Annika Sorenstam Biography

Name : Annika Sorenstam

Birth Place: Stockholm, Sweden

Date of Birth / Zodiac Sign: 10/09/1970, Libra

Profession: Golfer

Annika Sorenstam inherited loads of athletic potential when she came into this world on October 9th, 1970. Her parents, Tom and Gunilla, were sports enthusiasts gifted in tennis, skiing, volleyball, and golf. Born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden, Sorenstam's first passion was not the honorable game of golf, but tennis. Even when her family moved to London when she was 10, Sorenstam kept up the serious tennis playing and was even ranked 12th in a junior competition upon her return to her home country.

Annika Sorenstam dominated the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour in the 1990s and 2000s, winning 72 LPGA events and just over $22 million. Sorenstam also won 18 international tournaments for a career total of 90 pro victories. She played her first LPGA events in 1993 and joined the tour in 1994, winning Rookie of the Year honors. She quickly became one of the leading players in the women's game, winning the U.S. Women's Open in 1995 (her first career victory) and again in 1996. Sorenstam was named the LPGA's Rolex Player of the Year in 1995, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005. In 2002 she won an amazing 11 tour victories, bringing her career total to 42. (She also won 2 international tournaments that year, making 13 victories in 25 starts.) In May of 2003 she entered a men's PGA event, The Colonial -- becoming the first woman to play a PGA event since Babe Didrikson Zaharias played in the LA Open in 1945. She also was the first player ever to break 60 in an LPGA event; she shot a 59 at the par-72 Moon Valley Country Club in Phoenix in the second round of the 2001 Standard Register PING tournament. Sorenstam quit competitive golf at the end of the 2008 season, although she did not use the word "retirement." She married Mike McGee on 10 January 2009, and their first child, Ava Madelyn McGee, was born on 1 September 2009.