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Good year on on the LPGA
Tour in 2001
The best thing about women's golf during 2001 was that, for the first time
in three years, the global game was not dominated by just one player.
In both 1999 and 2000, Australia's Karrie Webb was the Tiger Woods of the female
fairways, racking up 13 tournament wins and setting record after record in relentless
style.
Many might have thought 2001 would showcase more of the same when the Australian
made golfing history in June, her victory in the McDonald's LPGA Championship
seeing her become the fifth and youngest woman to complete the career grand slam.
But, by the year-end, Sweden's Annika Sorenstam and South Korea's Pak Se-ri
both finished above Webb on the LPGA Tour money list, with Sorenstam voted the
tour's player of the year after an astonishing 11-month run.
Webb, Sorenstam and Pak all hit the headlines with regularity as the tour unfolded
and 2001 proved to be one of the most competitive seasons in the LPGA's 51-year
history.
Seven players became first-time tour winners during the season to add further
spice to the overall mix as Catriona Matthew, Wendy Doolan, Carin Koch, Heather
Daly-Donofrio, Kate Golden, Gloria Park and Tina Fischer all triumphed.
For Sorenstam, the year will be a very difficult one for her to equal as she
came close to rewriting the entire LPGA record book.
The Swede won four consecutive events early on in the season, became the first
LPGA player to shoot 59 in competition and also the first to win $2 million in
a single season as she totalled earnings of $2,105,868.
By the end of the year, Sorenstam had tasted victory a record eight times,
broken Webb's record for the lowest scoring average, with 69.42, and also set
tour scoring records for 72 holes, 36 holes and 18 holes.
For good measure, she also made 26 out of 26 cuts, recorded 20 top-10 finishes,
became the first player to reach the $7 and $8 million marks in career earnings
and, overall, tied or set 30 LPGA records.
"I'm walking on clouds," Sorenstam said after finishing second to
Webb in the season-ending Tyco/ADT Championship earlier this month.
"I wanted to win player of the year, scoring average and money list. This
is number one on my priority (list).
"I had a goal of winning 10 tournaments at the start of the season and
I won eight. But Korea got cancelled, which I intended to play, so who knows?"
For Webb, the year may not have matched her winning consistency of 1999 and
2000 but she still managed to complete a career grand slam, successfully defended
her U.S. Open title and won three times in all.
"I won two huge tournaments this year, two majors," Webb said, after
her two-shot victory in the Tyco/ADT Championship.
"Winning this tournament, we have the top 30, the best players of the
year here, it's a special tournament to win as well.
"I did probably get to a peak (in 1999 and 2000) and it's turned down
a little bit. But that's a peak that I might never even get to again -- 13 tournaments
in two years."
As for South Korean Pak, she finished second behind Sorenstam on the season-ending
money list with winnings of $1,623,009, having won an impressive five times.
She got off to a fast start by triumphing in the season-opening LPGA Classic
before clinching the rain-shortened Longs Drugs Challenge and the Jamie Farr Kroger
Classic.
In August, she won her third career major with her British Open crown at Sunningdale
and then posted her fifth win of the year at the LPGA Tour Champions in late September.
"I'm very happy and am proud of myself," the 24-year-old said.
"I'm really happy to have played so well this year. I've had a great season
and I have a few years left."
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