Annika Sorenstam might be the first female golfer to ever play in a men’s tournament, but yesterday a rookie LPGA player showed her the ropes. Meaghan Francella beat Annika in a play-off at Mexico’s MasterCard Classic. The victory was the first ever for Francella, who seemed rather modest at the awards ceremony:

“Annika is the best player in the world and I was little intimidated. … I was on the third tee with her and I thought, `Man am I really doing this?’ I thought I was dreaming. It was pretty exciting.”

Two time defending champion Sorenstam had this to say:

“I think I’m playing as good as I could have asked for. It’s tough reading the putting on the green. It’s about who can hang in there and stay patient. This is my first tournament of the year and I feel very good about my game. I’m very excited about the rest of the year and the upcoming tournament in Arizona.”

Bloggers covered the event well. Waggle Room has a good bio of Francela. The Golf Blog questions Annika’s competitiveness. World Golf didn’t even know if she should’ve been there at all.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 7:46 am and is filed under Golf Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.