Annika Sorenstam Biography

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Annika Sorenstam dominated the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour in the 1990s and 2000s, winning 72 LPGA events and just over $22 million. Sorenstam also won 18 international tournaments for a career total of 90 pro victories. She played her first LPGA events in 1993 and joined the tour in 1994, winning Rookie of the Year honors. She quickly became one of the leading players in the women's game, winning the U.S. Women's Open in 1995 (her first career victory) and again in 1996. Sorenstam was named the LPGA's Rolex Player of the Year in 1995, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005. In 2002 she won an amazing 11 tour victories, bringing her career total to 42. (She also won 2 international tournaments that year, making 13 victories in 25 starts.) In May of 2003 she entered a men's PGA event, The Colonial -- becoming the first woman to play a PGA event since Babe Didrikson Zaharias played in the LA Open in 1945. She also was the first player ever to break 60 in an LPGA event; she shot a 59 at the par-72 Moon Valley Country Club in Phoenix in the second round of the 2001 Standard Register PING tournament. Sorenstam quit competitive golf at the end of the 2008 season, although she did not use the word "retirement." She married Mike McGee on 10 January 2009, and their first child, Ava Madelyn McGee, was born on 1 September 2009.

Extra credit: Sorenstam is 5'6" tall... She married David Esch, then an executive at Callaway Golf, on 4 January 1997; they were divorced in 2005... Her career victories have automatically qualified Sorenstam for the sport's Hall of Fame... Her dominance of the women's tour was often compared to Tiger Woods's dominance of the PGA in the same era... Sorenstam attended the University of Arizona... Her sister Charlotta also is an international-class golfer... Mike McGee became managing director of Sorenstam's business brand in 2006. He is the son of former pro golfer Jerry McGee.

Other golfers of Sorenstam's era include Nancy Lopez, John Daly and Michelle Wie.

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