Swamigp’s Weblog

Annika Sorenstam, citing personal reasons, has decided to retire from competitive golf at season’s end. The #2 player in the world won 72 tournaments in her professional golf career, and was the face of the womens’s tour for over a decade. Being the face of the tour for so many years, her announcement at the age of 37 was shocking to some of her competitors, and even Tiger Woods who said it was “sad to see her walk away from the game.” Annika is third on the all time wins list in LPGA Tour history, 16 behind Kathy Witworth. Sorenstam won 10 majors and 7 Player of the Year awards after breaking into the sport on the professional circuit in 1993 at the age of 23. Though she played in three events on the LPGA Tour in her rookie season, she played primarily in the Ladies European Tour, winning their title for Rookie of the Year. Throughout the rest of the nineties, she won countless money titles and accounted for the most wins of the decade.

Annika, though still dominant, lost the #1 in the world title in 2002 to Karrie Webb. After Webb won 8 tournaments in 2001, Sorenstam answered with 11 LPGA Tour victories in the 2002 season, regaining the number 1 spot. One the most memorable moments of Sorenstam’s career came in 2003 when she laced em up with the men in the Colonial. Although she finished 96th and missed the cut, it was a big step for women golfers in the profession as well as women altogether. She gathered her 7th Player of the Year award in 2004, winning 10 tournaments, including two international events. She was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2003.