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Editor's note: This article was originally published in LINKS Magazine. Visit the magazine website here.
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.
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"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."
'She preferred weeds'
Sorenstam admittedly has a lot to learn about irrigation, grading and agronomy. But as Brian Curley, who worked with her on her first course at China's Mission Hills Resort, puts it, you don't have to be an architect to have a huge influence on building your home. This is one woman, however, who didn't want her space festooned with a lot of flowers, as Mission Hills' owners were hoping.
"She preferred weeds," Curley recalls with a laugh. "She's got very strong opinions. She's an astute businesswoman. She's got the pedigree to step right into the role. She comes off as very professional and polished, so there's a certain comfort level that any owner/developer is going to feel with her: 'Hey, I'm in good hands here.'"
One such developer is Bobby Ginn. In addition to sponsoring her academy and her LPGA event, he has commisioned her first U.S. project, a redesign of Patriots Point Links near Charleston, South Carolina. (Working with IMG's internal design department, she has two courses in development, one in British Columbia and another in South Africa, with five in the "discussion phase.")
"She's a class act personified," says Ginn, who scoffs at the notion that male players won't want to play Patriots Point after Sorenstam's name goes on it. "If men think it's going to be an easy golf course because she designed it, they've got a rude awakening. She is going to design some tremendous golf courses in her career. She's clearly not doing it for the money. She's doing it because she's passionate about it."
