The last time Annika Sorenstam played in an LPGA tournament, something rather odd occurred.
She had the weekend off.
Her two 73s in the first two rounds of the Michelob Ultra Open last week weren’t good enough to make the cut, something that had become automatic for Sorenstam for most of her career.
When she tees it up for this week’s event, the Sybase Classic at New Rochelle’s Wykagyl Country Club, beginning with today’s opening round, Sorenstam hopes she’ll be busy through the weekend with golf.
“It wasn’t really something I enjoyed,” Sorenstam said yesterday of her rare missed cut. “It happens. It’s golf. I’m just lucky it hasn’t happened to me too often and I hope it doesn’t happen again. It got my attention.”
Considering Sorestam’s history, her missed cut drew a lot of attention. The last time she’d missed the cut was in 2002. The last time she missed a cut in a non-major was in 1994.
“I’m not worried about my game,” Sorenstam said. “I feel like I’m playing really good golf. I’m striking the ball as good as I have in a long time; it’s just not happening. Nothing is really going my way. Right now, I just have to work through this. There’s nothing else I can do.
“I have high expectations of myself,” Sorenstam went on. “I know what I’m capable of doing. I’ve got one win this year, so I’m not going to be too hard on myself. Sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don’t. At the moment, my golf is not going my way, but outside the golf course, everything else is going my way.
“I’m not going to trade that for anything; I’m just going to wait, be patient and everything will turn around.”
Sorenstam, whose personal life has smoothed considerably since she parted ways with her former husband and started a relationship with someone else, hasn’t exactly played poorly. She has one win and four top 10s in six starts and is sixth on the money list. She, too, has won this event twice in her career.
This week, she’ll be most challenged by defending champion Paula Creamer, who won here last year the week before her high school graduation.
“Great player,” Sorenstam said of Creamer. “She has a great future ahead of herself. She’s a good ball striker and her strength is really her putting. I think this course really fits her.”
Creamer conceded yesterday that she was “a little nervous” about defending her title this week.
“I don’t think it’s pressure; it’s more meeting expectations and going back to back, my first chance I have to repeat on the LPGA Tour,” she said. It’s a totally different feeling.”
Sorenstam can relate.
