65=277)
|4 strokes
| Maria Hjorth
|-
|align=center|10||29 Jul 2001
|WPGA Championship of Europe (2)|| −16 (67-70-68-71=276)
|4 strokes
| Suzann Pettersen
|-
|align=center|11||27 Jul 2008
|Evian Masters<sup>1</sup> || −15 (72-63-71-67=273)
|Playoff
| Na Yeon Choi, Angela Park
|}
Ladies European Tour playoff record (4–1)
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"
!No.!!Year!!Tournament!!Opponent(s)!!Result
|-style="background:#B0E0E6;"
|align=center|1
|1990
|Women's British Open
| Jane Hill
|Won with par on fourth extra hole
|-style="background:#B0E0E6;"
|align=center|2
|1991
|Hennessy Ladies Cup
| Marie-Laure de Lorenzi<br> Corinne Dibnah
|Won with birdie on third extra hole<br>de Lorenzi eliminated by par on first hole
|- style="background:#B0E0E6;"
|align=center|3
|1996
|Hennessy Cup
| Trish Johnson<br> Liselotte Neumann
|Won with birdie on second extra hole<br>Neumann eliminated on first hole
|- style="background:#F5DEB3;"
|align=center|4
|1996
|Compaq Swedish Open
| Federica Dassu<br> Kathryn Marshall
|Dassu won with par on fourth extra hole<br>Alfredsson eliminated by par on third hole
|- style="background:#B0E0E6;"
|align=center|5
|2008
|Evian Masters<sup>1</sup>
| Na Yeon Choi<br> Angela Park
|Won with birdie on third extra hole<br>Park eliminated by birdie on first hole
|}
Note: Alfredsson won The Evian Championship (formerly named the Evian Masters) three times before it was recognized as a major championship on the LPGA Tour in 2013. One of those wins was after the Evian Masters was co-sanctioned with the LPGA Tour in 2000. Alfredsson won the Women's British Open once before it was co-sanctioned by the LPGA Tour in 1994 and recognized as a major championship on the LPGA Tour in 2001.
Note:
- <sup>1</sup> Co-sanctioned by LPGA Tour and Ladies European Tour
Sources:
LPGA of Japan Tour wins (3)
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"
!No.
!Date
!Tournament
!Winning score
!Margin of<br>victory
!Runner-up
|-
|align=center|1||24 Nov 1991
|Daio Paper Elleair Ladies Open|| −12 (70-67-67=204)
|5 strokes
| Wu Ming-yeh
|-
|align=center|2||15 Nov 1992
|Itoki Classic|| −16 (64-68-68=200)
|5 strokes
| Ayako Okamoto
|-
|align=center|3||16 Nov 1997
| Itoen Ladies|| −8 (68-71-69=208)
|Playoff
| Akemi Yamaoka
|}
Sources:
ALPG Tour wins (1)
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"
!No.
!Date
!Tournament
!Winning score
!Margin of<br>victory
!Runner-up
|-
|align=center|1||3 Feb 1991
|Queensland Open|| +3 (71-75-73=219)
|1 stroke
| Sherrin Smyers
|}
Source:
Swedish Golf Tour wins (4)
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"
!No.
!Date
!Tournament
!Winning score
!Margin of<br>victory
!Runner-up
|-
|align=center|1||27 Jul 1986
|SM Trygg-Hansa Cup (as an amateur)|| colspan="2" align=center|4 & 3
| Sofia Grönberg-Whitmore
|-
|align=center|2||26 Jul 1987
|SM Trygg-Hansa Cup (2) (as an amateur)|| colspan="2" align=center|6 & 4
| Cecilia Lundin
|-
|align=center|3||2 Jul 1988
| Swedish Matchplay Championship (as an amateur) || colspan="2" align=center|3 & 2
| Carin Koch
|-
|align=center|4||24 Jul 1988
|Swedish International Trygg-Hansa Open (as an amateur)|| +2 (69-74-70-77=290)
|align=center|8 strokes
| Sofia Grönberg Whitmore
|}
Other wins (2)
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"
!No.
!Date
!Tournament
!Winning score
!Margin of<br>victory
!Runner(s)-up
|-
|align=center|1||10 Nov 1991
|Benson & Hedges Trophy (team with Anders Forsbrand)
| align="center" |−13 (73-66-68-68=275)
|2 strokes
| Penny Grice-Whittaker and Malcolm MacKenzie,<br> Pearl Sinn and Bryan Norton
|-
|align=center|2||18 Oct 1992
|Sunrise Cup World Team Championship (team with Liselotte Neumann)|| align="center" |+13 (146-146-153=445)
|2 strokes
| England − Laura Davies / Trish Johnson
|}
Legends Tour wins (2)
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"
! Legend
|-style="background:#e5d1cb;"
|Legends Tour major championships (2)
|-
|Other Legends Tour (0)
|}
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"
!No.
!Date
!Tournament
!Winning score
!Margin of<br>victory
!Runner(s)-up
|-style="background:#e5d1cb;"
|align=center|1
|19 May 2019
|U.S. Senior Women's Open
| +1 (75-69-69-72=285)
|2 strokes
| Juli Inkster Trish Johnson
|-style="background:#e5d1cb;"
|align=center|2
|16 Oct 2019
|Senior LPGA Championship
|<nowiki>−2 (72-72-70=214)</nowiki>
|3 strokes
| Juli Inkster
|}
Sources: