Sorenstam, "It Couldn`t Be Better."

Annika Sorenstam (Sweden) splendidly ended this season grabbing `two hares` simultaneously at the LPGA’s season-ending Tyco/ADT Championship (purse 1 million dollars).

Sorenstam recorded a 7-under-par 281 with a daily-best 7-under-par 65 in the final round, but ranked the second place, 2 shots behind the leader Karrie Webb (Australia) who has kept the leader throughout four days, at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

However, Sorenstam added a second-place check of 15,000 dollars to become the first woman in LPGA 51-year history to cross the 2 million dollar mark in single-season earnings with a total of 2,105,868 dollars.

The lowest scoring average record had seemed out of her reach due to her relatively poor rounding until the previous day with a 2-over par, but she made her goal of setting the new record. Sorenstam finished with a 69.42 season average, breaking by 0.01 strokes the existing record (69.43) set by Webb in 1999.

Sorenstam marked a two-under par in the first nine, and then established a grand new record with one eagle and three birdies in the back nine. By earning the bear trophy which was granted to the lowest scoring average winner, Sorenstam became a quadruple crown winner with the titles of wins (8wins), player of the year, and earnings.

"I`m walking on clouds." Sorenstam said. "I knew it would be a tough thing to do. But I wasn`t going to let it go if I had a chance. To play the back nine in 5-under is a miracle."

Webb grabbed her third win in this season and her career 26th win, and won a leader-check of 215,000 dollars to go over the 1.5 million dollar mark for the third straight season. As Webb won two major titles and this tournament, so-called `war of stars`, in which only top 30 players participated, she finished this season at the third place in earnings, following Se-Ri Park.

Grace Park (Ewah Womans University) hit a 7-over-par 295 to share the 7th place with Sophie Gustafson (Sweden), and she finished this season with six-time top-10 including one title.

Jong-Seok Kim kjs0123@donga.com