'The Time Is Right'

Sorenstam celebrates '95 U.S. Women's Open (left) and the 59 in '01 (right). Photos: J.D. Cuban & Warren Little/Getty Images

It was more of the same for Jeong Jang and Christina Kim in Sunday's final round. Sorenstam began play three ahead of Jang and four clear of Kim and gave back a stroke with a three-putt bogey on the second hole. But it was only a tease. Sorenstam birdied the next hole, and when Jang birdied No. 5, Annika birdied the sixth. Then Jang holed out for birdie from 40 yards on the ninth hole, which only seemed to motivate the Hall of Famer. As if to say, "OK, enough of this," Sorenstam birdied five of the first eight holes on the back nine, all after approach shots inside 10 feet. Her 19-under 265 was seven strokes clear of Jang, Kim, Karen Stupples and Allison Fouch. Ochoa finished T-12 at 277 after a closing 70.

If one word can describe Sorenstam it is balance. Both physically and emotionally she is always in control on the golf course. Her swing has the rhythmic repetition of a metronome, classified by Hall of Fame player and TV analyst Judy Rankin as one of the three most reliable in the history, along with Ben Hogan and Wright. At her best, in an astonishing display from 2001 through 2005 when she won 43 of 104 LPGA events and finished in the top three 67 times, Sorenstam's most memorable shots were her poor ones because there were so few.

Physically, her rigorous workout program -- including pull-ups while wearing 10-pound ankle weights, push-ups with 50 pounds strapped to her back -- transformed her from an average-length driver (who still won back-to-back U.S. Opens in 1995-96) to one of the longest on tour. Emotionally, Sorenstam committed to the "Vision 54" philosophy of pioneering Swedish coach Pia Nilsson. Her calm stems from a determined focus on the shot she is hitting as she pursues the goal of 18 consecutive birdies. While she never achieved that, she did shoot the only 59 in LPGA history -- in the second round of the 2001 Standard Register Ping at Moon Valley CC in Phoenix, a round she began with eight straight birdies.

Sorenstam's mastery of emotional balance was so complete she gave no hint of inner turmoil. In 2004 she won eight LPGA events and twice more overseas as her marriage to David Esch was crumbling. Divorce papers were filed the following February. She similarly kept her father Tom's prostate cancer battle the last few years private, never using that distraction as an excuse.

And, of course, there was the transformation she made in dealing with the attention that came with being so dominant. As a rookie Sorenstam was so shy she took a month off after winning her first U.S. Open because she wanted to avoid the media. In 2003, the year she played in the PGA Tour's Bank of America Colonial, she handled the nearly four-month buildup to her appearance with aplomb.

Dan Jenkins, the Golf Digest writer who has witnessed virtually every significant event in golf for nearly 60 years, has said Annika's opening tee shot at Colonial -- a 257-yard 4-wood off the 10th tee -- might have had more pressure on it than any single shot in the game's history. It was perhaps the most important shot in the history of women's golf and her superb execution in an opening-round 71, combined with the classy way she handled the attention, earned women's golf new fans and enhanced respect.