Some of us view our schooldays as the best of our lives, and while that may have been true for Annika Sorenstam back in 1986, things have certainly got better and better since the day of her last exam.
Back then, the shy and retiring teenager used to hide at the back of the class, hoping to remain anonymous among the other students and believing that she'd one day get a "regular job."
Now she's the world's leading female golfer; winner of 10 major tournaments, and more than 80 titles in all. She's a millionaire 20 times over and in 2003, at the age of 33, she became the youngest Hall of Fame member ever inducted in St. Augustine, Florida. To put it into context, when Sorenstam wants to brag about her success, she sends text messages to the mobile phone of Tiger Woods.
PHOTO: AFP
If anyone saw it coming, Sorenstam herself wasn't among them.
"I never thought I'd be a golfer, I never thought I'd win any tournaments, I never thought that I'd live in the United States. I knew that after class I would play soccer or tennis or golf because sport was my hobby, but I never thought that it would become a career," she said.
Sorenstam is in her old classroom at Upplands-Bro, a small town just northwest of Stockholm. It's the first time she's returned in 20 years.
gifted student
As a student, Sorenstam was a good all-rounder. Gifted at mathematics, she used to dream of becoming a chemical engineer. She was equally comfortable slicing up toads in the lab as she was baking cakes in the home economics class, and as an athlete, she excelled at tennis and skiing. But golf suited her analytical mind, and the discipline of school life was the most valuable lesson she ever learned.
"You can't just go into class and do the tests, you need the basics. You have to learn things," she says. "It's the same with golf. You can't just walk onto the course and hit a shot; you have to grip it right, use the right equipment and be ready for the round."
Sorenstam believes that her extreme timidity in class contributed to any poor grades she may have received. But what's surprising is that she allowed her shyness to blunt her edge on the course.
"I'd come down to the last few holes and realize that I was leading. Then I'd start to think about my winning speech and I would miss on purpose. I would 3-putt the last few holes to ensure that I came second."
She was eventually forced to face her demons when a perceptive coach deemed that top three players all had to make speeches.
"After that I thought I might as well win," she says.
Sorenstam likes to keep herself to herself. She celebrates her success with family and friends, quietly going about her business in record-breaking style. Some believe that as a result, she hasn't received the credit she deserves, unlike Tiger Woods.
untouchable
Cynics would say that Sorenstam has it much easier than Tiger, that the competition isn't as tough on the women's tours. Maybe so, but you can only beat the players you meet, and Sorenstam has been untouchable for a decade.
She's been voted the top female player a record eight times and she holds a string of all-time scoring records -- notably her 59 on the LPGA tour in 2000. Only a handful of players -- male or female -- have ever gone sub-60 in a professional tournament. Even for this year, when she hasn't played close to her own high standards, she still won the US Open for the third time.
She surprises by saying that her proudest moment of all was in taking on the men of the PGA tour at the Colonial in 2003, the first woman to do so since 1958.
"I wanted to see if my game could hold up against the best male players in the world, to see if I could play their courses. I wanted a challenge, something that would push me a little harder and take my game to the next level," she says.
And although she didn't play her best golf -- carding 71 and 74 to miss the cut by 4 strokes -- she won a lot of friends and improved her game too.
Sorenstam has rejected further invitations to try again, saying that her enjoyment comes from winning. And she denies that her actions have paved the way for other women to follow suit, a trend that if continued would seriously weaken the women's tour.
"The only player that really does it is Michelle Wie, and I don't think that it will happen more in the future because our tour is getting stronger," Sorenstam says.
Sorenstam is a lot of fun to be around, but it's easy to see why she's gained a reputation for being cold, calculating and robotic. That's how she's been so successful on the golf course. But you don't have to spend long her in company to see the warm, humorous and compassionate side of the world No. 1.
exhausting
Clearly this kind of lifestyle won't last forever. Sorenstam turns 36 in October, and admits that already it is exhausting: "It can't carry on at this level. The travel and the stress get tougher and tougher every year. But when you're enjoying something you really don't want to think about a timeframe."
Since Sorenstam claims she's not motivated by the pursuit of records, there's only one thing that will force her to ease back on her golfing commitments -- children. And since she doesn't do anything in half-measures, that could mean the end of her playing career.
Her caddie certainly thinks so. Terry McNamara says we should enjoy the Sorenstam show while it lasts: "If she has a family then she's going to do that 100 percent. Just like her golf. I don't think she'll play unless she can do it at the top level. As much as she loves it, she doesn't want to be second."
Shortly after this interview, Sorenstam won her own tournament in Sweden -- the Scandinavian TPC -- at her home course in Upplands-Bro. To celebrate, she and her sister jumped fully clothed into the lake by the 18th green, the same lake where they used to fish for balls in their schooldays.
In many respects, she's still a child inside. Sorenstam may be driven, focused and incredibly successful, but she's humble and reserved, and only if you're lucky will you catch a glimpse of her impish and sassy persona. She's genuinely flattered when the accolades are heaped upon her.
I'll leave the last word to Mike McGhee, her boyfriend, who says: "She's a better person than she is a golfer."
Don Riddell anchors CNN's World Sport and Living Golf programs. Riddell's exclusive Living Golf profile of Annika Sorenstam airs on CNN tomorrow at 7:30pm and on Sunday at 3:30pm and 9:30pm.
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