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Annika Sorenstam (born October 9, 1970) is a Swedish
professional golfer.
She is one of the most successful female golfers ever.
To date, she has won 69 official LPGA tournaments,
including ten majors. Every year from 2000 to 2005 she
won at least five tournaments and she tops the LPGA's
career money list by several million dollars, with
earnings of over $19 million.
Sörenstam has won eight Rolex Player of the Year awards,
and is the holder of various all-time scoring records,
including the lowest score in a single round (59 in the
second round of the 2001 Standard Register PING
tournament) and the lowest scoring average for one
season (68.6969 in 2004). Sorenstam has also won the
Vare Trophy, given to the LPGA player with the lowest
scoring average for the year, six times.
Born in Bro, Sweden in the Upplands-Bro Municipality
outside Stockholm, As a child Sörenstam played
competitive tennis and skied. At the age of 12 she
switched to golf and enjoyed a very successful amateur
career. She was a member of the Swedish National Team
from 1987 to 1992 and played at the 1990 and 1992 World
Amateur Golf Team Championships, becoming World Amateur
champion in 1992. Sörenstam moved to the United States
to attend college and played on the University of
Arizona women's golf team where she won seven collegiate
titles including the 1991 individual NCAA National
Championship. She was 1991 NCAA Co-Player of the Year
(with Kelly Robbins), runner-up in 1992, 1992 Pac-10
champion and a 1991-92 NCAA All-American. In 1992 she
was the runner-up to Vicki Goetze at the United States
Women's Amateur Golf Championship. She became a
professional golfer in 1993, playing on the WPGET (now
Ladies European Tour) tour.
After turning professional, Sorenstam was invited to
play in three LPGA tournaments early in 1993, finishing
T38th, 4th, and T9th earning more than $47,000. She
finished second four times on the WPGET tour and was
named 1993 WPGET Rookie of the Year. She qualified for
the LPGA Tour by tying for 28th at the LPGA Final
Qualifying Tournament to earn non-exempt status for the
1994 season.
In 1994, Sorenstam was named LPGA Rookie of the Year
after and had three top-10 finishes, including a tie for
second at the Weetabix Women's British Open. In 1995,
she won her first LPGA Tour title at the U.S. Women's
Open. She also led the 1995 WPGET Order of Merit and won
the Jerringpriset award in Sweden, the country’s most
prestigious award in sports.
In 1996, Sorenstam won four tournaments including the
U.S. Women's Open again, passed the $1 million mark in
LPGA career earnings and won her second consecutive Vare
Trophy for lowest season scoring average. In 1997 she
won 6 LPGA titles, one JLPGA title plus her home WPGET
tournament, the Compaq Open in Sweden, and passed
$2million LPGA career earnings. 1998 saw her became the
first player in LPGA history to finish a season with a
sub-70 scoring average (69.99). During 1999 she recorded
her first LPGA career hole-in-one and crossed the $4
million mark in LPGA career earnings.
2000 had Sorenstam cross the $5 million and $6 million
mark in LPGA career earnings. In 2001, her career
started to take off. She recorded eight LPGA wins, set
or tied a total of 30 LPGA records, including a 59 (-13)
during the second round of the Standard Register PING.
She became the first LPGA player to cross the $2 million
mark in single-season earnings, and became the first
player to cross the $7 million and $8 million mark in
LPGA career earnings.
In 2002, she joined Mickey Wright as the only players to
win 11 LPGA tournaments in one season, earned her fifth
Player of the Year title and fifth Vare Trophy; set or
tied a total of 20 LPGA records; won her fourth major
championship title by successfully defending the Kraft
Nabisco Championship; her 11-stroke victory at the
Kellogg-Keebler Classic tied the LPGA record for largest
margin of victory in a 54-hole event. She also became
the first player to cross the $9 million, $10 million
and $11 million marks in LPGA career earnings; There
were also victories in the ANZ Ladies Masters in
Australia and Compaq Open in Sweden on the Ladies
European Tour, giving her 13 wins in 25 starts
worldwide.
In 2003, Sorenstam won the McDonald’s LPGA Championship
and the Weetabix Women’s British Open to become only the
sixth player in LPGA history to complete the LPGA Career
Grand Slam. She had 5 other victories worldwide and set
or tied a total of 22 LPGA records. She became the first
player to reach $12 million and $13 million in LPGA
career earnings. This earned her her sixth Rolex Player
of the Year award. She competed against Fred Couples,
Phil Mickelson and Mark O'Meara in the Skins Game,
finishing second with five skins worth $225,000;
Sörenstam holed a 39-yard bunker shot on the ninth hole
for eagle, only the eighth eagle in The Skins Game
history. She was awarded her second Jerringpriset award
in Sweden plus the 2003 Golf Writers’ Trophy by the
Association of Golf Writers. The United States Sports
Academy named her 2003 Female Athlete of the Year.
In 2004, she earned her seventh Player of the Year award
to tie Kathy Whitworth for the most in LPGA history. On
the LPGA she posted 16 top-10 finishes in 18 starts,
including eight wins becoming the first player to reach
$14 million and $15 million in LPGA career earnings. She
took her own LPGA single-season scoring average record
to 68.69696. She had 2 additional international wins.
2005 was a landmark year in Sorenstam's career. She
finished finished first on the ADT Official Money List
for the eighth time in her career to tie Whitworth for
the most in LPGA history. She became the only player in
LPGA history to sweep Rolex Player of the Year honors
(8th time, an LPGA record), the Vare Trophy (her sixth)
and the ADT Official Money List title five times. She
joined Mickey Wright as the only players in LPGA history
to win 10 or more events in two seasons.Sorenstam won 10
out of 20 tournaments entered. She became the first
player in LPGA history to win the same major three
consecutive years at the McDonalds’s LPGA Championship.
She won her fifth consecutive Mizuno Classic title,
making her the first golfer in LPGA history to win the
same event five consecutive years. This all helped her
to cross the $16 million, $17 million and $18 million
mark in LPGA career earnings. She also won the Swedish
Ladies European Tour tournament she was hosting.
She opened 2006, with a successful defense of her title
in the MasterCard Classic, then went winless in eight
starts, causing some to talk of a slump. She emerged to
win the U.S. Women's Open in an 18-hole playoff for her
10th major championship title, tying her for third among
women with the most major championship wins of all time.
Amid notable controversy, Sörenstam was invited to play
in The Colonial golf tournament in Fort Worth, Texas in
May of 2003, making her the first woman to play in a PGA
event since Babe Zaharias, who qualified for the 1945
Los Angeles Open. Cheered through each hole, she shot a
+5, tying for 96th out of the 111 who finished the first
two rounds, not enough to make the cut.
She qualified for the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2000,
but was not eligible for induction until finishing her
tenth year on the LPGA tour, which she did in October
2003. Sörenstam was the first international player to be
inducted into the Hall of Fame through the LPGA
criteria.
She has been named Golf Writers Association of America
Female Player of the Year 1995, 1997, 2000-05. She also
won the Association of Golf Writers (Europe) Player of
the Year award in 2004 and 2005.
She won the "World Sportswoman of the Year" award at the
Laureus World Sports Awards in 2004. She won her last
two LPGA events of that season and her first three of
2005 to equal Nancy Lopez's LPGA Tour record of five
consecutive victories. Sörenstam received the 2005 ESPY
Award as Best Female Athlete having previously won six
outstanding women’s golf performer of the Year ESPY
awards.(1996, 1998-99, 2002-04). She has been named
Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year 2003-2005.
She has topped the Women's World Golf Rankings since
they were introduced in February 2006.
She has been a member of seven European Solheim Cup
teams: 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2005. In
2006 she won the Women's World Cup of Golf for Sweden in
partnership with Liselotte Neumann.
In 2004, she released a combination autobiography and
golf instructional book called Golf Annika's Way.
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