Sorenstam starts and finishes on a high

LPGA Tour Season review:  For a time during the year, the two greatest golfers of their respective genders joked (only half in jest) with each other as to who would be first to achieve the Grand Slam in a single season.

Neither Tiger Woods nor Annika Sorenstam did achieve the feat, but who'd bet against it being achieved sooner rather than later? And, in many eyes, the Swede would be favourite.

Again this season, Sorenstam dominated the women's game. In winning the Samsung World Championship a fortnight ago, she claimed the 64th win of her career on the LPGA but, if anything, her form earlier in the season was even more impressive. When she won the first major of the season, the Kraft Nabisco Championship, it constituted her fifth win in a row on the LPGA.

If that eight-shot win in the Nabisco looked as if it would be the springboard for an exceptional season, such inclinations seemed to be well founded when she followed up by winning the McDonalds LPGA Championship. However, the dream of achieving the Grand Slam ended with a poor showing in the US Open and she finished fifth in the British Open. "To win a Grand Slam will be very difficult, but I'll be trying," she conceded.

This season marks the fourth time Sorenstam has won eight or more tournaments in a single season and her total win output was only greater in 2002 when she won 11 times. What is equally as impressive as her win ratio is the number of times she wins when carrying a 54-hole lead into the final round. This season, she was six-for-six when leading going into the last round and she has now converted her last nine opportunities when leading with 18 holes to play.