CHARLOTTE, N.C. — At 51, Annika Sorenstam was roughly twice the age of the average golfer at the U.S. Women’s Open on Thursday.
Of course, Sorenstam isn’t your average golfer. She’s arguably the GOAT of women’s golf, famous enough to be known by her first name only around the golf world.
But of course a golf ball doesn’t know who’s hitting it, and so while Sorenstam’s name recognition was off the charts in the first round Thursday and she was cheered loudly at every hole, her score was pedestrian. Sorenstam shot a 3-over-par 74 at Pine Needles, meaning that she will be in danger of missing the cut Friday if she doesn’t shoot around even par.
Still, she had fun playing, she said, while thinking about a whole different set of problems than she had when she won the Women’s Open in 1995, 1996 and 2006.
“Now it’s like I worry about my husband and I worry about the kids,” Sorenstam said, speaking of her son, Will, and daughter, Ava. “You know, ‘Are they drinking? Do they have enough sunblock?’ And then it’s like, ‘OK, now you have to hit a hybrid (club).’ ... So yeah, sometimes I get a little distracted. There were a few holes where I was like, ‘Where did Will go, you know? Is he climbing a tree somewhere? But then I saw him on 18. So it’s nice.”
In the meantime, Sorenstam’s playing partner was blitzing the course. Ingrid Lindblad, a 22-year-old amateur who currently goes to LSU, shot a 6-under 65 in the first round. Like Sorenstam, Lindblad is from Sweden, and like all golfers from that country she knows Sorenstam’s record very well.
“When I saw I was playing with her, I was like in shock,” Lindblad said.
Lindblad didn’t let it affect her, though, besting Sorenstam by nine strokes on the day — out-driving her and out-putting her. Sorenstam, who once shot 59 in a competitive round and has won 10 major titles, left the grind of weekly competitive golf in 2008 to start a family and a new life. She won a greater percentage of the time on the women’s tour than Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus did on the men’s.
Sorenstam won the U.S. Open at Pine Needles in 1996, at the height of her powers, and was asked Thursday what it felt like to play the same course in the same tournament 26 years later.
“I’m a lot more content in my life,” Sorenstam said. “My playing days are over. I’m not here to create a new career or start something new and make a mark for myself. I’m more here to enjoy what I’ve done and enjoy being invited to come here and play and share it with my loved ones.”
Sorenstam isn’t going to win this tournament, but she’s not a purely ceremonial golfer, either. She got that invitation by winning the U.S. Women’s Senior Open in 2021 by an astounding eight shots.
Some of her talent has rubbed off on her family, too. Her 11-year-old son Will McGee made his first hole-in-one on a par-3 course at Pinehurst this week, a fact initially reported by Sorenstam’s husband and Will’s father, Mike McGee (who manages her business enterprises and often caddies for her, too).
“We called him ‘Ace’ last night,” Sorenstam said of her son. “That was his nickname. And every time we said that, he lit up.”
That’s Sorenstam’s life now, and she’s happy with it. She’s no longer chasing tournaments; she’s chasing kids, and playing some golf when she can. It sounded like what she’s liking most about this week is letting her kids watch her play in the biggest tournament in women’s golf.
Lindblad, meanwhile, will play with Sorenstam again Friday and seems to have a real shot at the record $1.8 million first prize for this tournament. The problem? As a declared amateur, even if Lindblad won the tournament, she couldn’t accept the money. She would have had to declare herself a pro first, but she had already planned to spend another year in college before going pro.
Sorenstam made decisions like that long ago. Now she’s in her twilight years for competitive golf and said she’s fine with that. She said she can’t find the higher gear she used to, but that’s OK.
“There’s nowhere else to go,” Sorenstam said, and then she went right back to where she wanted to be anyway, to her family.
