Annika is leading a double life
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Annika Sorenstam picked her way carefully through the construction debris outside her nearly completed golf academy at the Reunion Resort and Club near Orlando.
Only the toes of her shoes touched the dusty stone steps, securing a foothold on the edge of each while the high heels dangled in the air. She is smartly dressed in a white shirt and black suit, her eyes dancing with delight as she surveyed the initial effort of her new company, "ANNIKA." It was as if from those steps she could see what was next for her, what was to come in her life after competitive golf. Dressed this January day every bit the businesswoman, she spoke as one as well, talking of building her brand. Ultra-organized as always, she has an eye on the future while still being firmly focused on the present.
"I want to use this school to share my passion," Sorenstam said about Annika's Academy of Golf & Fitness. "I want them to feel my love for the game, feel my love for fitness. I want to inspire the people who come here. And I have a team in place that understands my vision."
It is the same team that has helped her become one of the most successful players ever, with 10 major championships among her 69 LPGA victories. Henri Reis, her coach for 20 years, will be the lead instructor, assisted by Charlotta Sorenstam, Annika's sister and an LPGA winner in her own right. Kai Fusser, who has directed Sorenstam's workouts for nearly six years and transformed her into perhaps the strongest player on tour, will run the fitness center. And the Vision 54 philosophy that has shaped Sorenstam's mental toughness will be shared with students. Having already secured her place in history on the course, Sorenstam is now looking to create a legacy off it as well.
Later that day, in a back-corner booth at her favorite Japanese restaurant in Orlando, she is savoring the precise flavors of an array of rolls and sushi while speaking with characteristic honesty.
"My golf clubs came out of the travel bag for the first time today since the Lexus Cup," she confessed, more than a month after the competition, and that was for an instruction photo shoot. Asked if she was excited about the upcoming season, she said, "I really haven't thought about it yet. That's probably not a good answer, but I've had so many other things on my mind."
She admits the demands of building a business diverted her time from practice during a 2006 season in which she failed to win Player of the Year honors for the first time since 2000. She started working on her game Feb. 1, five weeks prior to her 2007 debut at the MasterCard Classic in Mexico City.
A big reason Sorenstam, an admitted control freak, should be able to focus more on golf this season is that Mike McGee, her boyfriend, is now managing director of her company -- helping her run both ANNIKA and its corporate parent, Club 59, Inc. She also has created an advisory board that includes former LPGA commissioner Charlie Mechem and her IMG agent, Mark Steinberg. McGee, who recently moved from Palm Beach Gardens to Orlando, plans to travel to most if not all of Sorenstam's tournaments and make it easier for her to focus on golf. Sorenstam will play slightly fewer than the 20 events she entered last year with the clear emphasis on winning more majors.
"The good thing about winning only three times last year is I have fewer titles to defend," she said with a hearty laugh. In 2006 the number was 10.
At 36, Sorenstam is at a good place in her life. She has achieved more than she ever dreamed she would as a player, evolving from a shy person into a golf icon and one of those rare figures who is known by one name. Say "Annika" and people know who you are talking about. Now she wants to build that identity into a business that will allow her to remain active in golf long after her competitive career is over, much like Greg Norman and Jack Nicklaus.
Sorenstam's mind-set is the result of a tumultuous few years that have reshaped her as a person. What has emerged is not only a new desire to be as successful in business as she has been in golf, but a new willingness to let those outside her small circle of friends see the real Annika -- not the "Ice Princess" always in control of her emotions on the course, but the one who laughs easily, values loyalty and wants to be remembered as someone who gave as much back to the game as she got from it. This transformation was the result of a remarkable tunnel of emotion she entered four years ago as one person and emerged as another -- more complete, more secure:
• 2003: She plays in the Bank of America Colonial on the PGA Tour, completes the LPGA career Grand Slam at the Weetabix Women's British Open and is inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. She is on top of the world.
• 2004: Her seven-year marriage to David Esch hits hard times. He travels to only two tournaments, and she spends many nights in tearful conversations with her inner circle, trying to decide if the marriage is worth saving. Using the golf course as a refuge, she wins eight LPGA events.
• 2005: Divorce papers are filed in February and later that year she begins a romantic relationship with McGee, an agent and son of former PGA Tour player Jerry McGee. By the LPGA's season-ending awards dinner at Mar-a-Lago, they are openly a couple. She wins 10 events, including two majors.
• 2006: Sorenstam finds out before the season her father, Tom, has prostate cancer. Never using it as an excuse -- in fact, never discussing it publicly -- she worries through his surgery in May, and it is not until late July doctors speak with optimism about the prognosis. Sorenstam wins three LPGA events (her fewest since 1999) but captures a major, her third U.S. Women's Open, for the sixth consecutive year.
Story • LPGA top 30 photo gallery |
This will be the third season of her tournament in Sweden, the Scandinavian TPC Hosted by Annika, and she will add an LPGA event this year, the Ginn Tribute Hosted by Annika. As part of that tournament, Sorenstam has become a national ambassador for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, one of the event's main benefactors, whose mission is to enrich the lives of children with life-threatening medical conditions.
"Their brand is all about sharing joy, and Annika's is about sharing passion and inspiring others," McGee said. "We think this will be a perfect combination."
The academy, a 5,400-square-foot facility ringed by chipping and putting greens, will have an unveiling for the media April 10. Lynn Marriott and Pia Nilsson, who helped develop Vision 54 in Sweden in the 1980s, will teach their Golf 54 program at Sorenstam's facility in May. The school will close for the summer and reopen in October. The very nature of the academy is different from many golf schools. The classes will be small -- six to eight students -- and the emphasis will be on the individual. The approach will be holistic, incorporating fitness, nutrition and the mental game. The building includes a workout center and kitchen as well as hitting bays.
"I don't have any certain method I try to teach," said Reis, who has worked with Sorenstam since she was 16. "Everyone is different, and their golf swings are different also. I don't try to change their entire swing. I try to work with what they have. It's very personal."
Fusser's domain includes no machines, only free weights.
"Your body was not made to sit down and exercise," he said. "You should do your workouts standing so you can develop balance as well as strength."
He will teach the same programs at the academy that he teaches Sorenstam.
"I do the same thing with Annika as I do with a 13-year-old or a 63-year-old," Fusser said. "It's just the intensity that changes."
While Sorenstam grinds as hard as ever on the course, she laughs more easily off it, perhaps because she is more at ease with who she is and more comfortable living her life in public. She is also more able to see the world beyond golf.
"I was in my driveway washing my car the day before Christmas," she said, "and I look up and see Michelle Wie [who was visiting David Leadbetter] walking by with her golf clubs. We nod, and I'm thinking, 'Which is weirder, me washing my car on Christmas Eve or her practicing on Christmas Eve?'"
That may not be a question Sorenstam would have asked herself a few years ago.
To be around Sorenstam's inner circle is to laugh a lot. Tom and Gunilla have passed a dry Swedish sense of humor on to their daughters, while Mike's parents, Jerry and Jill, share a more raucous American brand.
"You know what's different about following Annika when she plays than following you?" Jill said to Jerry. "She has a gallery."
Cooking dinner at her Lake Nona home in mid-January, on the eve before Tom was to return to Sweden for a cancer checkup, Sorenstam, distracted by the Sony Open on TV, sliced her left thumb with a knife.
"That's a good sign," Tom said. "The season hasn't even started yet and you've already made your first cut."
Sorenstam admits she needs to work harder on her game this year and makes it clear there is more she wants to accomplish on the golf course before she ends her playing career.
"We do have St. Andrews this year," McGee said, referring to the Weetabix Women's British Open, which causes Sorenstam to look away from her sushi, chopsticks poised in midair.
With eyes opening wide, as is her tendency when she is excited, Sorenstam said, "That would be nice [to win], that would be nice."
That quickly, her mind is back on golf. There is a business to run and perhaps a family to start, but there is still a lot of golf left to play.
Ron Sirak is the executive editor of Golf World magazine.
