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Sorenstam files for divorce
BY JAY A. COFFIN

Annika Sorenstam, the No. 1 player in women’s golf, has filed for divorce, ending her eight-year marriage to David Esch, Golfweek has learned. A petition for dissolution of the marriage was filed Feb. 4 in Circuit Court of Orange County (Fla.), not far from where the couple shared an Orlando home in the gated community of Lake Nona.

The suit has been sealed, thus no details were available.


Annika Sorenstam and David Esch/AP Photo

“They’ve made an amicable decision to terminate the relationship,” said Mayanne Downs, the Orlando-based attorney representing Sorenstam. “They’re going to try to keep it personal and private. That’s all I’m at liberty to say.”

Efforts to contact Sorenstam and Esch for comment were unsuccessful. Sorenstam is represented by Mark Steinberg, senior vice president of IMG’s golf division, who was in Asia and not immediately available for comment.

Rumors of the split had been floating around LPGA circles since last summer, when Esch – highly visible throughout Sorenstam’s career – stopped traveling as frequently with his wife. He was not in attendance at any of the four major championships (a rarity since they became married) and was spotted only sporadically at events during the year.

Esch did attend the final round of the Samsung World Championship in October to watch Sorenstam shoot 67 and come from behind to beat Grace Park.

“My husband is here,” Sorenstam said following the victory, “so it was really fun to be able to perform this way.”

Also in October, Sorenstam released a book titled “Golf Annika’s Way” and thanked Esch in the credits. “With love to those who mean the most to me, my father and mother, Tom and Gunilla, my sister, Lotta, and especially to my husband, David,” the acknowledgment said. In the prologue, Sorenstam wrote that golf has “taken me around the world and introduced me to interesting people, including my husband, David, who I met on a driving range.”

Word of a rift in the relationship began to circulate in November at the ADT Championship when Esch was not at a ceremony in which Sorenstam received her seventh Player of the Year trophy. Sorenstam thanked her husband in the acceptance speech. She also said earlier in the week at ADT – a tournament she ultimately won in a playoff over Cristie Kerr – that she recently had spent five days with her sister and Esch at their Incline Village, Nev., home, where they had painted the inside of the house.

“We had a good time,” Sorenstam said. “We were just hanging out.”

Sorenstam, 34, has hinted at retirement the past few years, and talked about having children. In light of a pending divorce, the on-course question becomes this: Will Sorenstam, who played only 18 LPGA tournaments in 2004, reimmerse herself in tour life? Being single again could prompt a change in Sorenstam's plans and extend her career.

Now, Sorenstam may be tempted to chase Kathy Whitworth’s mark of 88 career victories. She has 56 victories – 33 the past four seasons – and stands fifth on the all-time list. Patty Berg’s record of 15 major championships may seem beyond Sorenstam's reach – she has seven – but she has not backed down from challenges in the past. For the second consecutive season, Sorenstam will start 2005 with a stated goal of winning the LPGA's Grand Slam.

The LPGA season begins Feb. 24 in Hawaii but Sorenstam will not be in the field at the SBS Open at Turtle Bay. The tour’s next event is the MasterCard Classic March 4-6 in Mexico City. Sorenstam has said she wants to be tournament-tested before the Kraft Nabisco Championship March 24-27.

Sorenstam and Esch, 35, met in 1994 at Moon Valley Country Club in Phoenix. (Seven years later, Sorenstam shot 59 at Moon Valley during the second round of the 2001 Standard Register Ping.) Esch, then a tour rep for Ping, was practicing bunker shots near the LPGA rookie when he delivered a corny but effective introduction: “Wanna play a round?”

The initial answer that day was “No.” But Sorenstam and Esch played one hole, with Sorenstam making par and Esch a birdie. Three days later, the couple met to play nine holes before Sorenstam caught a flight to her native Sweden. Esch has said that he chased Sorenstam by phone all over Europe. When she returned, their first official date was to a Phoenix Roadrunners hockey game.

The romance began to blossom and the two became engaged by the end of 1995 – the year Sorenstam splashed onto the LPGA scene with her victory at the U.S. Women’s Open at The Broadmoor. They married on Jan. 4, 1997.

In an interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2003, Esch said of Sorenstam, “I’ve known her since she was nobody.” He later added, “I’ve committed my life to her and her career at this point. And she’ll do the same for me when she retires.”

A week after her 1997 wedding, Sorenstam won the Chrysler Tournament of Champions, then posted her second victory of the year in February at the Hawaiian Open. In April that year, she beat Pamela Kometani in a playoff to win the Longs Drugs Challenge for her third victory in seven starts. She won six times that season.

It’s difficult to judge what role marriage played in Sorenstam’s success, but here are the numbers: Sorenstam won six times, including two major championships, and earned $1,649,614 while she was single. She won 50 times, including five majors, and earned $14,142,286 during her marriage.

Sorry to hear this, especially the note about Annika wanting to wind down her career to focus on starting a family. I was looking forward to watching her in the SBS Open next week. I didn't think she was going to play until I visited the Web site at http://www.sbsopen.com/ where they list Annika and 5 other players on the page.

I'm sorry to hear that Annika is going through a split-up. Even the most amicable of divorces is a wrenching experience. It will be interesting to see how this change affects her golf.

I'd be willing to speculate that it won't have much effect at all, given her tremendous training habits and will to win. It may be that those qualities doomed her marriage, but I'd really rather not speculate on the causes or assign blame--just wish them both good luck and hope that David doesn't try to take Annika to the cleaners in a financial settlement.

I never knew she was married in the first place