Sorenstam: ‘I Have Not Played Great’


By Dave Shedloski

This year’s talk at the U.S. Open of a “Mickel-Slam” was preceded a year ago at the U.S. Women’s Open by the buzz surrounding a potential “Soren-Slam.” Ain’t it funny how slams slip away?

Annika Sorenstam could seemingly do no wrong – and lose no big event – when she came to Cherry Hills Country Club in suburban Denver last year seeking the third leg of the women’s Grand Slam. She had won the Kraft Nabisco. And also won the McDonald’s LPGA Championship for a third straight year, making her just the seventh LPGA player in history to win the first two majors of the season.

Annika Sorenstam has won just once this season. (USGA Photo Archives)

Tied at nine career majors with the most dominant player in the men’s game, Tiger Woods, Sorenstam seemed poised to add a third national title to her back-to-back victories in 1995-96. But somehow the run never materialized, the Swedish star tumbled to a tie for 23rd, and, although she finished the 2005 season with a flourish – winning the money title, the Vare Trophy for lowest stroke average and her eighth Rolex Player of the Year award – she seems to have lost her touch in the majors, if not in general.

“I have not played great, and I am not even playing close to what I did last year,” said Sorenstam, 36, of Incline Village, Nev., in a recent conference call, mincing no words about her 2006 season that includes just one victory as she heads to this week’s U.S. Women’s Open at Newport Country Club in Newport, RI.

Sorenstam begins her quest for her 10th major title at 1:25 p.m. Thursday, going off the No. 1 tee with youngsters Natalie Gulbis of Sacramento, Calif., and rookie Ai Miyazato of Japan. More important, she seeks to rekindle a form that brought her 10 victories last year and 49 of her 67 career titles dating back to 2000.

Though hardly slumping with a win and seven top-10 finishes this year, Sorenstam admits that her 2006 campaign hasn’t nearly matched the standard she has established or fulfilled her own expectations.

Last year she entered with Open with six victories. This year she has only the MasterCard Classic title. She hasn’t come to the Open without winning one of the year’s first two majors since 2000.

Last year she was a combined 81 under par in eight starts. This year she is 50 under in nine tournaments and she even missed her first cut since 2002 at the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill. Her stroke average this year is 70.13, fifth on tour, well off her 69.33 average that led the LPGA in ’05.

“I think this season has been a little bit of a roller coaster,” said Sorenstam, who finished tied for sixth at Nabisco and ninth at the LPGA Championship in going for her fourth win in a row there. “It has been very sporadic – some good rounds, some not so good rounds. I am actually continuing to practice on the stuff that I always do – seeing my coach as regular as I used to. This thing has not really clicked. My stats, if I look at them, are not as consistent, they are not as solid as in the past.”

Last year, Sorenstam led the tour in greens in regulation and putting, and she was 12th in driving accuracy. In 2006 she has slipped from 77 to 72 percent in greens hit (ranking 10th), lost 10 percent off her driving accuracy (70 percent) to slip to 59th in that category, and while her putts per green average is virtually identical (1.75 to 1.76), her total putting ranks only 58th on tour.

Uncharacteristic final rounds of 75 and 74 scuttled chances to win two more events this year.

Like Woods did in 1999-2002, Sorenstam in the last few years has established a level of performance so extraordinary that anything less looks like she’s struggling. As critics are wont to do, they’ve dusted off the slump terminology to describe the falloff in her game.

“Obviously, I don't use that word myself. And I'm one of few players that won this year, so I think, in a way, I take it as a compliment because I have set the standard very high,” said Sorenstam, who divorced last year and has found new outlets of interest: cooking, opening a golf school in Orlando, working on a fitness DVD and tinkering in golf course design. “The bar has obviously gotten a lot higher and I have high expectations of myself. We cannot forget that the competition gets better every year as well, and the way I look at it, I have not really played my best.”

Karrie Webb, who won the Kraft Nabisco this year after a lengthy period of struggle and who was once Sorenstam’s most consistent rival, said last month at the LPGA Championship that Sorenstam doesn’t appear to be struggling that much. “I think it's probably one of the most untalked about things in the sport, what Annika has been able to maintain for, what, five or six years now? I don't think she's far off, and we could be sitting here talking about it in a month and she could have won a couple of tournaments. And no one would be talking about perhaps the slump, or whatever."

Newport C.C. might be just the place for the best player in women’s golf to reassert her dominance, but recent history doesn’t suggest it. Since she won the U.S. Women’s Open in her second and third appearances, the championship hasn’t been a place for Sorenstam to get untracked. In her 10 other starts she has two seconds, three top-10s and two missed cuts. At Cherry Hills Sorenstam was never a factor, opening with a par score of 71 before shooting 75-73-77.

Putting four solid rounds together is a must in the Open. But that has been Sorenstam’s problem thus far in ’06. She knows it, and she’s working on changing it.

“I have had several good rounds in a tournament, but I haven not had three or four, which is what you need,” she said. “Last year, I was very consistent every week. Now I miss fairways, I have missed some greens, and then the next round, I hit a lot of fairways and I might not be able to score it. It just goes a little bit up and down at the moment, and I just keep on going because I know what I am capable of, and I think anything in life, it kind of has a plateau. I hit a little plateau at the moment, and I am trying to find a way how to get to the next step and keep on cruising, the way I did a few years ago.”

Dave Shedloski is a frequent contributor to USGA championship Web sites.