She's not world number one, but Annika Sorenstam's play these days suggests that she really is. Although Kerrie Webb currently tops the women's world professional rankings, Sweden's Sorenstam - who won her fourth successive title on the US LPGA Tour at the weekend - is the player dominating the game.
In fact, Sorenstam's latest win, in the sort of winning streak that is comparable only to Tiger Woods, the dominant figure in the men's game, meant that she overtook Betsy King as the all-time career money leader on the US women's circuit. Sorenstam's weekend win in the Office Depot tournament took her career takings to $6,957,044
In winning, Sorenstam - who became the first woman to shoot 59 when winning last month's Standard Register Ping tournament - also established yet another US LPGA record in overcoming a final round 10-shot deficit on Pat Hurst to eventually beat South Korea's Mi Hyun Kim at the first play-off hole.
Sorenstam's win enabled her to equal the four successive wins previously held by Kathy Whitworth and Mickey Wright. Her other wins came at tournaments in Tucson and Phoenix and also in the Nabisco Championship, when she claimed her third major win and first since the 1996 US Women's Open. Sorenstam's comeback was the biggest in history, beating the eight-shot deficit that American Solheim Cup player Muffin Spencer-Devlin accomplished to win the 1985 MasterCard International.
The US women's tour record for most successive wins is held by Nancy Lopez, who won three in a row, took a week off and won two more in 1978. Sorenstam, a 30-year-old Swede who has become the fastest player to reach $700,000 in season's earnings, will attempt to equal that mark.
Sorenstam's sizzling season comes following a year when she had five tournament wins but was still overshadowed by Australian Webb, who had seven and created a new record for prize money won in one season.
But Sorenstam's response has been that of a real champion. She has worked with a personal trainer since last Autumn, spent countless hours on the putting green working on an area of her game that she perceived to need improvement - and she has also put behind her a controversial incident at last year's Solheim Cup in Scotland, when she was accused of playing out of turn (having holed her chip) and asked to replay the shot by her American opponent.
It's somewhat ironic, therefore, that Sorenstam should move on this season to become the most dominant player on that circuit, one where no American has yet won this season!
