Annika Sorenstam seeking 2nd U.S. Senior Women's Open title

During the early 2000s, Annika Sorenstam dominated women’s golf.

She won 96 international events, including 72 on the LPGA Tour and 10 major championships.

Sorenstam was the first international player inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame through LPGA criteria.

This week, the 53-year-old Swede will try to recreate that magic and become the first player to win the United States Golf Association’s Senior Women’s Open for a second time. The sixth annual tournament will take place Thursday through Sunday at Fox Chapel Golf Club.

“It’s great to be here,” Sorenstam said. “To win any tournament is great, and to win a USGA championship is wonderful, obviously. They’re very, very difficult to win.

“I like to just kind of stay in the moment and just enjoy what’s out here. It’s really neat to come and see all our contemporaries. I only see them once a year, but it’s just so neat that everybody is still playing the game and everybody is still so competitive, all of us.”

Sorenstam won the 2021 U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Brooklawn Country Club in Fairfield, Conn., by eight strokes. She’s played in the past two, tying for fourth last year and finishing in a tie for fifth in 2022.

All the previous winners of the U.S. Senior Women’s Open are entered in this week’s event: Laura Davies (2018), Helen Alfredsson (2019), Jill McGill (2022) and Trish Johnson (2023). Sorenstam and Davies hold the record with a low score of 276.

Sorenstam, McGill, Johnson, Catriona Matthews and Sherri Steinhauser are considered some of the favorites.

Able to pick the most prestigious tournaments to play in, Sorenstam said she likes to cherish these moments.

“This is really a fun place,” Sorenstam said of Fox Chapel Golf Club. “It’s beautiful, and I love the golf course. It’s similar to Oakmont, which I’ve been lucky to play a few times.

“It’s open, but it’s quite undulated, big greens. There’s so many different options off the tee, it makes you think, and I love that about the course where there’s nothing — you don’t take anything for granted.”

Fox Chapel was hit with more than 3 inches of rain Tuesday, which closed the course to golfers hoping to play practice rounds.

Sorenstam said the course definitely changed a lot from Monday to Wednesday when the fairways and greens softened.

“It’s playing very different because there is zero roll,” Sorenstam said. “It’s all carry. I think every time I came up to a drive I would see my pitch mark. We had a lot of mud on the ball.”

The forecast for the next few days is calling for rain at times, which will soften the course even more.

But Sorenstam said the players just have to adjust to the conditions.

She called the entire course unique, especially greens on Nos. 9 and 17.

“There are a lot of unique things around here,” Sorenstam said. “I’m looking at No. 16, and you’ve got three bunkers in a row the way they are angled. You’ve got to know your yardages. You’ve got to be accurate with your irons.”

Because rain canceled Tuesday’s practice round, Sorenstam, her husband Mike McGee and son Will went to an indoor facility to hit balls. Her daughter Ava got to go to Starbucks, and then they worked out.

“Everybody got to do their favorite thing,” Sorenstam said. “Will actually got to play Oakmont on Wednesday, so he ditched us.”

Sorenstam will throw out the first pitch at the Pittsburgh Pirates game Friday night.

She guarantees she’ll get the ball from the mound to home plate, which she didn’t achieve in 2008.

“I’ve been throwing quite a bit with Ava this summer,” Sorenstam said. “She plays softball. When Mike told me that this opportunity came up, I was like, that’s cool. Hopefully I do better than the last time.”

Throwing a strike certainly would serve as a nice consolation prize this week, but claiming a second U.S. Senior Women’s Open trophy continues to be priority No. 1.