Keep An Eye On Tiger and Annika

By Ron Sirak
Photos By Robert Laberge/Warren Little/Getty Images December 17, 2007

For both Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam this past weekend was probably not so much a period ending the sentence that described the 2007 season but rather an exclamation point indicating what may lay ahead in 2008. Woods, coming off another dominant season in which he won seven PGA tour events, including his 13th major championship, took a couple of months off and then returned with a route at the Target World Challenge, besting a classy field of 16 pros with a seven-stroke victory.

For Sorenstam, her victory Sunday in the Dubai Ladies Masters prevented this year from being her first winless season since 1993. Once again, as it has many times over the past 12 years, the paths of perhaps the best male and the best female to ever play the game crossed. Woods became a father this year, and on Dec. 22 Sorenstam will celebrate her engagement to Mike McGee with a party at her home in Orlando. The fact they have set their wedding date for April 2009 means this and this alone: Sorenstam's mission in 2008 is to regain her position as No. 1 in the women's game.

That goal is a steep mountain to climb for two reasons. First off, Lorena Ochoa has emerged as a phenomenal talent whose confidence is growing in leaps and bounds. She won eight times in 2007 and her victory at the Ricoh Women's British Open weakened any lingering doubts about her ability to win the big ones. Ochoa also finished in the top-10 21 times in 25 starts, which means she is gathering Rolex Rankings points even when she is not winning. And that means Sorenstam is going to have to win a lot in 2008 to overtake the Mexican and reclaim the top spot.

The second obstacle facing Sorenstam is the depth of talent on the LPGA tour right now. Suzann Pettersen, in her first year working with her new coaching team of Lynn Marriott, Pia Nilsson and Gary Gilchrist, won five times, including a major, and emerged as a challenger for the top spot in women's golf. Meanwhile, Morgan Pressel, Paula Creamer, Natalie Gulbis, Brittany Lincicome, Meaghan Francella and Nicole Castrale all won this year, indicating the United States has produced a twenty-something pool of talent to replace the disappointing the thirty-something group of Americans.

Throw in the plethora of talent from Asia--Jee Young Lee, Ji-Ai Shin, Ai Miyazato and others--and the LPGA has its best depth since the heyday of Betsy King, Patty Sheehan, Amy Alcott, Beth Daniel, Dottie Pepper, Nancy Lopez, Meg Mallon and Juli Inkster, who remains one of the 10 best players in the women's game. Add the crafty veterans like Karrie Webb, Se Ri Pak, Sherrie Steinhauer and Pat Hurst and it will be much more difficult for Sorenstam to dominate than it was when she won 43 of 104 LPGA starts from 2001 through 2005.

But at the age of 37 Sorenstam is far from past her peak. And then there is her motivation. The ruptured disk in her neck that cost her not only two months of competition in 2007 but also denied her even more than that in practice time and workout sessions. She's healthy now, physically able to put in the time she needs to be at her best, and with her eye on her future as a businesswoman determined to walk away from the game in glory rather than limp away because of injury.

"It's been a strange year with my injury," Sorenstam said by text message from Dubai, "but hopefully this is a sign of things to come in 2008. I am very happy to have successfully defended by title in Dubai."