Personalities:

Charting a New Course

Annika Sorenstam Women Golf Course Designers

Annika Sorenstam is looking to break new ground—literally and figuratively—in the male-dominated world of golf course architecture

By Tom Cunneff

Annika Sorenstam is rearranging a coaster, a pad of yellow Post-it Notes and the Rules of Golf on a table inside the conference room at her eponymous learning center at the Ginn Reunion Resort near Orlando, Florida. This isn’t some variation of three-card Monte; the objects are ersatz tees to explain how she would route a cart path to keep it out of sight.

“I’d elevate the back tee and run the path in front of it,” she says, lifting the coaster as she gestures with her other hand. “I’d also try to hide it behind the lip of a bunker. Can you hide it 100 percent? No. But that’s my goal: to keep the course as natural looking as possible.”

Sorenstam may look cool and detached on the course, but there is a spontaneous eagerness in her bright blue eyes as she looks over a routing plan, discussing placement of tees and hazards in her familiar lilt.

Combine this passion with the diligence Sorenstam brought to winning 10 majors and 69 LPGA tournaments by dissecting courses the way a sushi chef slices a piece of yellowfin tuna, and her budding design business should be as successful as her on-course record.

Most player-architects lend their name to courses, especially at the beginning of their design careers, but it’s clear the 37-year-old Sorenstam really enjoys the creative outlet. “I like using my imagination,” she says. “I like looking at it from different perspectives, not just from my skill level. I love the planning part, the routing. It’s like a puzzle with 18 pieces. You have to move them around.”

Her fiancé, Mike McGee, who oversees her business interests, has seen her enthusiasm for golf course design growing. “She loves it,” he says. “She put a drafting table upstairs in the house and fiddles with her drawings. She really enjoys seeing something come to life, like the Annika Academy. She sketched what she wanted on paper and Ginn took it and built it. Same thing with courses. She knows what she wants and is able to convey that."