2
AURORA, ONT. — The drive was first-rate, as were so many shots Annika Sorenstam had hit – and continues to hit.
She wasn't remembering a shot that she hit yesterday during the Scotiabank Women's Charity Challenge at the Magna Golf Club, but a drive off the first tee at the PGA Tour's Colonial tournament in Fort Worth, Tex.
Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the day Sorenstam, then 32, became the first woman since Babe Zaharias 58 years earlier to play a PGA Tour event. She's back at Colonial today to do a corporate event for Merrill Lynch.
“It'll be cool,” Sorenstam said yesterday as she sat in the stands set up so guests could watch a clinic she and fellow LPGA Tour professionals Morgan Pressel and Alena Sharp of Hamilton would later conduct.
She's returning to in Fort Worth only eight days after announcing she'll retire from competition at the end of this year. That was big news, but it was also big news when she played the Colonial.
“I was very nervous,” said Sorenstam, a winner of 72 LPGA tournaments, including 10 majors. “There was such a build-up for four months before, and all the practice and preparation. I was under the microscope. It was a big deal.”
Sorenstam knew it would be a big deal, but she couldn't have predicted how she would feel on the first tee. There were cameras everywhere and spectators at the first tee. What would happen?
She wasn't a champion golfer because she couldn't handle the big moments. Sorenstam had learned to pursue her dreams in a manner of her choosing.
She had come out of Sweden and dominated women's golf. She and Tiger Woods text-messaged each other every time one of them won a major. They were pushing each other. She was also pushing herself. Hard.
“Any top athlete, you have to be innovative to find ways to stay at the top,” she said yesterday. “You have to continue to work hard, to set new goals. That's what I love about it.”
Sorenstam addressed the ball and swung. The drive sailed down the fairway. She staggered forward intentionally, as if to say she was glad that was over.
“Once I hit that shot, it was relief,” she said. “I hit it in the fairway and now it's time to play.”
Play she did. Sorenstam shot 71-74. She missed the cut by four strokes and learned that her short game wasn't up to PGA Tour standards. But, as anybody who watched knows, and as she said yesterday: “My ball-striking was very, very good, and I was very pleased with that.”
This was a one-off. Sorenstam wasn't trying to prove anything. She was challenging only herself and not trying to say women should play PGA Tour events. Michelle Wie, then 13, would soon start playing a bunch. She doesn't do that any more.
“It was all about challenging myself,” Sorenstam said. “I was trying to be as good as I could be and I wanted to test my game against the best men in the world. You want to challenge yourself. I totally pushed myself.”
Still, there were detractors. Some observers felt she was playing the Colonial as a publicity stunt. That wasn't close to the truth.
Meanwhile, the effect of her effort was to make skeptics realize LPGA golfers can play.
“Small things like that help,” Sorenstam said of what transpired during the 2003 Colonial. “I think the understanding grew that we're competitive, that we care, and that any female athlete wants to be the best. I've worked very hard to get as good as I am.”
Sorenstam won people over. Golf World's Ron Sirak follows women's golf more closely than other journalists, and he wrote that people saw “a personal voyage of self-discovery carried out on a public stage.”
That wasn't easy for Sorenstam, who agreed yesterday that her nature is shy and introverted.
Maybe that's part of the reason she'll be “stepping away” from the game, to use her words. But five years ago, she stepped into the men's game and didn't flinch.
Nine of Canada's top junior girls played one hole each with Sorenstam yesterday in a match against Sharp and Pressel. They probably learned something.
“I learned it's important just to be yourself,” Sorenstam said, “to follow your dreams. If you have the right intention, it's okay to do it.”
She had the right intention, and, under the microscope, she did it.
