She teed off against the men — and beat 11 of them

On May 22, 2003, Annika Sörenstam (the reigning LPGA world No. 1 with 54 Tour wins to her name) walked to the 10th tee at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, and became the first woman to compete in a PGA Tour event in 58 years. 1

About fifteen minutes before that tee shot, she turned to her caddie Terry McNamara and said: "What have we gotten ourselves into?" McNamara looked at her and replied, "It's a little too late to think about that." 2

She hit the ball, and 607 credentialed journalists — more than typically cover a PGA major — watched it fly. 3

Sörenstam at the Colonial pre-tournament press conference, 2003

The last woman to play a PGA Tour event before Sörenstam was Babe Didrikson Zaharias in 1945 — a two-time Olympic gold medalist who had qualified for the Los Angeles Open through a 36-hole qualifier rather than a sponsor exemption. Didrikson made the 36-hole cut in that tournament and competed in two more events that year, finishing 33rd at the Phoenix Open, making her the only woman ever to survive a PGA Tour cut. 4

Fifty-eight years later, Sörenstam accepted one of the Bank of America Colonial's eight sponsor exemptions. She chose the tournament deliberately. Colonial Country Club — a par-70 layout stretching about 7,080 yards and known as "Hogan's Alley" because Ben Hogan had won there five times — demanded accuracy and course management over raw distance. 5 Distance was the one category where Sörenstam knew she could not compete with the men.

Her rationale was simple: "I want to reach my limits. I want to see how good I can be. This is another way of trying to get better." 5

Not everyone greeted her arrival with curiosity. Vijay Singh — at the time the world's fourth-ranked player — told an AP reporter: "I hope she misses the cut. Why? Because she doesn't belong out here. What is she going to prove by playing? It's ridiculous." 6 He also declared that if he were drawn in her group, he would withdraw from the tournament.

He was not drawn in her group. He withdrew from the tournament anyway, citing fatigue. 7

Singh later issued what might generously be called an apology — claiming his original words had "come out the wrong way" — while also clarifying that he "didn't want to go back and know a woman beat me." The AP reporter who took his original quotes stood by every word. 7

Tiger Woods, by contrast, called the remarks "unfortunate" and personally phoned Sörenstam to encourage her to play. Phil Mickelson settled the philosophical question in one sentence: "Guys who are having a tough time with this are thinking this is the men's tour. It's not. It's the best tour, for the best players." 8

Sörenstam played the first round with Aaron Barber and Dean Wilson, two PGA Tour players who had far less fan support and considerably more distance off the tee. Her opening drive, hit with a 3-wood rather than a driver, flew roughly 255 yards — about 30 yards farther than usual, carried by adrenaline. On that first hole, her knee visibly buckled under her as she walked — she later admitted it was intentional, a small joke to release the tension. The gallery laughed. The ice broke. 1

Her two-round scorecard: 71-74, total 145 — four strokes above the cut line

She missed just one fairway all day. She hit 14 greens in regulation. She made a birdie on the 13th hole with a 15-foot putt. She shot 71 (+1). 1

Barber, her playing partner, turned to reporters afterward: "She's a machine. I've never played with someone over 18 holes who didn't miss a shot." 8

USA Network's broadcast of that opening round set the highest Thursday ratings for any PGA Tour event in the network's history to that point: a 1.7 national rating, against an average of 0.7 for the previous 15 PGA Tour Thursday broadcasts. 9

Sörenstam's opening-round 71 gave her the best driving accuracy of anyone in the field 1

The second round did not go as well. Fatigue — and what Sörenstam described as a complete emotional depletion after the sustained pressure of round one — showed up on her scorecard. She made five bogeys. She shot 74 (+4). Her two-day total of +5 (145) sat four strokes above the 36-hole cut line of +1 (141). 3

She finished in a tie for 96th place out of 114 starters — and she beat 11 of the men who completed the tournament. 3

On the 18th green, she sank a 14-foot par putt and tossed her ball into the crowd. An Arkansas high school student named Chris Felty caught it. An LPGA staff member later retrieved it and swapped it for signed merchandise. That ball now sits in the World Golf Hall of Fame. 1

The post-round press conference: she cried, then explained exactly why she would never play a PGA Tour event again

At the post-round press conference, she cried. "I'm glad I did it, but this is way over my head," she told reporters. "I wasn't as tough as I thought I was." 3

She never played a PGA Tour event again — not because she wasn't invited, but because she made a clear-eyed calculation: "I play golf for one reason, to have a chance to win on Sunday. I can't do that out here so why should I play? I proved I could handle it. That's all I wanted." 5

The Colonial appearance did not derail Sörenstam. It seems to have concentrated her. In the 30 months that followed, she won 23 LPGA events. 5 Later in 2003 she won the LPGA Championship and the Women's British Open to complete her career Grand Slam. 10

In 2023, on the 20th anniversary of the Colonial, the club named Sörenstam its 16th honorary member — the first woman to receive the honor, alongside Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Byron Nelson. 11 At the ceremony, she joked about one small competitive advantage she had held over every other player in the field that week in 2003: "The best news with playing here was I had the lady's locker room all to myself." 2

Golf journalist Ron Sirak, who covered every shot that week, wrote the line Sörenstam later used to close her World Golf Hall of Fame induction speech: "She entered the Bank of America Colonial as a female golfer and left it as a golfer." 5

As of 2026, no woman has matched Babe Didrikson's 1945 feat of making a PGA Tour cut. 4 Sörenstam never tried again. She did not need to.

The lesson: Sörenstam picked her one shot deliberately — a par-70 course that rewarded accuracy over distance, an eight-exemption invitational where no male player lost his entry spot, and a single-appearance commitment so she could exit on her own terms. The pressure was maximum. The exposure was maximum. The downside, she calculated, was: "I knew the worst that could happen is that I learn something." 5 She learned — and then spent the next 30 months winning at a pace that made Colonial look like a warm-up.