The last time they played in the same event, George Bush was president and TikTok was the noise made by the clock on your mantel. In fact, Annika Sörenstam and Karrie Webb barely see each other these days. Webb was at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship last week watching Hannah Green with her latest Karrie Webb Scholarship recipients, while Sörenstam went from the U.S. Women’s Open to the Volvo Car Scandinavian Mixed (won by Linn Grant) back to Lake Tahoe where she and her family spend their summers. According to Sörenstam, the only time she and Webb get together now is at World Golf Hall of Fame functions where “we’re wearing blazers and not golf shoes and golf hats.”
But that is about to change. Next week, Sörenstam and Webb will once again tee off in the same tournament as competitors, not in some hit-and-giggle celebrity pro-am or made-for-TV special, but in the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational, the last domestic event on the LPGA Tour schedule before everyone flies to France for the Amundi Evian Championship and the European swing.
They won’t be there on sponsor’s invitations or as “special guests.” The Dow is a team event, the only one on the LPGA Tour schedule. The two legends were asked to play by a couple of current, popular competitors. Webb will partner with Marina Alex, already a winner in 2022. And Sörenstam will tee it up with fellow Swede Madelene Sagström.
When asked about the prospect of playing again, Webb said, “I’m probably not as intense as I once was.”
We’ll see. The Australian champion played regularly through 2018 even though her last victory was 2014 when she won twice at the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open and the Cognizant Founders Cup. Webb has 41 career LPGA Tour wins, including seven major championships. Even when she no longer was winning, the 47-year-old could be found grinding on the range after a round. Like Sörenstam, she never shows up unprepared.
Sörenstam, whose 72 career wins include 10 major titles, failed to make the weekend at Pine Needles, where in 1996 she won the second of her back-to-back U.S. Women’s Open titles. But she has worked hard since then, especially knowing that Webb would be in the field in Midland, Michigan.
“You know me. I’m competitive at whatever it is,” Sörenstam said. “But I actually look forward to seeing Karrie. I really haven’t seen her – I can’t remember the last time. It’ll be fun. I look forward to seeing her; look forward to playing against her, of course. This is a fun format. But I’m competitive, and I’m just trying to do the best I can every time I show up. It hasn’t really been what I wanted (this year), but I haven’t given up. I keep trying and keep grinding away. I’m going to try and make my partner super happy.”
Sörenstam reflected back to the dozen or so years when she and Webb went head-to-head. For those who weren’t there, it’s easy to forget that this was the women’s golf version of Ali vs. Frazier or Arnie against Jack.
“I have a lot of respect for Karrie,” Sörenstam said. “She pushed me. There was no doubt. I wanted to be the best player, and I knew that to do that, I had to beat her. Whether it was on the driving range or in the gym or whatever, I just had to take my game to a different level.
“I don’t know if you remember the LPGA commercial they made – I don’t know what year that was, but it was kind of funny – (Karrie) would hit golf balls with my face on them. And then she had a voodoo doll where she put a needle in me. I think I put a little sticker on her back. It was really a friendly rivalry. I mean, I still think of that today. It was a good one. I thought it was good for the game and certainly good for us.
“Then Se Ri Pak joined (us) in about 2000, and I had a fun time with her, too. It was interesting because you’ve got one from South Korea, one from Australia and then Sweden, but we were all playing in the U.S. It was just great. That was the beginning of probably some of the things (in women’s golf) that started to develop, thanks to the rivalry and the excitement it created for everybody.”
“(Webb) pushed me. There was no doubt. I wanted to be the best player, and I knew that to do that, I had to beat her.” – Annika Sörenstam
Sörenstam and Webb are playing in the Senior LPGA Championship after the Dow. And Sörenstam will defend her title later this summer at the U.S. Senior Women’s Open.
Sagström asked Sörenstam to play in the Dow last year, but the 51-year-old’s schedule was too tight. This year it worked out. They have gotten close in recent years. When Sörenstam made her first LPGA Tour appearance in more than a decade last season at the Gainbridge LPGA Championship at Lake Nona in Orlando, she was paired with Sagström in the first two rounds. Both made the cut on the number.
“Obviously for me to come back and play at home – home course, hometown – was very, very special, and as you know, I’m in a different place now than I was when I was Madelene’s age,” Sörenstam said of that experience. “But it was very special, and of course to play with Madelene and some of the players you can play out there, we have gotten to know each other quite well the last few years. It was very, very special. To make the weekend of course made it even more so.
“I remember our daughter was really not into golf. But that week she was like, ‘Mommy, we made the cut.’ She couldn’t care less, but all of a sudden it was ‘we.’ That’s really what this is; as I’ve said before, it’s a family effort. I look forward to playing with Madelene here in just a few weeks.
“We’re … I wouldn’t say family, but we’re very close. It’s going to be really fun.”