Sorenstam cards 75 in cameo role
ORLANDO, FLA. >> Annika Sorenstam doesn’t remember golf being this difficult.
She still managed plenty of smiles Thursday when the most dominant player of her era played her first LPGA Tour event in more than 12 years. With one birdie and one bad hole, Sorenstam had a 3-over 75 in the LPGA Gainbridge on her home course at Lake Nona.
“It seems a little bit more stressful, this kind of golf,” she said.
Sorenstam was 10 shots behind another Lake Nona member, Lydia Ko, who opened with a 7-under 65 for a twoshot lead.
But then, this week isn’t about Sorenstam adding to her 72 career victories or even starting a comeback at age 50. The LPGA Tour came to her home course and she wanted to play.
With that early heard turn and tee shots that more often than not found the fairway, it didn’t seem like Sorenstam had been away from the LPGA Tour since Nov. 23, 2008, when she retired after a threewin season to start a family.
It was the rest of the game that felt so foreign.
“I could have been more aggressive on the putts, I could have been more aggressive on iron shots,” she said. “I’m at a point in my life that it’s not automatic. It’s not a pin-seeker the way it was. Now it’s more a green-seeker. I did OK. A little more stressful golf, but overall, it’s fun.”
Lake Nona members and a few family guests were allowed, and Sorenstam found about 150 people gathered around the first tee. That constitutes a sizeable crowd in the COVID-19 pandemic era.
“I was quite nervous. I’ve been nervous for a few days,” said Sorenstam, adding that she practiced meditation that morning to help calm her down.
The highlight was a gap wedge from about 95 yards on the 14th hole that landed some 10 feet behind the hole and spun back to a foot away for a tap-in birdie.
Sorenstam only had one surprise Thursday, but it wasabigone.
After opening with four pars, she pulled her tee shot on the fifth hole so far left that it settled directly under the gate of a wroughtiron fence. The rules officials determined it was in play “by a dimple.” Sorenstam asked if she could open the gate to play the shot, but that wasn’t allowed.