Golfweek

By BETH ANN BALDRY

REUNION, Fla. – Annika Sorenstam stood outside the doors of her new academy and watched a bulldozer push dirt around the soon-to-be short game area. If only she could bottle up that dirt and place it on her mantel next to last year’s U.S. Women’s Open trophy.

Perhaps then observers would understand Sorenstam’s new definition of success.

“I did lose ground last year, and I’m not happy about that,” said Sorenstam, who won three LPGA events in 2006 compared to 10 a year earlier. “I think you have to look at the whole picture. Golf, competitive wise, is a little piece of me. But it’s not all of me. I don’t want that piece to throw away all the other positive things that are happening to me.”

Sorenstam won three other events worldwide to go with her three LPGA victories, but critics deemed 2006 a down year. For the first time in five seasons she wasn’t the LPGA’s Player of the Year. She didn’t win the Vare Trophy for low scoring average, nor did she win the money title.

But as a stylish assistant dusted Sorenstam’s face with powder in the Reunion Resort clubhouse for a photo shoot, the world No. 1 seemed defensive when asked to assess 2006.

“To be honest with you, last year was one of my most successful years,” she said. “(The media) just sees the golf and the results, but in my opinion we achieved a lot last year. Some of the things weren’t victories, but we’ve really come a long way when it comes to building the brand, the academy, golf course design. I think I did more last year than I’ve done in any other year.”

Her personal trainer and business partner, Kai Fusser, calls Sorenstam the brightest person he has ever met. She tackles her business affairs the same way she tackles her game.

“Whatever she touches, she wants it to be perfect,” Fusser said.

But as with anything, that takes practice. Sorenstam says she has had to learn to delegate. It can be difficult for someone who plays an individual sport to master the art of team.

“In business it’s almost like you have to say, ‘Well, you putt, you chip, and I’ll fill in the scorecard,’ ” said Sorenstam. “But I would just like to do it all. I micromanage a little bit because I want it to be right. I’m a perfectionist.”

Sorenstam’s longtime caddie, Terry McNamara, says it wasn’t uncommon last season for his boss to be on the phone regularly during practice sessions, putting out fires on one of her many off-course projects.

She’s still working on a fitness DVD with Fusser that’s expected to come out this year, and she has several course design projects under way. The grand opening of Annika’s Academy at Reunion Resort is scheduled for April 16, the Monday following the Ginn Open.

To help alleviate some of that responsibility and pressure, Sorenstam has placed those who know her best in key positions. In addition to having Fusser and longtime swing coach Henri Reis working as instructors at the academy, Sorenstam has hired her younger sister, Charlotta, as manager of golf operations.

“It’s just amazing how nonstop she is . . . work, work, work, golf, golf,” said Charlotta.

To make sure that her vision is carried out in every aspect of her company, Sorenstam hired her boyfriend, Mike McGee, as managing director of her business affairs. McGee’s more outgoing, social approach is a nice balance to Sorenstam’s black-and-white, by-the-numbers technique. The couple’s goal is to attach the same qualities to Annika’s brand that she strives to display on the course: dedication, focus, elegance and femininity.

“I think I can learn from him but I also think he can learn from me,” said Sorenstam of her partnership with McGee. “Before, it was like I was working on my stuff, and he was working on his. Now it’s like we are working together on something. It’s a lot of fun.”

McNamara says he has never seen Sorenstam happier. After a 10-year drought, she again won the toughest test in golf, the U.S. Women’s Open, for the third time in her career last summer; her relationship with McGee is blossoming; and her new business ventures are fueling her competitive drive.

Sorenstam says she learned a lot from the tough spell she went through in 2005, when her first marriage came to an end. She acknowledges she probably should have “let go sooner” and struggled with the decision for 11/2 years. But she came out on the other side with a new perspective and stronger relationships with her parents and sister.

Although things are going swimmingly with her new beau, Sorenstam was upset by recent reports in a Swedish newspaper that she says misquoted her as saying she’s ready to retire and start a family.

“I’m not 22 anymore; you’ve got to start planning a little bit,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean this is the year. Right now we’re going so hard at all these other things, it’s a lot of time. In a way I wish time could stand still so I can finish these things up.”

With her team in place, Sorenstam says she can release some of the load she has been carrying to people she trusts. And because she was simply spread too thin last season, Sorenstam is significantly cutting back the number of LPGA events on her schedule to 15 from 20. She plans to play 19 to 20 events worldwide this season, including the Solheim Cup, as opposed to the 25 she played a year ago.

“The only good thing about not winning a lot of tournaments,” she said, “is that I don’t have to defend.”

McNamara saw his boss begin to get frustrated toward the end of last season when she couldn’t elevate her game down the stretch. Sorenstam finished runner-up in three consecutive events last fall before tying for third at the Mizuno Classic in Japan.

“I think she realized the reason she’s been so dominant in years before was because her game was so ‘familiar,’ because the time she put in practicing was quality time,” McNamara said. “Golf is a game of familiarity, it’s a game of routine. If you aren’t present when you’re practicing, it’s really hard to execute whenever you want to.”

Even if you’re Annika Sorenstam.

With 69 career LPGA victories and more than $20 million in career earnings, Sorenstam doesn’t need more trophies to be satisfied with her career.

But she wouldn’t be competing if she thought the best she could do was second. Perfectionists play to win.

And so Sorenstam did a little reorganizing for this season. She will play in fewer tournaments so that she can fit in her business obligations and still have quality practice sessions. She won’t play in enough events to contend for the Vare Trophy (minimum of 70 rounds) and will need to maximize every opportunity she has to win Player of the Year honors.

McNamara says there were two tournaments last season where he saw a totally focused Sorenstam: the U.S. Women’s Open and the Scandinavian TPC, where she birdied the last hole on her home course in Sweden to beat Lorena Ochoa – now her principal challenger.

As Sorenstam was reading her 8-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole at Bro Balsta Golf Club, McNamara recalls looking at her and thinking “This is in.”

“She gets in these ways when you watch her body movement, and you just know she’s totally there,” McNamara said. “She’s not at the golf school. She’s nowhere else.”

McNamara has seen Sorenstam evolve into a more rounded person in the past 12 months. But he still believes she’s hungry to compete and, when firing on all cylinders, impossible to stop. Finding that extra gear more often in ’07, McNamara says, will come down to how well she prepares.

Sorenstam took four weeks off from golf over the holidays to hit the ski slopes and work on building her brand. Her first day back in late January, she practiced her short game for two hours and commented on how red and sore her hands felt. Sorenstam has more than a month before making her inaugural ’07 start March 9-11 at the MasterCard Classic in Mexico. From there she’ll have 20 days until the season’s first major championship and 38 days until her academy’s grand opening.

“We really have a solid plan and we’re starting to execute it,” she said. “I’m really proud of that. We’re just kind of setting the tone for what’s next.”

print

email

discuss