Former “Charlie’s Angels” actress Cheryl Ladd was introduced to golf in the 1980s when her Scottish husband, author Brian Russell, convinced her to play the Rancho Park golf course one sunny Saturday morning in California.
“I looked at him like he was from Mars because he had never played golf as long as I had known him,” Ladd said. “Within the first couple of times I went out to try to play, I was hooked on the game.”
Currently, Ladd is in Boca Raton for the 2017 Allianz Championship held at the Old Course at Broken Sound.
Since then Ladd has played pro-am tournaments and celebrity tournaments with some of golf’s greatest professionals, including the late Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Fred Couples.
“I got to play in a celebrity tournament—with the Americans against the British—an All-Star tournament with Michael Douglas … that was really fun,” she said. She recalls even more celebrity golf escapades in her autobiography, “Token Chick: A Woman’s Guide to Golfing With The Boys.”
The Allianz tournament week began on Monday, Feb. 6, and ends on Sunday, Feb. 12 with the final round of championship play. Although she hasn’t played the course, Ladd is excited to see friends that will participate.
“Being there with some of my old friends is going to be a lot of fun,” she said. “[I’m excited to see] Freddy Couples, for one, and Mark O’Meara. It’ll be fun to see them both.”
“I really fell in love with it,” she said. “I would like women who have a curiosity or have someone in their life that plays golf to jump in. Just do it!” Ladd added.
She even has a few tips for first-time golfers: “My … advice would be to definitely take lessons from a really good pro. They’re worth it,” Ladd said. “Then go practice, and then get out on the golf course. Learn the etiquette of a golf course. You do that by getting in a cart with someone that’s an avid player. They’ll teach you where to stand, how to place your ball, and all the little things.”
At the beginning, Ladd said, it’s easier to take fewer shots, so as not to disrupt the game of the person you’re playing a round with. 
“What I would do is, I would go with someone that played better than I did when I was just learning. I’d hit a ball, and I’d go get it if it was a bad shot, and then I’d go place my ball near the person I was playing with so I wasn’t wrecking their game, making them wait for me to take nine shots. … So they were still in their own rhythm. That’s really important.”
Ladd still appears in film and television, most recently in FX’s “The People vs. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story,” which premiered in 2016. “I was so proud to be a part of the OJ Simpson series,” Ladd said. “I played Linell Shapiro, John Travolta’s [character’s] wife. I was thrilled to be a part of such an amazing project. I thought they did a spectacular job with it. I had a small part and was just proud as punch to be part of it.”
Look for Ladd on the big screen this spring. Her newest film, “Unforgettable,” stars her alongside actresses Katherine Heigl and Rosario Dawson. “I play Katherine Heigl’s mother … I play a very interesting character in that movie. And it’s coming out in April,” Ladd said. She didn’t reveal anything else.
