Sami Valimaki will be representing his home country Finland at the Olympics this week, but before the Paris Games he played a much bigger role for his country.
Before turning professional in 2019, Valimaki served six months in the military, which is compulsory for all Finnish citizens. During his service, he had time to play golf and work on his game between training exercises, as he was attached to the sports section. The sports section is a branch of the military that allows athletes to continue honing their skills in addition to training. However, when a reporter asked Valimaki about his specific role, the Finn gave a rather blunt and pessimistic reply.
“He’s been shot through the head,” Valimaki said.
“We just train in a large area. I was in the sports army so it was a little bit more, how should I put it, we’d train for two weeks and then take three or four days off, and if there was a golf tournament, we’d take a week off and go there. So it wasn’t too strict. So it was an easy environment for us.”
Valimaki added that his military experience hasn’t had much of an impact on his golf game, as evidenced by his victory at the Oman Open in March 2020. He then won his second DP World Tour title in Qatar last October, helping him secure his PGA Tour card for the 2024 season.
Valimaki struggled this year in his first year on the PGA Tour, missing the cut 11 times and finishing in the top 10 just once, a second-place finish behind Jake Knapp at the Mexico Open. But so far in the men’s Olympic golf competition, after 36 holes, Valimaki is tied for 19th place with Collin Morikawa, Rory McIlroy and Ludvig Oberg.
Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation Playing Through. Follow For more golf articles, follow us on Twitter Jack Mirko In the same way.
