Sorenstam Wins The Welch's

The LPGA Hall of Fame won't be ready for Annika Sorenstam until 2003, after she completes her mandatory 10 years on the Tour.

But Sorenstam is ready for the Hall now.

She met the other requirements Sunday, beating Pat Hurst on the second playoff hole to win the Welch's-Circle K Championship.

The one-point win Sorenstam's career 19th title put her at 27 points, the Hall's entry-level standard.

"To be a part of something you know, an elite group like that

is a dream come true," she said. "Especially when you know that maybe when I'm 50 or 60, to know that I'm one of them. When I started to play golf, I played it because I love it so much, and suddenly you're achieving something like that. It's unreal."

Sorenstam, beaten by Karrie Webb last week in a playoff in Hawaii, shot a 5-under-par 67 and Hurst closed with a 66 to finish 72 holes at a tournament-record 19-under 269. The previous best was Chris Johnson's 272 in 1984.

Sorenstam sank a 4-foot birdie putt on the second extra hole after Hurst parred it.

"I was thinking, 'Here we go again,"' Sorenstam said. "I mean, last week I had the chance. If I could have birdied 18 last week I would have won. Here, if I would have birdied 18, I would have won again. I didn't want the same finish."

Sorenstam improved to 6-3 in playoffs, dropping Hurst, whose last championship was the 1998 Dinah Shore, to 0-2.

The $105,000 first prize increased Sorenstam's earnings to $184,870 and boosted her from 13th to third on the money list, trailing only Webb and Laura Davies.

Defending champion Juli Inkster matched the lowest finishing score ever in the tournament with a 64, and was third at 270 her third top-three finish in as many events.

Dottie Pepper was alone in fourth at 271, one shot ahead of Johnson and Se Ri Pak, who also fired a 64.

Davies, A.J. Eathorne, Michelle McGann, Brandie Burton and Moira Dunn, who shared the third-round lead with Sorenstam, tied for seventh at 273.

Everyone except Hurst had too much ground to make up, especially when Sorenstam holed a 114-yard sand wedge from the fairway for an eagle-2 on the ninth hole.

Just before that shot, Inkster sank a 60-foot putt for birdie on No. 12. She was in the 13th fairway waiting to hit her second shot when the crowd around the ninth green erupted in applause.

Unruffled, Inkster reached the 470-yard, par-5 with her second shot and rolled in a 30-foot putt for an eagle-3 that tied Sorenstam again at 17-under.

But Inkster had just one birdie left, and Sorenstam grabbed the lead again when she birdied No. 13 and kept it by birdieing No. 16.

Hurst, though, birdied five of the last six holes to catch up.

"She's tough," Hurst said. "Me, as a player, I have to step it up to a different level when she's ahead."

Sorenstam and Hurst played No. 18, a 458-yard par-5, twice in the playoff. Each woman birdied it the first time, but on the second run-through, Hurst sliced her drive, and wound up on the wrong side of the cart path and almost into a grove of trees.

She had enough room to swing, but her approach shot was short.

"I definitely couldn't go at the pin," Hurst said. "I had 150 yards or so, but I just had to keep it left, where you wouldn't want to go anyway, you know, for the opening of the green."

Hurst's 60-foot chip for eagle rolled 20 feet past onto the fringe, and her chip back was inches short.

Sorenstam reached the green in two and left herself a 35-foot putt over a knoll. She rolled that one 4 feet past and made the comebacker.

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