Annika II?

With play resembling her Hall-of-Fame role model, 22-year-old Anna Nordqvist wins the final McDonald's LPGA Championship

mission accomplished: Nordqvist had three birdies in the final five holes to close with a 68 and take possession of the last McDonald's LPGA trophy.

By Ron Sirak

Photo by Darren Carroll

June 22, 2009

There was the sound of doors opening and closing at the last McDonald's LPGA Championship. Out one door went tradition while in another waltzed opportunity, albeit to an unfamiliar tune. Another slam followed the departure of a sponsor who generated more than $46 million in charitable contributions for Ronald McDonald House and the children it helps during 29 years as an LPGA business partner. And poised on the threshold of yet another doorway was an uncertain future for the tour's flagship event, which lacks both a golf course and funding for 2010, the result of an ambitious grab by the tour to own the tournament that carries its name.

But behind the storm clouds that darkened those doorways at an eerily subdued McDonald's last week were several silver linings, the longest and tallest being Anna Nordqvist, who just may turn out to be the right Swede at the right time. This was the first LPGA Championship played without Annika Sorenstam since 1994, the first year McDonald's moved from bankrolling a regular tour event to a major. Nordqvist, appropriately, put forth a very Sorenstam-like fairways-and-greens effort, displaying the same icy poise as her role model—the main difference being this version is stretched across a six-foot frame.

"They super-sized Annika," said Jim Murray, the genial PR man for McDonald's. Indeed they did. Nordqvist missed only three of 56 fairways at Bulle Rock GC in Havre de Grace, Md.—none over the final 36 holes—and when a lead that was five strokes after seven holes of the final round was trimmed to a single shot, she reeled off three birdies over the final five holes for a closing 68 to finish at 15-under-par 273, four strokes clear of Australian Lindsey Wright. It was a close reminiscent of Sorenstam, and just like Sorenstam, Nordqvist made her first LPGA victory a major, her mentor having taken the 1995 U.S. Women's Open. While Sorenstam's breakthrough victory came in her second season on tour, Nordqvist topped that, winning in only her fifth start as an LPGA member. Now the pupil needs just 71 more wins to tie her teacher.

"I think it's going to take a couple of days to realize I actually won," said the 22-year-old Nordqvist, possessing the shyness of the early Sorenstam, who dispensed words as if they were $100 bills. Then Nordqvist remembered something that will be a more immediate reminder of her victory. "I don't have to go off at 7:58 tomorrow morning and play 36 holes [in a U.S. Open qualifier]," she said. "That feels good."

Nordqvist took control—for the second time Sunday—with birdies on Nos. 14 and 15 on putts of 12 and 30 feet, icing the cake with a 21-degree hybrid to three feet on No. 18. For the week she needed only 101 putts, 12 fewer than Wright, who closed with a solid 70 and continued her improvement (see page 53). Jiyai Shin, the 21-year-old Korean rookie who won last year's Ricoh Women's British Open, was third at 278 after a closing 68; Kyeong Bae was next at 279. A trio of Americans—Nicole Castrale, Angela Stanford and Kristy McPherson—warmed the heart of U.S. Solheim Cup captain Beth Daniel by finishing T-5 at 280.

Nordqvist had three holes to finish Sunday morning from the rain-delayed third round and played them one under par. Then she headed back to her hotel to sleep and play some Yahtzee with Katarina Vangdal, a coach of the Swedish national team who has worked with Nordqvist since she was 16. Before the final round Nordqvist got a message from Sorenstam: "Just try to take one shot at a time and try to enjoy" were the words of wisdom.

Reached in Switzerland, where she was part of the delegation presenting golf's case to the International Olympic Committee to get into the 2016 Games, Sorenstam told Golf World by e-mail: "I am very happy for [Nordqvist]. She works hard, is methodical, professional and thinks about the long term. It has been great to see her develop the last few years."

As a junior golfer, Nordqvist won a scholarship to spend a week in the United States with Sorenstam, and she is part of the Annika Team, which helps young players in Sweden bridge the gap from amateur golf to professional life. The gap was bridged so seamlessly for Nordqvist it ruffled some feathers at Arizona State, where she played the fall portion of her junior season in 2008 then, after earning a conditional card at LPGA Q school and finishing first at Ladies European Tour Q school, dropped out of college and turned pro.

"It was the right decision," said Vangdal. "She had won everything she could win in Europe as an amateur," including the 2008 Ladies British Open Amateur. She was the 2007 National Golf Coaches Association freshman of the year and a two-time first-team All-American. That a person with no history in this event should win the final McDonald's was appropriate. This was a week about comings and goings, all those doors opening and closing.

The brutal thunderstorm that rattled windows Tuesday evening and soaked the already wet Bulle Rock course symbolized the tension underlying this last McDonald's. Of the 1,600 volunteers needed to stage the tournament, 30 percent had worked all 29 years McDonald's had run an LPGA event, according to tournament co-chair Herb Lotman.

"Some plan their vacation around this tournament," Lotman said. "They are going to miss it, and so am I. We had a great run." Volunteers, who barely clapped when LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens was introduced at the closing ceremony, were joined by players in being bitter and baffled by the event's demise.