Capelle On Golf

Annika Sorenstam announced her retirement a couple of days ago at age 37. It’s not an early one like Bobby Jones, who retired at age 28. And its not one of those never ending affairs in which a golfer keeps playing long past their winning days. For Annika, retiring at the end of the season feels just right. Here’s what she said at a news conference:

“I think I’ve achieved more than I ever thought I could. I have given it all and it’s been fun. I have come back from an injury, and I feel strong, I feel healthy, and the season has started really well, and I’m leaving the game on my terms.”

He third win of the 2008 season last week by seven shots at the Michelob ULTRA Open shows that she’s back at the top, maybe not on the top – Lorena Ochoa might have something to say about that. But she is going out playing the kind of golf that has been the trademark of her career – lots of fairways and greens.

The media likes to shower its attention on colorful players, Boo Weekley being the current rage. Annika is no extrovert on the course, but she does what the fans want to see most of all, she performs, and at the highest level of any women player since Mickey Wright retired in 1969. And she performed with style and class, never once that I can recall ever behaving like anything other than the consummate professional.

I grew up playing golf in San Diego in the early to last 1960s (I graduated from high school in 1965). All during that time I kept seeing fellow San Diegan Mickey Wright’s name in the sports pages as she won tournament after tournament – 44 from 1961-64, and 82 in her career. She’s also second on the all time majors list with 13. To me, these were the benchmarks of women’s golf.

Annika’s rookie season was in 1994, a quarter century after Wright had retired. Certainly women’s golf had changed, the competition being much stiffer. Still, as of this week she’s claimed 72 titles in a little over 14 seasons. She, like Wright, also had a fabulous multi-year run, winning 43 LPGA events from 2001-05, a span of five seasons.

Annika showed immense promise right from the start, winning the US Women’s Open in her second and third years as pro. She endured a dry spell that lasted for 17 majors, then, at the 2001 Kraft Nabisco, she entered the golden age of her career. From 2001-2006 she captured all four majors, won eight in those six years, and won at least one a year. Her streak might still be in tact if she hadn’t been playing while recovering from injuries through most of the 2007 season.

At this point Annika is not so far from some of the most revered record in ladies golf. She’s tied for third on the all time list with 10 majors. Three more majors and she would tie Wright for second. She’s only 10 back of Wright, and 16 behind Kathy Whitworth on the list of all time victories. “Obviously 88 wins is a huge achievement. I feel like I achieved so much more than I ever thought I could, and to beat her record does not motivate me,” said Sorenstam at the new conference.

Even with Ochoa running wild and a slew of young talent on the tour, you would have to like her chances of surpassing these milestones if she were to hang in there and play for the numbers. But that’s not her style. She’s content to move on, she’s got a new life, and she’s done all she set out to do and more in competitive golf. So it’s her time to walk away from the tour, but not the game she loves, because she’s got a whole new career path mapped out and she’s not leaving golf after all.

PS You can expect her text messaging buddy on the men’s tour to retire some day in a similar manner.