Why We Overlook Annika

Veteran golf writer Sally Jenkins has a good column on why Annika Sorenstam doesn’t get the credit she deserves.

The problem: She’s boring. She wins half the tournaments she enters. She shoots routine par after routine par. She hits fairways and doesn’t need to make the spectacular recovery shot.

I wish my game was like that. I think that I must be the world’s leading expert on recovery shots, since I have to make so many of them. I know more ways to punch a shot out of the woods than you can count. I never met a sandtrap I didn’t like.

In all seriousness, though, I think that Jenkins misses one other poin: Annika doesn’t really have any competition. If the Yankees were playing a full schedule of minor league teams, they would win practically all of the time.

And they would be boring. Uninteresting.

Its only when the Bronx bombers look like they’re in trouble that they become fascinating. When its August and they’re making a run at first. When the Red Sox and Orioles are making them work for it.

Annika, I think may become a lot more interesting when some of these young guns start challenging her position. Then it becomes an interesting storyline.