Sorenstam fired up for Ginn Open but Ochoa and Pressel's putter may get in the way

LPGA followers now know one thing about Annika Sorenstam that we may not have known previously, that is she’s human! Whew, what a relief! I was beginning to think she was an alien like Tiger Woods but now I’m certain that she is susceptible to bumps in the road like most professional golfers.

I think it’s important for great players like Annika to have a bad day if only for one reason. It brings them back into reality. Not one of these golfers is safe from defeat, not even from players who don’t seem to offer a threat, like Sung Ah Yim. Yim quietly went about her business on Sunday at the Florida’s Natural tournament becoming more confident with every passing stroke as Sorenstam seemed to wilt under the pressure, duress which she hasn’t felt in quite some time.

Although the event wasn’t televised, the remarks which came from the Swede told the whole story of her miserable experience that Sunday. “I was just very inconsistent, which I think is unlike me. I feel obviously, very, very disappointed.”

But the mark of a true champion is one who grinds it out until the end thinking that there may be a slim chance that a heroic effort is made. As Karrie Webb stated, “Like I learned at Nabisco, it’s never over ‘til it’s over. I just wanted to hang around and see if I had a chance.”

And so begins another week on the LPGA Tour. An inaugural event, Ginn Club & Resorts Open is appearing both on The Golf Channel as well as on CBS television over the weekend. Finally a televised event, and on network! The $2.5 million purse is strong with $375,000 going to the victor and the top golfers are ready to put on a show.

For this week, Annika will be competing in her “adopted” hometown of Orlando. She has even formed a unique relationship with the Ginn Company and will be setting up a golf academy at Reunion combining “golf training with fitness” as Sorenstam stated this week.

I’ll bet the final field will all be feeling a bit more confident knowing that the world’s number-one female golfer choked on Sunday. Lorena Ochoa, for one, is gaining confidence with every passing week. With four top-four finishes in six starts and nine out of twenty rounds in the sixties I think Ochoa is the girl to beat whenever she’s in the field. As she assertively declared this week, “I know I can win any tournament I play.”

Morgan Pressel will try not allow the pressure of the week to get to her and has been working on her putting which was “pretty atrocious” last week. She went with a new putter which didn’t work for her and now has switched to “a two ball, but now with a new prototype, the same one that Phil Mickelson used to win The Masters".

But rest assured that Annika is heading into this tournament with purpose, that is, to regain her momentum. One blip on the radar has brought Sorenstam back to earth and she’s ready to take care of business. As Annika stated, “this just gives me a little bit more fire and maybe that’s what I need for the rest of the season.”