Many years ago, a Tibetan monk made a pilgrimage to the United States to watch Jack Nicklaus play golf, because he had determined that Nicklaus had the strongest powers of concentration in the Western world. The monk might want to make a return trip to watch Annika Sorenstam. If she didn't choke under the pressure she created for herself at the Colonial, her will is powerful enough to bend spoons and 6-irons in her spare time.
I'm not interested in the controversy over whether Sorenstam should have been allowed to play in a PGA event, because there simply isn't a serious dispute. The PGA Tour doesn't bar women. Tournament sponsors always get to hand out a few invitations to golfers of their choice, and they often go to male golfers who aren't as talented as Sorenstam. Given the attention Sorenstam brought to this event, the decision to invite her was vindicated many times over. The spoiled, whiny male pros who complained that she didn't belong were secretly afraid that she did belong - and she confirmed their fears.
In our major sports, hitting a golf ball and shooting a free throw are the two most difficult skills to perform under pressure. We've all seen talented players throw up air balls or yip two-foot putts with championships on the line. (It helps to explain why Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan are the two modern athletes most revered for superhuman mind-body control.) Sorenstam had to perform in the midst of a media throng not seen since the Thrilla in Manila almost 30 years ago. Not even Tiger has dealt with anything quite like it. She also had to bear the symbolic weight of the gender wars, as if shooting an 80 would have been one giant leap backward for womankind.
Sorenstam handled it all with grace - and with an easy smile she seldom has shown on the LPGA tour. Her game slipped a bit on Friday, but she had already proved herself by then. A golf tournament tells us nothing about whether the best female athletes are as fast and strong as the best males. They aren't, as if that matters. But it didn't take a Tibetan monk to notice that Annika Sorenstam had the strongest mind in the Colonial field. The threatened men who ignored her could have learned something.
- Robert Friedman is deputy editor of editorials for the Times.
