Sophie Stone 2023 Announcement Q&A

CDW is delighted to announce the renewed sponsorship of golfer Sophie Stone. After her first full season as a professional golfer last year, we caught up with Sophie to discuss the experience and her aims for the 2023 season. 

Q. Tell us about the past year. Was it what you expected?

2022 was my first year on tour as a full-time professional golfer, which was so exciting but also eye-opening! One of the main things that struck me was the complete lifestyle shift and that took some adjusting to. I learnt so much about the role of being a professional golfer, suc

h as travelling and being away from home a lot, the expectations and mental challenges. I think I learnt many lessons the hard way, but I can now see it was an important learning curve for my development as I move forward into year two.

Q. What are your goals for 2023? What do you expect to be the key highlights and challenges?

One thing I learned last season is that fixating on huge leaps or end goals does not really work for me. This year I intend to focus more on setting small achievable goals and tasks daily that help me to move in the right direction, stay consistent with the process, to make sure I take the learnings and positives from the small changes and wins. I have plans in place, working with coaches and psychologists, to shift from an outcome-based to a process-oriented approach to make sure I reward myself for the small goals and use that to build towards the big picture milestones.

Overall, the main highlight will be living out my dream of playing professional golf; I get to travel and play the sport I love, whilst meeting so many people from different countries and cultures and hopefully inspiring them along the way. There will of course be challenges, but I’m ready to see them as hurdles to jump over rather than obstacles in my way!

Q. How do you hope to continue to grow your profile in the golfing world?

As a relatively new pro golfer, I am keen to travel to as many events and courses around the world as possible and share what it’s like behind the scenes with my audience on social media. It’s important to me to get exposure for the game and to showcase the highs and the lows to convey the full journey of life as a professional golfer, rather than just the highlights or end goal. I also believe my role within the golfing world is to help to educate and inspire others. For example, I recently got to help host a kids’ clinic in Kenya, which was such a fulfilling experience to know that I could help others learn the sport. Looking at this more broadly, I hope that this is something that people can translate to other sports, work or their personal lives too.

Q. How will CDW’s sponsorship continue to support you this season?

CDW’s sponsorship allows me to play more golf, travel to more tournaments and to carry on doing what I love. Financially, it supports my goal to build on last year and continue to establish my profile as a role model in the industry. Perhaps most importantly, the sponsorship enables me to continue to grow the game and promote women in golf. For example, I was delighted to speak at CDW’s ‘Beat the Pro’ and ‘Women and Allies Golf Day’ where I talked about how women can overcome perceived barriers and break into sport.

Q. What challenges did you face as a female breaking into golf?

Despite sometimes feeling a sense of imposter syndrome especially during my teen years as an amateur player, I’ve recently seen that now so many clubs and associations are working to encourage women to join the sport. There is so much more exposure now for females in golf. We are welcome and we are wanted. You just have to look at the growing number of female-led social media channels and coaching sessions as well as the availability of women’s clothing in golf and sports shops. There’s nothing stopping us from participating and I will continue to get the word out there to encourage other women to just give it a go. Afterall, you never know until you try!

Q. What one piece of advice would you give your younger self?

If there is something you want to do or achieve, don’t worry what barriers stand in your way or what people may think, just believe in yourself and go for it! I actually still try to live by this advice today!