GARY BAINES: A Matter Of Perspective

Sorenstam Left Indelible
Mark on Colorado Golf

Annika won at Broadmoor, tried to extend bid for Grand Slam at Cherry Hills

    I had the pleasure of being on hand for every round of tournament golf that Annika Sorenstam played in Colorado.

    Four at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs 13 years ago when she won the U.S. Women’s Open, the first of her 72 LPGA victories. Four at Cherry Hills south of Denver three years ago when she came up short in her attempt to win the first three legs of the Grand Slam while again competing in the U.S. Women’s Open.

     It was a splendid, though all-too-short run for Sorenstam in this state and overall as she announced Tuesday that she will retire at the end of the season, just after she turns 38.

    Her early exit from the game wasn’t difficult to foresee. The fact that she made her announcement Tuesday, the week after routing chief rival Lorena Ochoa to win the Michelob Ultra Open, was a surprise. But Sorenstam calling it quits at a young age — that part didn’t take Nostradamus to forecast.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

    On June 18, 2005, on the eve of the Women’s Open at Cherry Hills, I wrote a column in the (Boulder) Camera newspaper that I now wish had been proven wrong. In it, I wrote, “Unfortunately, next week will also likely mark the last time Sorenstam competes in this state. With the LPGA tour not having a regular stop in Colorado, and with Sorenstam, 34, having hinted  that it’s unlikely she’ll be a tour regular well into her 40s, she may make her final bow at Cherry Hills.

    “Sorenstam is a once-in-a-lifetime player whose accomplishments may not be fully appreciated until she’s not competing anymore.”

     Indeed, while some athletes compete well beyond their primes, the end comes far too quickly in other cases.

     Few sports fans knew much — if anything — about Sorenstam until as a 24-year-old she burst onto the scene with her one-shot victory at the Broadmoor in 1995, making her first LPGA victory a major one. Yet here we are less than 13 years later and she has 72 wins — and 10 major championships — to her credit.

     Meg Mallon, who finished runner-up to Sorenstam at the Broadmoor, noted a few years ago, “It’ll be neat to say I was around when Annika was playing the greatest golf in history.”

     As Sorenstam came to Cherry Hills for the 2005 Women’s Open, she had won 31 times in 66 LPGA events in the previous 3 1/2 years. Put another way, while usually competing in a field of 156 players, she came out No. 1 47 percent of the time she teed it up during that time span.

     “It’s almost like she’s toying with us,” fellow LPGA veteran Laura Davies said then.

    “She’s in a league of her own,” Denver-born LPGA player Jill McGill added.

     Adding to the chorus, then-LPGA commissioner Ty Votaw said: “You are witnessing one of the greatest runs of any athlete in any sport at any time.”

      Given Sorenstam’s retirement announcement, she won’t get a chance to become the all-time winningest player in LPGA history. That record belongs to Kathy Whitworth, at 88 victories, but back in 2005 Whitworth had all but conceded that Sorenstam was easily going to overtake her.

       “There’s no question she’ll make it; it’s just a question of when,” Whitworth said at Cherry Hills three years ago. “I would think she would do it by next year (2006), or maybe in two years (2007).”

      It didn’t happen, of course, and it apparently won’t now, but that doesn’t mean Sorenstam won’t go down as one of the very best players in the history of women’s golf.

     “Several times I’ve had to pinch myself when people talk about a career 56 victories,” Sorenstam said during a November 2004 visit to Cherry Hills. “When I first got out here (on tour), I didn’t know if I could win once. Now, 11 years later I’m in the (LPGA and World Golf) Hall of Fame. It’s amazing.”

     The memorable moments also include being the first player to shoot a 59 in an LPGA event (in 2001) and at the 2003 Colonial becoming the first woman to play in a PGA Tour event since 1945.

    One less-publicized moment that may have made a big difference in Sorenstam’s career came in 1995 when she said she came within about five minutes of missing the registration deadline for the Women’s Open at the Broadmoor. Who knows how Sorenstam’s career might have been altered had she not entered that tournament — the tournament that started everything career-wise for the quiet Swede.

     Though Sorenstam said the last nine holes of the ‘95 Women’s Open seemed like they were all 700 yards long, and noted that it felt like her heart was pounding at 2,000 beats per minute down the stretch, she shot a final-round 68 to overcome Mallon.

    “I felt the nerves were swinging, not me,” Sorenstam said after the round.  “I’ve been nervous before, but never like this. I lost confidence for a while, but I knew I may not get the chance (to win the Open) again, so I wasn’t going to give up.

     “... This has always been a dream, but it’s been almost unreachable, untouchable. This is the biggest tournament in the world that you can win. For me, it’s the world championship.”

    Even though a decade later she called the 1995 Women’s Open victory “kind of a fluke,” Sorenstam noted, “For my confidence it’s been incredible. ... Things have never been the same since.”

     Sorenstam had won six of eight events on the LPGA tour going into the 2005 Women’s Open, but things didn’t go according to plan for her at Cherry Hills. A final-round 77 left her nine shots behind champion Birdie Kim, ending her bid for the calendar-year Grand Slam.

   “I’m disappointed, but I’m going to leave here and know in my heart I gave it my all,” Sorenstam said after her final tournament round in Colorado.

    Win or lose, the impression Sorenstam made in this state won’t soon fade. 

Annika Sorenstam after winning the
1995 U.S. Women’s Open at the Broadmoor.