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At 34 years of age, Annika Sorenstam is on top of the women's golf world. She has an established track record of success that gets longer with each passing week, month and year. Unknown to many golf fans, it is a record that tops anything that the celebrated Tiger Woods has done on the men's tour.

Last weekend, at the first of the Ladies Professional Golf Association Major Championships, Sorenstam routed the field, winning the Kraft Nabisco Championship by a full 8 shots. It was the eighth Major Title of Annika's career and her 59th professional tournament win.

Though Sorenstam has entered just three events in 2005, she has three tournament victories. By also winning her last two starts in 2004, she has now also won five tournaments in a row. Going back to the last nine tournaments she has played in, she has seven titles. Without a doubt, in the last few months of 2004 and the first three months of 2005, she has served notice to the female golf world.

Whenever Annika tees it up, everyone else might just as well be thinking second place.

The winning streak is no surprise to those who have followed the Stockholm, Sweden native throughout her amateur and professional career. After all she managed to win 7 collegiate golfing titles while at the University of Arizona and was the 1992 World Amateur Champion. The fact is, she has always seemed destined for professional accolades and she has done nothing over the years to tarnish that view.

But in spite of her run of success, all of her wins may pale when compared to her performance in May of 2003 at the PGA Tour's Bank of America Colonial Open in Fort Worth, Texas. For the first time since 1945, a woman played against the men in a PGA Golf Tournament. Competing against the best golfers in the world and teeing it up from the same tees as the male professionals, Annika more than held her own, outperforming 15 members of the men's field. Surrounded by massive galleries and facing enormous pressure to perform, Sorenstam toured the course with incredible poise and skill. It was a performance to be forever etched in the minds of male and female spectators alike, a once in a lifetime sporting event.

However, much like Tiger Woods, Annika measures her performance by winning major tournaments. Therefore, last year, was a down year in that regard for the Swede. Much to her disappointment, she managed to win only one of the Ladies Major Tournaments in 2004. But in contrast, for any other women's player, it would have actually been the best year of their respective career. Showing just how far she is above the field, a disappointing year for Annika still translated to eight tournament victories on the LPGA Tour and ten tournament titles world-wide.

Currently, Sorenstam is striking the ball as good as a golfer can. For the mere mortals of the golfing world, Annika has another streak going that is easier for the average hacker to relate to. The last time she shot an over par round was on June 27th, 2004, when she shot a one over par 73.

At 34, Annika is in her golfing prime, a time when skill and experience come together as a professional. She has already established a standard for the female golfing world, but the final legacy of this phenomenal talent is yet unwritten.

Her goal is to win all four of the women's majors in the same calendar year. And for 2005, it's one down and three to go.