Annika Sorenstam stood at the 18th green of Pelican Golf Club with a big smile on her face.
She had been smiling all week, considering the success of her tournament. Caitlin Clark’s pro-am return and Kai Trump’s LPGA debut brought excitement and attention to her tournament, The Annika, making it the most talked about LPGA event on the calendar.
“A lot of things aligned nicely this week,” Sorenstam said Sunday. “Starting the day with the winner, the weather, the people, the initiatives, the involvement, everything. All the different activities that were planned with sponsor invitations, with Caitlin Clark.”
The week started with the Clark-Trump buzz and ended Sunday, with Sorenstam watching a woman she watched grow up in golf put the finishing touches on a stylish, effortless victory.
Sweden’s Linn Grant, who played in the Annika Cup at a young age and made history when she defeated the men by nine strokes in a mixed event organized by Sorenstam, was in complete control of this week’s tournament. The 26-year-old Grant went 52 holes without a bogey before finally giving up a shot at the final hole on Sunday, long after running away from Jennifer Kupcho to win her second LPGA title and first since 2023.
“You made this course look easy,” Sorenstam told Grant on the 18th green. “It’s not easy.”
The LPGA’s Kai Trump-Caitlin Clark buzz ends with big looming questions
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Josh Schrock
During a week dedicated to growing the women’s game, Grant could have been the perfect winner for Sorenstam’s buzz-building event: a young, charismatic player with world-class talent who has the potential to rise.
“Golf is such a cruel game,” Grant, who posted a winning score of 19 under, said Sunday. “One day you can win everything, and the next day you don’t believe in yourself at all. I think today was just a win for me, and with Annika and her event I think maybe it was a win for my little one. Very nice to sit here together [Annika] and all the history that we have, and with all the events that I’ve played – I think I’m in all of them [Annika] events at every level. It’s a real full-circle moment, both personally and here with Annika.”
“It’s all about Linn and what she did this week, and it’s so exciting to sit here with her and be happy for her,” Sorenstam said. “I think anyone who has watched Linn grow up knows that she has a lot of potential and that she has already won. … It’s hard here, so you have to cherish every victory.”
Grant is the first Swedish winner of the event that started in 2020. She grew up idolizing Sorenstam and remembers going to chipping clinics the legend held when she was a young golfer. The victory had a deeper meaning for Grant, who had struggled this season and battled golf doubts.
“I’m excited about golf and this lifestyle is always a roller coaster of trying to figure out how to get better,” Grant said. “Sometimes it’s about taking a step back and maybe looking at yourself and thinking, am I happy? Am I making the decisions that make me happy? Sometimes that’s what makes golf easier. You have to be a little bit strong and confident in those decisions to be able to say, maybe I’m not playing this week because I’m not feeling it, because it’s not making me happy, or you’re just changing your plans or the way you do things more for yourself to stay true to yourself.”
Grant’s victory was the icing on the cake of a winning week for the LPGA. However, it also raised difficult-to-answer questions for the tournament host and the tour. Sorenstam was pleased with the way her event broke through to a larger audience, where Grant put on a brilliant golf show. She said she would take it easy on Sunday after a week that can only be described as a success. From the social media impressions to Grant’s dominant victory, the Annika won the week and the LPGA season.
But Sorenstam also knows that repeating this week, building on it and taking players like Grant to the next level is the next step.
“How can we respond to this and how can we grow from this?” Sorenstam said. “I think what we’ve seen is that when someone like Caitlin Clark comes here, it creates an extra buzz. She brings more people to this event, more people watching.”
“But I think the key for us is: how are we going to do this more often? How do we move it from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday to Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday? The players can only do so much. The interest is there. Those are questions that are certainly on the table. We don’t necessarily have the answers, but we would like to continue with that.”
As the LPGA and new commissioner Craig Kessler look for ways to clear the obstacles before them, Sunday’s champion offered a clue to finding the path forward: The surest path to a desired destination in golf, business or life is not by doing the easy things or the traditional things, but by going off the beaten path and carving your own path.
“Like I’ve had to change a lot of things in my routines, things that I thought were just things that were good to do because other people were doing them instead of thinking, what do I actually believe in?” Grant shared what brought her back to the LPGA winner’s circle. “What do I think makes me a better person and a better player?”
Grant’s honest answers got her where she wanted to go. The LPGA must now find its own solutions to the big questions it faces.
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