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Sorenstam is the hottest golfer of all

Sunday, April 07, 2002

By Dave Shelburne, The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES -- Another tournament, another title charge by Annika Sorenstam? It's a question that must be occurring to many in the field at Tarzana's El Caballero Country Club today, when Sorenstam and most of the best players in the LPGA tee off in the Office Depot Championship hosted by Amy Alcott.

Annika Sorenstam won her fourth major last weekend at the Nabisco Championship. (Lenny Ignelzi, Associated Press)

Sorenstam, the 31-year-old Swede who is the world's top-ranked female golfer (and the world's most productive golfer of either sex over the past 15 months), has done more than her share of sprinting in the stretch this year.

It started with a four-hole playoff win over former world No. 1 Karrie Webb in the Australian Women's Masters.

Webb entered that competition in her homeland bidding for a record fifth consecutive title in the same event and entered the final round in first place, three strokes ahead of Sorenstam.

It wound up the beginning of a surge that would give Sorenstam three victories in five starts. One of her losses came in another playoff. Her latest victory came last week, in the Kraft Nabisco Championship, which wound up Sorenstam's fourth major title and second in a row in that tournament.

"It might not be a winning streak," Sorenstam said of her past five events, "but it's a good streak for me."

She was working on one even better 12 months ago, after making up 10 strokes in the final round to win for a fourth consecutive week when the Office Depot was held at Wilshire Country Club.

A new site maybe, but not much else is different for the quiet and determined Sorenstam, who arrives at El Cab leading the tour in scoring and greens in regulation, and maybe concentration, as well.

"She has phenomenal focus," tournament host and Hall of Famer Alcott said. "It's the kind of focus you see in a player like Tiger Woods. People like that, when they're in the zone -- it's a beautiful thing when a player can just dial it in."

Sorenstam has pretty much been dialing it in since the conclusion of a 2000 season she deemed disappointing despite five wins and 15 top-10 finishes in 22 events.

Good but not good enough for her in light of a fourth consecutive year of no major championships after she won back-to-back U.S. Open titles in 1995 and '96.

So, hello conditioning.

Like Woods, whose fitness rivals his ball-striking ability on the PGA Tour, Sorenstam made a commitment to getting into better shape and it has paid immediate and continuing benefits.

She won eight times last year -- the second-highest total on tour in 22 years -- and included a round of 59 and season scoring average of 69.42 among the 30 LPGA records she set or tied in 2001.

In the process, she rekindled a rivalry with Webb, who had ended Sorenstam's two-year run (1997-98) run as LPGA Player of the Year with a two-year run of her own in 1999-2000. Last year, Sorenstam returned to the top, but Webb won two of the four LPGA majors, enhancing a two-player rivalry of a quality unseen on any professional tour since Jack Nicklaus was dueling Arnold Palmer in the 1960s.

"We bring out the best in one another," Webb said. "I know I need to play my best golf to compete with her."

The stage was set for another Webb-Sorenstam showdown last week, when both played in the final group of the Nabisco at Mission Hills, bringing together two players who had combined to win 59 tour events and six Player of the Year awards.

Sorenstam won with relentless efficiency that day, recording four birdies in a bogeyless round that wound up more notable for the brilliant red shoes she wore, shoes that drew comparisons to the red shirts Woods always wears on tournament Sundays.

But Webb and most of the best of the rest of the LPGA get another shot at Sorenstam this week, when eight of the tour's top 10 players are in the field.

The one to beat, as judged by her 11 victories in the past 15 month, comes in a bit road-weary. This will be the fourth consecutive week Sorenstam has played -- all as defending champion, even if this defense is at a new venue.

"It being a different course doesn't really make a difference to me," Sorenstam said. "I like the other golf course, but I've heard a lot of good things about this (course), too, so it's going to be a good week anyway."

Most of them are, for her.

"It's like the station never changes," said Alcott, who thinks it is as good for the LPGA as it is for Sorenstam and has an appreciation for the effort in a profession in which time is fleeting.

"You're only on Broadway for so long and you're only given that place for so long. You'd better milk it for all it's worth."