1990s Sörenstam turned professional in 1992, but missed her LPGA Tour card at the final
qualifying tournament by one shot, and began her professional career on the
Ladies European Tour (LET), formerly known as the WPGET. She finished second four times on the Ladies European Tour and was
1993 Ladies European Tour Rookie of the Year. By tying for 28th at the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament she earned non-exempt status for the
1994 season. In the United States, Sörenstam was
LPGA Rookie of the Year, had three top-10 finishes including a tie for second at the
Women's British Open and made her
Solheim Cup debut. Her breakout year was
1995, when she won her first LPGA Tour title at the
U.S. Women's Open. and was the first non-American winner of the
Vare Trophy. A win at the 1995 Australian Ladies Masters and two other wins on the Ladies European Tour put her top of the
LET Order of Merit and made her the first player to top both the European and LPGA Tour money lists in the same season. Her success worldwide resulted in her winning the
Jerringpriset award in Sweden, as well as being awarded the
Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal, the country's most prestigious award in sports. 1996 saw Sörenstam win her home LET tournament, the
Trygg Hansa Ladies' Open in Sweden and three LPGA tournaments including the
U.S. Women's Open. In defending her title, she became the first non-American to win back to back U.S. Women's Open titles,
2000s At this point in her career, Sörenstam says she lost focus having reached her biggest goals. Sörenstam was the first international player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame through the LPGA criteria. Having lost her preeminent position, Sörenstam embarked on a new five-day-a-week exercise program including weight-lifting and balance work which by 2003 added over to her driving distance. During the 2001 season, she had eight LPGA wins, became the only female golfer to shoot a 59 in competition and the first LPGA player to cross the $2 million mark in single-season earnings. She set or tied a total of 30 LPGA records en route to regaining the Vare Trophy and winning her fourth Player of the Year and Money List titles in 2001. In a made-for-TV alternate shot competition between the two best male and female players in the world, Sörenstam and
Tiger Woods beat Karrie Webb and
David Duval. At the end of that season Karrie Webb said she "would eat her hat" if Sörenstam repeated her eight wins in 2002. Sörenstam accomplished that feat, joining
Mickey Wright as the only players to win 11 LPGA tournaments in one season, earning her fifth Player of the Year title and fifth Vare Trophy. She successfully defended the
Kraft Nabisco Championship, her fourth major victory, and also won the
ANZ Ladies Masters in Australia and
Compaq Open in Sweden on the Ladies European Tour giving her 13 wins in 25 starts worldwide in 2002. Sörenstam was invited to play in the PGA Tour's Bank of America Colonial golf tournament in
Fort Worth,
Texas, in May
2003, making her the first woman to play in a PGA Tour event since
Babe Zaharias, who qualified for the 1945
Los Angeles Open.
Vijay Singh, fourth in the world rankings at the time, criticised her invitation, saying that she should have to qualify like the men and that he did not want to be beaten by a woman. Cheered through each hole, she shot five over par, tying for 96th out of the 111 who finished the first two rounds. After shooting 1-over-par 71 in the first round, finishing in 73rd and on pace to challenge for a weekend spot, Sörenstam said she was nervous all day but pleased by her performance. In the first round she led the field in driving accuracy, was in the top 20 in greens in regulation, and was 84th out of 111 in driving distance. Poor putting (last in the field, averaging over a two-putt) caused her to miss the cut. Later in the 2003 season, she won the LPGA Championship and the Women's British Open, becoming only the sixth player to complete the LPGA Career Grand Slam, winning, at least once in her career, each of the four tournaments recognized as major championships during the main part of her career. Five years earlier, in 1998, she finished second in the fifth major at the time,
du Maurier Classic, which she won in 2001, the first year when it was not recognized as a major tournament anymore. She had won the
Evian Masters twice, in 2000 and 2002, before it became recognized as the fifth major from 2013, which was after Sörenstam's retirement in 2008. In September, she was part of the winning European
Solheim Cup team in her native Sweden. She was awarded her second Jerringpriset award in Sweden plus the 2003 Golf Writers' Trophy by the Association of Golf Writers. Sörenstam's dominance continued in 2004 with her seventh LPGA Player of the Year award tying
Kathy Whitworth for the most in LPGA history. She posted 16 top-10 finishes in 18 LPGA starts, including eight wins, had two additional international wins, became the first player to reach $15 million in LPGA career earnings and took her own LPGA single-season scoring average record to 68.69696, but played too few rounds to win the Vare Trophy. The Women's Sports Foundation gave her the 2004 Sportswoman of the Year Award, She also released a combination autobiography and golf instructional book, ''Golf Annika's Way''. Sörenstam's life both on and off the golf course changed in
2005. In February, she announced that she had filed for divorce from David Esch, her husband of eight years, and this was finalised in August but it did not adversely affect her golf. Her achievements included being the first player in LPGA history to win a major three consecutive years at the
LPGA Championship and the first golfer in LPGA or PGA history to win the same event five consecutive years at the
Mizuno Classic. 11 wins in 21 tournaments entered worldwide included victory in the Scandinavian TPC hosted by Annika where she presented
herself the trophy, giving her an eighth Money List title, tying the LPGA record, an eighth Rolex Player of the Year (POY) award (a record) and a sixth Vare Trophy. She is the only LPGA player ever to win Money List, POY award and Vare trophy in the same year in five different years. Team competition saw her make her seventh consecutive Solheim Cup appearance, her 4 points making her total 21, the event's all-time leading points earner, and the inaugural
Lexus Cup was played with Sörenstam as the Captain of the victorious International Team. These events resulted in her receiving numerous awards. The Golf Writers Association of America named Sörenstam Female Player of the Year for the eighth time (1995, 1997, 2000–2005), Associated Press voted her
Female Athlete of the Year for the third consecutive year and she became the first woman to win the Golf Writers' Trophy twice in the 55-year history of European golf's most prestigious award. Having previously won six
Best Female Golfer ESPY Awards (1996, 1998–99, 2002–04), Sörenstam also received the 2005
ESPY Award as
Best Female Athlete. When the first-ever official
Women's World Golf Rankings were unveiled in February
2006, Sörenstam was confirmed as the number-one player in women's golf, a position she relinquished to
Lorena Ochoa on 22 April
2007. In partnership with
Liselotte Neumann in team Sweden, she won the
Women's World Cup of Golf, opened her LPGA season with a defence of her title in the
MasterCard Classic. She then went winless in eight starts, causing some to talk of a slump. Her winning drought ended at the
U.S. Women's Open, where she won an 18-hole playoff over Pat Hurst for her tenth major championship title, tying her for third on the list of players with most major championship titles. She totalled 3 wins on the LPGA and two on the Ladies European Tour, the inaugural
Dubai Ladies Masters and the Swedish tournament she hosts, which she defended in her home town at the course where she learned to play. Her International team lost the second Lexus Cup competition to Team Asia. Sörenstam started 2007 by losing a playoff while defending of her MasterCard Classic title. At the
Kraft Nabisco Championship she shot her highest 72-hole score in a major in nine years, a result explained by her subsequent diagnosis with ruptured and bulging discs in her neck, the first major injury in Sörenstam's 13-year LPGA career. After a two-month injury rehabilitation break, Sörenstam returned as the Ginn Tribute tournament hostess where she admitted to being at only 85% fitness and finished tied for 36th place. She was still not fully fit in her next two tournaments, the
LPGA Championship where she finished tied for 15th place, and the
2007 U.S. Women's Open, where, as defending champion, she finished tied for 32nd. After an early round defeat at the World Matchplay Championship, Sörenstam finished sixth at the
Evian Masters, 16th at the
Women's British Open and ninth in the Swedish tournament she hosts on the Ladies European Tour. On her return to the US, Sörenstam had three top ten finishes but missed the weekend at the season closing ADT Playoffs for the second year running. However, Sörenstam did win a worldwide title at the Dubai Ladies Masters on the Ladies European Tour in November 2007. Declaring herself recovered from injury and ready to return to a complete season of competitive golf in 2008, Sörenstam opened the year at the
SBS Open at Turtle Bay where she captured her 70th LPGA Tour victory and first since September 2006. She won next at the
Stanford International Pro-Am in April then following a week off, won again at the
Michelob ULTRA Open at Kingsmill in a tournament record score, giving her three wins and over $1 million in earnings by mid-May. It was her 72nd and final ever win on the LPGA Tour. In 2008, Sörenstam was highly critical of other female golfers who tried to play in the PGA Tour – her comments to
Michelle Wie for playing on the men's tour: "I really don't know why Michelle continues to do this. We have a major this week and, if you can't qualify for a major, I don't see any reason why you should play with the men."
Retirement On 13 May 2008, Sörenstam announced at a press conference at the Sybase Classic that she would "step away" from competitive golf at the conclusion of the 2008 season. That night, she threw out the first pitch of the Washington Nationals/New York Mets baseball game at Shea Stadium in New York and the following day read the Top Ten on the
Late Show with David Letterman. Her last tournament victory came in a playoff at the Suzhou Taihu Ladies Open, an event co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour and the Ladies Asian Golf tour. Her last scheduled tournament on the LPGA Tour was the season-ending
ADT Championship in November, where she failed to make the weekend play in the event's unique playoff structure. Her final sanctioned LPGA appearance was as the winning captain of Team International at the 2008 Lexus Cup in Singapore. Her last professional tournament was the Dubai Ladies Masters on the Ladies European Tour in December 2008, where she finished tied for 7th.
Solheim Cup captaincy At the
2013 Solheim Cup at the
Colorado Golf Club in
Parker, Colorado, United States, Sörenstam participated as a non-playing assistant captain, selected by European Team captain Liselotte Neumann. During the match, the Americans accused Sörenstam of telling a European caddie that European player
Jodi Ewart Shadoff should concede a putt for par to
Paula Creamer, so it could not show teammate
Lexi Thompson the line for a coming putt. By the rules, only the captain was allowed to give advice to players during the competition. In the end, the 2013 match became an 18–10 triumph for the European team, winning on American soil for the first time and defending the cup for the first time. For the
2015 Solheim Cup at
Golf Club St. Leon-Rot,
Germany, Sörenstam again was appointed an assistant captain by a Swedish European Team captain, this time
Carin Koch. Two controversies with Sörenstam involved, given a lot of public attention, occurred during the match. The second day afternoon four-ball match between
Suzann Pettersen and
Charley Hull for Europe against
Alison Lee and
Brittany Lincicome, United States, was all square, when Lee missed a putt to win the 17th hole. Taking for granted that the next 18-inch putt was conceded, Lee picked up her ball. However, Pettersen pointed out that it was not conceded, and the Europeans won the hole. Koch and Sörenstam tried to convince Pettersen to change her mind and concede the putt, but as it was a fact that Lee had picked up her ball without the putt being given to her, it was not a possibility within the
rules of golf, for the players to agree on the outcome of the hole and change the sequence of events afterwards. Pettersen/Hull eventually won the match. Later during the 2015 Solheim Cup, after Koch and Sörenstam was seen in a discussion with U.S. captain
Juli Inkster, Sörenstam explained that she was accused of giving advice, which she strongly denied. The 2015 match ended in a U.S. win 14–13, after a strong American come-back the last day, said to have been inspired by the incident with the not conceded putt. The match, played at
Des Moines Golf and Country Club,
Iowa, United States, was won by the U.S. team 16–11.
Comeback as a senior After turning 50 in October 2020, Sörenstam became eligible for the 2021
U.S. Senior Women's Open. It was played at
Brooklawn Country Club,
Fairfield, Connecticut and Sörenstam won by 8 shots, ahead of fellow countrywoman Liselotte Neumann after leading the tournament wire to wire, with her husband Mike McGee as her caddie. Ahead of the Senior Open, she played her first LPGA Tour event since 2008, finishing 74th at the 2021
Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio. Her win at the Senior Open qualified her to play in the 2022 U.S. Women's Open, at which she missed the cut by shooting 13-over. ==Affiliations, honors==