Golf Architects/Designers: Annika Sörenstam

Annika Sörenstam, born 9 October 1970, is a Swedish professional golfer whose achievements rank her as one of the most successful golfers in history. She was born in Bro near Stockholm, as a child, Sörenstam was a talented all-round sports girl; she was a nationally ranked junior tennis player, played football in her hometown team Bro IK and was such a good skier that the coach of the Swedish national ski team suggested the family move to Northern Sweden to improve her skiing year round. At the age of 12, she switched to golf, sharing her first set of golf clubs with her sister, Annika got the odd numbered clubs and Charlotta the even, and earned her first handicap of 54. She was so shy that as a junior she used to deliberately three putt at the end of a tournament to avoid giving the victory speech. The coaches noticed and at the next tournament both the winner and the runner-up had to give a speech. Sörenstam decided that if she were going to have to face the crowd anyway she might as well win and the deliberate misses stopped.

In the fall of 1990, Annika enrolled at the University of Arizona. She won seven titles during her collegiate career, and became the first foreign and first freshman player to win the individual NCAA Championship. Annika Sorenstam has dominated the LPGA Tour for more than a decade, capturing 69 Tour events and eight Player of the Year awards. In 2007, Sorenstam went winless for the first time since turning pro in 1993. Her prowess in the women’s golf arena has matched that of Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus on the PGA Tour. Her $20-plus million in career earnings easily surpasses any other LPGA player. Sorenstam, 37, made history in 2003 by competing in the Bank of America Colonial, now the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, a PGA Tour event. Sorenstam was the first female to compete on the PGA Tour since Babe Zaharias in the 1945 Los Angeles Open.

Before stepping away from competitive golf at the end of the 2008 season, she won 90 international tournaments as a professional, making her the female golfer with the most wins to her name. She has won 72 official LPGA tournaments including ten majors and 18 other tournaments internationally, and she tops the LPGA’s career money list with earnings of over $22 million—over $8 million ahead of her nearest rival. Since 2006, Sörenstam has held dual American and Swedish citizenship. Her growing off-course interests include the ANNIKA golf academy, golf course design, ANNIKA-branded products, and a charitable foundation.

Has a golf course designer Annika Sörenstam has undertaken various projects, her first, the Annika Course, was completed at Mission Hills Golf Club in Shenzen, China in 2003; the second was officially launched in January 2006 and opened in 2008 at Euphoria Golf Estate & Hydro in South Africa. She recently announced a new project at Mines Golf City, near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Projects closer to home include a redesign of the Patriots Point Links Course near Charleston, South Carolina and a course at Red Mountain Resort, British Columbia. She and Jack Nicklaus are bidding to build the Olympic golf course in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.