World Golf Hall of Famer Annika Sörenstam is one of the most successful golfers in Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) history. She has an astounding list of wins, including three U.S. Women's Open titles, 94 worldwide victories (72 on the LPGA Tour), and a record eight Player of the Year awards.
Sörenstam was born in 1970 in Bro near Stockholm, Sweden. She was a naturally gifted athlete as a child, excelling in junior tennis and soccer, and was so good at skiing that the coach of the Swedish national ski team took notice. She began playing golf at age 12 and went on to be a member of the Swedish national team from 1987 to 1992, winning the individual competition in 1992.
Sörenstam then moved to the U.S. to play college golf at the University of Arizona in Tucson. While there, she won a National Collegiate Athletic Association title in 1991 and earned All-America honors in 1991 and 1992. In 1992 she went professional, and the remainder of the decade brought her much success, including the title of LPGA Rookie of the Year.
1995 was Sörenstam’s breakthrough year, with her first LPGA Tour title win at the U.S. Women's Open. She successfully defended it a year later, becoming the first non-American to win back-to-back U.S. Women's Open titles. She set a new record in 1998 when she became the first player on the LPGA tour to finish the season with a scoring average below 70.
Sörenstam was in her prime in the 2000s, winning eight LPGA events in 2001, including her second major tournament. She won 11 events in 2002 alone and in 2003 won the LPGA Championship and the Women’s British Open to complete her career Grand Slam. In 2004, she earned her seventh LPGA Player of the Year award, tying Kathy Whitworth for the most in LPGA history.
Sörenstam stepped away from competitive golf at the end of the 2008 season. However, she made a surprise return in 2021 to play in the U.S. Senior Women's Open, which she won by eight strokes, thus qualifying to play in the 2022 U.S. Women's Open once again.