Annika Sorenstam sure can give an encore.
A week after making history at the Colonial, Sorenstam shot a 10-under 62 Friday to take a share of the lead in the first round of the Kellogg-Keebler Classic. The 62 set a course record, and also matched the lowest score in relation to par this year on the LPGA Tour. As if that's not impressive enough, she had a shot at that magic number 59 until a bogey on No. 16.
"A little bit," Sorenstam said when asked if she was surprised to play this well with everything that happened the past 10 days.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"I know it's a new week and I've had several days to kind of come back to earth. I've been flying around a little bit," she said. "But now I feel like I'm back where I want to be."
Yeah, at the top of the leaderboard, where she and Rosie Jones shared a three-stroke lead.
"The last hole was No. 9 ... and I had probably about 40 feet to beat Annika. That's all I could think about," said Jones, whose 62 was a career-best. "And I rolled it by about 5 feet, 6 feet."
Sorenstam ran away with the inaugural Kellogg-Keebler Classic last year, finishing at 21-under and winning by 11 strokes, and she's put herself in position to do it again.
Her 62 was one shot better than her first-round score last year. And despite an on-and-off rain that softened up the greens, her only real challenger was Jones.
If she keeps this up, the rest of the LPGA Tour might wish she'd stayed on the men's tour.
"I'm from Fort Worth and I've played Colonial, and I know she played extremely well to shoot what she did last week," said Angela Stanford, who is tied for third at 7-under with Lorie Kane.
"She had to really be hitting everything extremely solid and straight to shoot what she did at Colonial in that tournament. So I kind of expected it today."
Though Sorenstam missed the cut in the Colonial, her historic stop on the PGA Tour endeared her to people all over the world. She was playing simply to test herself, and she did it quite respectably, shooting 71-74.
But it was the grace she showed under unbelievable pressure that's won her millions of new fans. Like Tiger, Michael, Shaq and Kobe, she's become a one-name celebrity with rock-star status.
When she teed off at in the morning under ugly skies, there were more than 200 people gathered at the first hole.
"Not as much as last week, but there were a few butterflies in my stomach," Sorenstam said.
Juli Inkster, last week's winner at the Corning Classic, was in the next group, but three-quarters of the people followed Sorenstam off the tee without even so much as a backward glance. Her gallery grew to a couple of thousand throughout the day as die-hard golf fans and casual observers alike came out to get a glimpse of her.
There were men and women. Adults and children. And most were wearing those now-familiar "Go Annika" buttons.
"I hadn't seen them in the past, so it was great to see," Sorenstam said. "I thought there was a good crowd out there today."
They certainly got a show. Sorenstam played bogey-free with six birdies on the front nine. When she opened the back nine with consecutive birdies, everyone was thinking the same thing.
Firty-nine. Or, maybe, 58.
Only Sorenstam has shot a 59 on the LPGA Tour. Three men have done it on the PGA Tour.
"Of course it's in the back of my mind," Sorenstam said.
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