Annika Sörenstam

Still focused on the goal: Sörenstam on course in Orlando, Florida, this year

Annika Sörenstam’s amazing haul of 10 Majors and 94 tournaments in all are but a part of the Swede’s story. No less compelling is the tale of how golf has been the making of Sörenstam as a coach, a mother and someone who has what it takes to be President of the International Golf Federation, where she is involved in Olympic issues.

I first met Sörenstam on the first day of the 1992 Standard Register Ping event at the Moon Valley Country Club in Phoenix. Then the shyest of 21-year-olds and a student at Arizona University, she had been given an invitation to play in the tournament only to be turfed out of the competitors’ car park the moment she arrived. The car-park attendant said it was plain to him that she was too young to be competing among the professionals.

It took her forever to find somewhere that she could park but, after hurrying to Moon Valley with her clubs over her shoulder, she unfurled the calmest of 67s, one of the top scores of the day.

Most of the media interest was in well-known names such as Nancy Lopez, Patty Sheehan and Juli Inkster, but I stayed behind to ask Sörenstam whether she had a specific ambition in golf. What I thought she said – and what she would confirm when I persuaded her to speak up a bit – was as follows: “It’s to score in the 50s.”

Once I had digested that unexpected piece of information, she was happy to explain how such a thing could be done.

Citing Karl Enhager, the Swedish guru who worked with Sir Nick Faldo towards the end of his golfing reign, she spoke of how generations of golfers had made things too easy for themselves by viewing two putts per green as acceptable. Enhager had convinced Sörenstam and her peers that one putt was enough.

Eight years on, when Sörenstam won the same Standard Register tournament, she achieved her ambition in returning a sub-60 score. It was a second-round 59 and, as everyone knows, she has rejoiced in the title of “Miss 59” ever since.

Between 1995 and 2006 Sörenstam and Tiger Woods enjoyed a series of, believe-it-or-not, online exchanges as they raced each other to 10 Majors apiece. Sörenstam,

Ahead

of the game

Perhaps nobody has done more to pave the way for the quality of golf we shall see at Muirfield this year than the great Annika Sörenstam

Words: Lewine Mair

now 51, took between 1995 and 2006 to arrive at that tally, while the now 46-year-old Woods collected his first Major in 1997, and the 10th of his 15-strong collection, in 2005.

Yet the golfing occasion on which Sörenstam shone more brightly than any other was her lone foray into the men’s game in the 2003 Colonial tournament. Since this was in the days before Michelle Wie competed in a series of men’s events, people poured in to watch the Swede unfurl what she would describe as the best round of her life, a 71 from the men’s championship tees. Aaron Barber, one of her playing companions, was moved to remark: “She’s a machine! I’ve never played with someone who didn’t miss a shot.”

Her second round was a 74 but, when she holed a long putt across the last green, she did so to tumultuous applause. Her tears at the end had less to do with missing the cut – it came on 141 and she was 145 – than the fact that she had given her all to the exercise.

Kenny Perry, when he collected the first prize, could not have captured what the week was all about more graciously. “People,” he said, “will say I won Annika’s tournament.”

Sörenstam, who had by then turned herself from a relatively short hitter into a long one by dint of some judicious training, revisited her experience at the Colonial in A Letter to my Daughter which she penned for the LPGA in 2016.

“Finding your own place in the world as a strong woman is only going to get harder the older you get,” she advised little Ava. “A lot of people aren’t going to want you there but don’t listen to them. I didn’t and it led to the moment that would define my career.

“As we reached the first fairway,” she recalled of her opening round at the Colonial, “I saw something I’ll never forget. All these little girls were there to watch me – dads with their daughters, all smiling and waving and cheering me on.”

Like Woods on the PGA Tour, Sörenstam tended to keep to herself in her years on the LPGA and LET circuits.

“The journey to the top,” she told Ava, “is a lonely one. Early in my career I would join the other women for practice rounds in the morning; I would stand there with the other players but soon realised that I was getting nothing done. From then on, I would always come out in the afternoon and work by myself. I wasn’t there to make friends. I was there to do my job and to do it to the best of my ability.”

Sörenstam‘s experience in the company of the men whetted her appetite for learning more about the game she had played so well for so long. Even before she retired in 2008, she had opened an Annika Academy where she could pass on her knowledge to others.

She delighted in helping children not just to play the game, but to enjoy it, while there was a further development at the start of 2012 when she went as an HSBC Ambassador to the LPGA’s Brazil Cup tournament.

Her brief was to encourage golf among the country’s women and children. However, once she was there, she was hugely flattered when the women she had known from her playing days started coming up to her for advice.

Where she felt most able to assist was in the matter of analysis. It struck her that some of the players were taking a less than comprehensive look at the pattern of their play: “They would mention their disappointing putting statistics but it took a bit of prompting to get them to realise that their figures had more to do with wayward tee shots than their putting skills. They were leaving themselves 40-footers after approaching the green via the rough.”

Sörenstam is back playing a bit of golf herself in among her other commitments and, indeed, had a runaway, eight-shot victory over Liselotte Neumann in last year’s Senior US Open. Dame Laura Davies, who finished third, said of the Swede’s reappearance on the golfing scene: “She looked like the Annika of old… I knew straightaway that we’d be in trouble.”

In examining the player’s all-round achievements over the past 40 years, there is only conclusion anyone can draw. At 51, Sörenstam remains a rising star.

Sörenstam had a runaway, eight-shot victory in last year’s Senior US Open

Sörenstam competing at the 2003 Colonial tournament

Iona Stephen – Representing the Spirit of The Open

Introducing Iona Stephen, one of the rising stars within golf media. Former professional golfer, and now broadcaster, Iona works with many of golf’s global networks including GolfTV, Sky Sports Golf, the BBC and NBC Golf Channel

Iona’s rise has not come about by chance. From making her professional debut on the Ladies European Tour in 2016 before injury curtailed a promising playing career. Her insight, personality, and energy were quickly recognised by Golf’s major broadcasters. She has since worked at The Masters, Solheim Cup, Ryder Cup and of course, The Open.

This summer the world’s original major Championship will return to St Andrews for The 150th Open where Iona embarks on arguably the highlight of her impressive career to date as she brings the action to audiences live from behind the ropes as an on-course commentator for Sky Sports Golf at The Open.

Since Loch Lomond Whiskies became the Spirit of The Open in 2018, it too has become one of the rising stars in scotch whisky. Iona is one of the brands longest standing Ambassadors, and will also be found in Loch Lomond Whiskies’ iconic two-tier pavilion located in the heart of the Spectators Village. Here Iona will host a number of Q&As with other Loch Lomond Whiskies ambassadors such as Colin Montgomerie, Louis Oosthuizen and Lee Westwood with a variety of other surprise guests throughout the week.

Scotch Whisky goes hand-in-hand with Scotland’s number one sporting export, and The Open will have an exceptional selection of single malts, Ben Lomond Gin and Champagne Piaff to enjoy, brought to spectators by Loch Lomond Whiskies, the Official Spirit of The Open.