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"Don't Call It a Comeback"

The last time Annika Sӧrenstam teed it up in an LPGA Tour event, George W. Bush was still the president of the United States. More than 12 years after last playing an LPGA event, she is ready to tee it up again at the Gainbridge LPGA in Orlando Florida, February 25-28 on her home course of Lake Nona.

Sӧrenstam last won at the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill in 2008 and a month later announced her retirement. She’s mentioned playing in a few senior tournaments but never indicated returning for an LPGA event. She played in the celebrity division of the Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions in January, and recently competed in the PNC Challenge last December with her father. While it seemed as if she might continue to turn up intermittently at tournaments, Sӧrenstam’s son starting to play gave her the motivation to start actively competing again.

Keeping busy since her retirement, Sӧrenstam has two children and a foundation that emphasizes junior golf. She has also replaced former R&A chief executive, Peter Dawson, as president of the International Golf Federation. Ready to feel like a total slacker? Keep reading...

Annika’s early life (spoiler alert : she basically excelled at everything)

Sӧrenstam’s story doesn’t begin with a tale of her toddling over to a set of junior clubs and handily hitting a hole-in-one. In fact, her first set of golf clubs was one she received at the age of 12 and shared with her sister, Charlotta. She was born on October 9, 1970 in Bro, just outside of Stockholm, Sweden. Her father, Tom, was an IBM executive, while her mother, Gunilla, was employed in a bank. Annika was an all-around athlete as a child, ranked nationally as a junior tennis player, participated in soccer, and was an accomplished skier. Truth be told, Annika was at first headed down the path toward becoming a professional skier, and the coach of the Swedish national team suggested that the Sӧrenstam family move to northern Sweden so Annika could train year-round.

The beginning of Annika’s golf greatness

The Sӧrenstams started playing golf at Viksjo Golf Club in Jakobsberg and then at Bro-Balsta Golf Club, which opened in 1980. At the age of 15, Sӧrenstam tried to volunteer as a caddy at the Scandinavian Enterprise Open on the European Tour. The tournament professionals selected all the male volunteer caddies first, leaving Annika, Charlotta, and Fanny Sunesson left without a bag — but she was not deterred.

At one point, Sӧrenstam was so shy that she often would intentionally lose to avoid having to make a victory speech. This did not go unnoticed, and ultimately it was decided that the winner and runner-up had to give a speech. That was the last time Sӧrenstam deliberately lost, forcing herself to overcome her extreme shyness and give victory speeches. Little did she know at the time, but she would have to make many of these speeches throughout her career.

Her anything-but-amateur career

A widely successful amateur, Sӧrenstam was a member of the Swedish National Team from 1987 to 1992 and finished second in the Swedish national mother/daughter Championship. She also was victorious at the 1992 Espirito Santo Trophy and the St. Rule Trophy. Also, while waiting to begin college, she played on the Swedish Golf Tour, winning on three occasions during 1990 and 1991.

Two suitcases and a golf bag a.k.a. Annika learns the truth behind “It’s a DRY heat.”

Noticed by a collegiate coach during an event in Japan, Sӧrenstam moved to Arizona to play golf at the University of Arizona. She dominated play as a freshman in 1991, winning seven events. In addition, her victory at the NCAA Division I Championships put her on the board as the first freshman and first non-American to do so. Sӧrenstam was also named 1991 NCAA Co-Player of the Year, was 1991–1992 NCAA All-American, and finished second in both the 1992 Pac-10 championship and 1992 NCAA Championship.

In July of 1992, Sӧrenstam played in the US Women’s Open at Oakmont and tied for 63rd. She was on her way to a potential win at the US Women’s Amateur at Kemper Lakes a few weeks later before recording a bogey on the final hole, finishing second.

And so it begins… Annika’s illustrious professional career

Sӧrenstam turned professional in 1992 and played on the Ladies European Tour, having missed her LPGA Tour card by one shot at the qualifying tournament. She played in three events on the LPGA Tour in 1993 and performed admirably, finishing in the top ten twice, and earning just under $50,000. Her main success in 1993 was on the Ladies European Tour where she finished runner-up four times, good enough to earn Rookie of the Year honors.

Having another shot at the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament, Sӧrenstam performed well enough to earn non-exempt status for the 1994 season. Although she didn’t win during her LPGA rookie season, Sӧrenstam finished second at the Women’s British Open and went 1-2 during her first Solheim Cup. She earned her first professional victory at the Holden Women’s Australian Open.

Annika Sӧrenstam became a household name in 1995 after winning the US Women’s Open by one shot over Meg Mallon for her first LPGA Tour victory. She finished first on the money list, won the Vare Trophy, and started a string of 12 consecutive seasons with at least one victory. Her ascent was remarkable, not only on the LPGA Tour, but worldwide, as she became the first player to ever top the money list on both the European and LPGA Tour in the same year.

During the 1996 season, Sӧrenstam won in her homeland at the Trygg Hansa Ladies’ Open in Sweden. She successfully defended her US Open title, using a final round of 66 to defeat Kris Tschetter by six shots. In doing so, Sӧrenstam became the first non-American to win consecutive US Open titles. She surpassed the $1 million in LPGA earnings, went 3-0-2 at her second Solheim Cup, won her second Vare Trophy, and quickly positioned herself among the top players in the world.

Sӧrenstam won six more times in 1997, finished in the top ten in two of the four majors, finished first on the money list, and once again won player of the year. She continued to win globally, defending her title in Sweden and winning on the LPGA Tour. Sӧrenstam also competed in her third consecutive Solheim Cup, winning three of five matches. She won four more times in 1998 and, despite failing to win a major for her second straight year, led the tour in scoring with a first-ever sub 70 scoring average and found herself first on the money list… again.

Through September of 1999, Sӧrenstam won only once for the year. She replaced her caddie of six seasons, Colin Cann, with Terry McNamara, and on October 3, Sӧrenstam won her first event with McNamara on the bag, winning by three over Mardi Lunn at the New Albany Golf Classic.

Annika won five more times in 2000 but failed to win a major for the fourth straight season. She qualified for the World Golf Hall of Fame after winning the Welch’s/Circle K Championship but would not become eligible for induction until October 2003, after completing ten years on the LPGA Tour. Sӧrenstam made her fourth consecutive Solheim Cup team but admittedly lost focus after reaching many of her career goals.

2001 — Hard work pays off

Not one to stray too far for too long, Annika dedicated herself to a five-days-per-week workout program which included weight lifting. This regimen helped to add nearly 20 yards to her driving distance over the next couple of years.

During the 2001 season, Sӧrenstam began one of the best five-year stretches of golf on any tour in the history of the game. She won eight times — including her third major title — and became the only female golfer to shoot a 59 in tournament play. She didn’t stop there, however. She also tied 30 LPGA records that year, won the Vare Trophy, and was first on the money list.

2002 - More kicking @$$ and taking names for Annika

While it may have seemed impossible to top her 2001 season, Sӧrenstam did just that by winning 11 times in 2002 including another Kraft Nabisco Championship for her fourth major. She also finished in the top three in the LPGA Championship and US Women’s Open, went 3-1-1 in her fifth Solheim Cup, won the Compaq Open in Sweden, and the ANZ Ladies Masters in Australia — bringing her to a total of 13 wins in 25 events. Deservedly, Annika’s efforts won her Player of the Year honors for the fifth time.

2003 — “If you want to play, you have to play with boys. If you want to stick around, you have to beat them.”

After her dominance over the previous two seasons, Sӧrenstam was invited to play in the PGA Tour’s Bank of America Colonial tournament in Fort Worth, Texas. The moment was historic for Sӧrenstam and the LPGA, as she became the first woman to tee up in a PGA Tour event since Babe Zaharias almost six decades prior. Although she failed to make the cut, Sӧrenstam recorded a birdie early in her first round and shot a respectable 71. She fell off to a 74 but still finished better than 15 men that entered the event. In typical Annika Sӧrenstam fashion, she put on a clinic with her accuracy off the tee, leading the field in that category, and was in the top 20 in greens in regulation. Uncharacteristically, Sӧrenstam’s putting abandoned her, and ultimately she missed the cut.

After heading back to her LPGA stomping grounds, Sӧrenstam won six more times in 2003 in only 17 events. The highlight was a career milestone — winning the Women’s British Open. In doing so, she became the sixth LPGA player of all time to complete the career Grand Slam. During her sixth Player of the Year season, Sӧrenstam tied a total of 22 LPGA records. She even competed very well against Fred Couples, Phil Mickelson, and Mark O’Meara in the Skins Game, finishing second. Then, when it seemed impossible for the season to get better for Sӧrenstam, she went on to lead the European Solheim Cup team to victory in her homeland of Sweden.

2004 — More notches on the ol’ victory belt

Seemingly lapping the field, Sӧrenstam continued her dominating play in 2004, winning eight times, including two majors and her second consecutive LPGA Championship. In only 18 LPGA starts, Sӧrenstam recorded an astonishing 16 top-ten finishes. Add in two international wins and she had yet another double-digit winning season.

2004 also saw Sӧrenstam tie Kathy Whitworth for the most LPGA player of the Year awards with seven and honored by the Laureus World Sports Academy as World Sportswoman of the Year. Clearly, Annika had nothing but time on her hands while traveling the world, keeping up a rigorous training and practice schedule, and continuing to dominate the sport… so she wrote a golf instructional book titled Golf Annika’s Way… you know… to stay busy.

2005 — A year of change, a season of triumph

Early 2005, Sӧrenstam’s life changed, as she ended her eight-year marriage to David Esch. Although her divorce wasn’t finalized until August, her personal life didn’t affect her golf game one bit. She won 10 times in 20 events, including her third straight LPGA Championship and her third Kraft Nabisco Championship. Sӧrenstam’s win at the Mizuno Classic was her fifth straight, a first in LPGA history.

Adding to her growing list of credentials as top LPGA golfer of all time, Sӧrenstam won her eighth Rolex Player of the Year award and a sixth Vare Trophy. To top it all off, Sӧrenstam became the all-time points leader during her seventh Solheim Cup appearance.

The accolades kept rolling in for Sӧrenstam, winning The Golf Writers Association of American Female Players of the Year for the eighth time. Already awarded Best Female Golfer at the ESPY Awards on six different occasions, Sӧrenstam won the 2005 ESPY Award for Best Female Athlete.

2006–2008 — She gets knocked down, but she gets up again

In early 2006 the first official Women’s World Golf Rankings came out, Sӧrenstam was ranked first and without a doubt, that ranking was attributed to her complete and utter dominance of the sport from 2001 through 2005.

After eight weeks without a victory, Sӧrenstam won her third US Open and her 10th major championship, ending up up third on the all-time list.

2007

The following season would be tumultuous for Sӧrenstam as a result of ruptured and bulging discs in her neck. After a lengthy eight-week rehabilitation stint, Sӧrenstam returned to action despite being less than 100 percent healthy. She finished tied for 36th place and, still clearly not quite 100 percent at the LPGA Championship and US Women’s Open, finished tied for 15th and 32nd, respectively.

The remainder of Annika’s 2007 season consisted of a disappointing early round exit at the World Matchplay Championship followed by a strong 6th place finish at the Evian Masters, a solid 16th at the Women’s British Open, and a top ten on the Ladies European Tour.

Although she failed to win a tournament on the LPGA Tour for the first time since 1994, later in the year while on the European Tour, Sӧrenstam won the Dubai Ladies Masters for the second time.

2008 — Victory speech beginnings and retirement announcement endings

Working hard to recover from her injury, Sӧrenstam appeared to be 100 percent at the first event of the 2008 season, winning the SBS Open at Turtle Bay for her 70th LPGA Tour victory. A couple of months later, she was back in the winner’s circle, claiming the Stanford International Pro-Am.

Playing like the Annika Sӧrenstam we had grown to know and love, she won again two weeks later at the Michelob ULTRA Open at Kingsmill, snagging her 72nd LPGA Tour win.

In a bit of a surprise announcement, Sӧrenstam announced on May 13 that she would step away from golf at the end of the 2008 season. It was a busy 48 hours for Sӧrenstam who proceeded to throw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals versus New York Mets game that night then appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman the following night.

Sӧrenstam won her final event in a playoff at the Suzhou Taihu Ladies Open and missed the weekend cut at the season-ending ADT Championship in November.

Sӧrenstam retired with 72 LPGA wins, including 10 majors, and 94 wins worldwide. She and her sister Charlotta hold the distinction of being the first two sisters to both win $1 million on the LPGA Tour.

Annika Sӧrenstam – Act II

Golf Course Design

Interested in golf course design midway through her playing career, Sӧrenstam has taken part in numerous design projects. The first of these was completed at the Mission Hills Golf Club in Shenzen, China back in 2003 and is known as the “Annike Course”.

In January of 2006, she launched her second project which opened in South Africa at Euphoria Golf Estate & Hydro in 2008. Sӧrenstam designed a golf course at Golden Bay Resort in South Korea in 2010 — her first post-retirement project. While she’s enjoyed this part of her professional life, she noted in an interview with CNN in 2017 that it’s difficult as a designer to get past the stereotypes. The misconceptions are that women will design courses that are shorter in distance and easier to navigate.

Although generally a success, even when you’re Annika Sӧrenstam there are times when everything doesn’t fall perfectly into place. She and Jack Nicklaus lost a bid to build the Olympic Golf Course used in Rio in 2016, but Annika recently announced that there are several other projects in the making. Some of these include a course near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a redesign of the Patriots Point Links Course in South Carolina, and a new course in British Columbia, Canada.

Business Career

The transition from her golf career to entrepreneur was a smooth one for Sӧrenstam, beginning in the last few years before her retirement from pro golf. Her goals were to combine golf, fitness, and philanthropy into numerous businesses under the brand name ANNIKA.

The ANNIKA Academy at Ginn Reunion Resort started construction while she was still racking up tournament wins in 2006. It opened in early spring of 2007 with her sister Charlotta as an instructor and club fitter, her personal trainer overlooking all fitness regimens, her coach Henri Reis as head instructor, and Sӧrenstam available for occasional personal coaching.

Sӧrenstam is an ambassador for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and she hosted clinics for junior golfers during The Annika Invitational featuring the top 60 girls worldwide hosted by The ANNIKA Foundation.

In 2016, Annika made the difficult decision to close the academy stating:

“After an amazing and inspiring run, we have made the decision not to renew our ANNIKA Academy agreement with Reunion Resort, and to dissolve the ANNIKA Academy to focus on our family and other business interests. The Academy will officially close on May 31, 2016, and no programs will take place after that date.”

Although the academy closed, the ANNIKA brand branched out into other businesses including a clothing line with Cutter & Buck, a signature fragrance, and wine produced in partnership with Wente Vineyards.

Captaincy for Team Europe Solheim Cup

Five years after her retirement, Sӧrenstam was a non-playing assistant captain for Team Europe at the 2013 Solheim Cup at the Colorado Golf Club. There was an incident during one match in which the American team accused Sӧrenstam of telling a European caddie that Jodi Ewart-Shadoff should concede a par putt to Paula Creamer of the United States, in efforts to not show Creamer’s teammate, Lexi Thompson, the line of her putt. The problem, according to the Americans, is that by the rules, only the captain (in this case Liselotte Neumann), can advise players during a match. The incident turned out to be minor, as the Europeans easily defeated the Americans by an 18-10 score to defend the Cup. This was the first time Team Europe won on foreign soil.

Back in Europe at the Golf Club St. Leon-Rot in Germany for the 2015 Solheim Cup, Sӧrenstam was selected as an assistant captain by Swedish native Carin Koch. During the second afternoon’s four-ball match between Brittany Lincicome of the United States against Suzann Pettersen and Charley Hull for Team Europe, the match was all square when Lee missed a putt on the 17th to win the hole. Assuming her next putt from a foot and a half was conceded, she picked up her ball. Pettersen noted that the hole was never conceded and the Europeans won the hole. Sӧrenstam and Koch tried to convince Pettersen to concede the putt, but it was not possible according to the rules, since Lee already picked up her ball before a concession.

Another incident occurred later in the 2015 Solheim Cup when Sӧrenstam strongly denied to US captain Juli Inkster that she was advising a player. In the end, the United States won the cup by the narrowest of margins, 14 ½ to 13 ½ . Sӧrenstam was promoted to captain of the 2017 European Solheim cup team that took place at Des Moines Golf and Country Club. Although dominating as a player in Solheim Cup matches, Sӧrenstam couldn’t lead the team to victory, falling to the US team by the score of 16 ½ to 11 ½.

Personal Life and Hobbies

Sӧrenstam met her first husband David Esch in 1994 at the Moon Valley Country Club in Phoenix, Arizona. At the time, she was a rookie on the LPGA Tour and he worked for Ping (Is there an 80s song that starts out like this?) The couple got engaged at The Evian Masters and were married at Lake Tahoe in January of 1997. They were married for eight years.

In 2006, Annika began dating Mike McGee, business manager for her Annika brand, and son of former PGA Tour and Champions Tour Jerry McGee. The couple got married in Orlando, Florida at Lake Nona Golf & Country Club on January 10, 2009. Their daughter, Ava, was born on September 1, 2009, and their son, William, was born on March 21, 2011.

Among Sӧrenstam’s hobbies is cooking, and she often discussed enrolling in cooking school while still playing on the LPGA Tour. She took the time to improve her cooking skills by working full-time shifts in the kitchens of Lake Nona Country Club before the 2003 season. In addition, Sӧrenstam is widely active in investments, real estate, and the stock market.

Don’t call it a comeback — I’ve been here for years.

Sӧrenstam has mentioned that she’s been playing a little bit of golf here and there in the last year. Her son has been getting more involved in the game and now it’s become a big part of their family’s lives.

While not looking to play since becoming a full-time mother, Sӧrenstam admitted to being nervous and rusty during her appearance at Diamond Resorts in the Tournament of Champions celebrity division. While those feelings are natural, Sӧrenstam will undoubtedly overcome them, as she has everything else she’s encountered.

Although the Hall of Fame exemption gets Sӧrenstam into tournaments, she really has no plans to play other events at this time. That being said, the US Senior Women’s Open is still a very intriguing possibility. She may say her expectations are low, but when mentioning that she needs tournament reps to play well, Sӧrenstam isn’t heading out on the course to simply make an appearance — that’s not in her DNA.

During the first event of the season, Annika was paired with Gaby Lopez and Nelly Korda who thoroughly enjoyed playing with the Hall of Famer. Korda mentioned playing with a legend was “really cool” and noted that “she still has it, she has her touch around the greens. Once you have it, you never lose it.” Lopez reflected, “today was probably one of the luckiest days of my life being able to play with her in a competitive round.”

We completely understand, Gaby. Getting a chance to see Annika compete in an official event after so many years away will make turning the page to 2021 that much sweeter!