Sport-Blog.com

Though Annika Sorenstam is firmly perched on top of the women's golf world, the idea of winning all four major women's tournaments in a single year has once again proven to be beyond even her lofty reach. The Tiger Woods of the women's tour went into the third major of the season a heavy favorite. But the best female golfer on the planet came out of the weekend well down the leaderboard, knowing full well that she had played some of her worst golf in recent years.

Sorenstam had been so absolutely dominant in the first two majors that talk had once again turned to the possibility of winning all four major championships in the same season. Never mind how deep the Tour field is or how challenging it is to have you're "A" game time and time again, when you win the first two majors on the season by a combined 11 shots people expect you to win.

Throw in the fact that Sorenstam had won six of eight LPGA tournaments in a recent span and she seemed like a lock. When she hadn't won, she still had mustered a tie for second in a seventh event during a week in which she was suffering from the flu.

But after four rounds of US Open golf, Sorenstam was reduced to the position of spectator as the Women's Open tournament came to a close. Never closer than five shots from the lead on Saturday and Sunday, the women's top player finished a distant 23rd, a full nine shots behind tournament winner Birdie Kim. For the first time in 2005 at a major, Sorenstam was watching the final group from the sidelines instead of greenside.

The poor showing however just may have revealed how dominant she had been on Tour in recent years. The 23rd place finish was her lowest in her last 52 tournaments. One has to go back to the Women's British Open in 2002, where Annika missed the cut, to find a lower finish. The poor showing was a real disappointment for the winner of 62 career tournaments, 39 of them over the last five years. Sorenstam had made no bones about her goal to win the slam and in her last 10 majors prior to this past weekend she had 8 top ten performances including five wins, two seconds, and a fourth-place finish. All told, in 43 majors before this week's Open the Swedish golfer had an incredible 25 top-10 finishes.

And in the wake of her poor showing, at least poor for Annika, the future of the LPGA Tour was on full display. Teenagers Morgan Pressel (17), Brittany Lang (19), Michelle Wie (15) and Paula Creamer (18) all had at least a share of the lead at some point during the tournament before the 23 year old Birdie Kim took home the title.

These four all appear ready to compete regularly on the Tour giving notice to Sorenstam that it may be a little tougher to keep up her victory parade in the months and years ahead. But ultimately, there is no doubt that everyone still considers Sorenstam the best women's golfer.

Perhaps nothing makes that title more evident than the fact that her 23rd place finish was as much of a story this weekend as was Birdie Kim's fabulous bunker shot on 18 to win the title.