Annika Sorenstam
Annika Sorenstam dominated the Ladies Professional Golf Tour (LPGA) in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She played her first LPGA events in 1993 and joined the tour in 1994, winning Rookie of the Year honors. She quickly became one of the leading players in the women's game, winning the U.S. Women's Open in 1995 (her first career victory) and again in 1996. Sorenstam was named the Rolex Player of the Year in 1995, 1997, 1998, 2001 and 2002. In 2002 she won an amazing 11 tour victories, bringing her career total to 42. (She also won 2 international tournaments that year, making 13 victories in 25 starts.) In May of 2003 she entered a men's PGA event, The Colonial -- becoming the first woman to play a PGA event since Babe Didrikson Zaharias played in the LA Open in 1945. Sorenstam announced in May of 2008 that she would "step away from competitive golf" at the end of the 2008 season.
Extra credit: Sorenstam was the first player ever to break 60 in an LPGA event; she shot a 59 at the par-72 Moon Valley Country Club in Phoenix in the second round of the 2001 Standard Register PING tournament... Sorenstam is 5'6" tall... She married David Esch, then an executive at Callaway Golf, on 4 January 1997; they were divorced in 2005... Her career victories have already qualified Sorenstam for the sport's Hall of Fame once she retires... Her dominance of the women's tour has often been compared to Tiger Woods's dominance of the PGA in the same era... Sorenstam attended the University of Arizona... Her sister Charlotta also is an international-class golfer.
Other golfers of her era: Nancy Lopez, John Daly and Michelle Wie.