On the one hand, there is Sorenstam, who has been temporarily sidelined with a neck injury. Only a year ago, Sorenstam won her third U.S. Women’s Open title and seemed prepared to add limitlessly to her 10 major championships. Now she’s trying to recuperate from ruptured and bulging disks, the type of ailments that could mean playing in pain, and which prompted Andre Agassi to end his tennis career last summer. Rehabilitation and motivation may be especially problematic for a 36-year-old who has accomplished nearly everything she set out to do in the games, and whose intense drive may be lessening as she explores fresh interests, such as her new golf academy.

Whatever Sorenstam‘s thoughts on retirement are, she should care­fully study the experience of Lopez, who is still strug­gling with the idea at age 50, and who offers cautionary lessons about comebacks. Even after Lopez announced that the 2002 season would be her last, she was never reconciled to quitting the game she loves and has played in 25 events since then. She recently dropped more than 30 pounds and declared last March that she still feels capable of competing against young studs like Paula Creamer. “I know I have to get in real good shape to try to compete with the young girls,” Lopez said. “But I think I still have the mental capac­ity to go out there and play good golf.” It’s a noble sentiment, but the problem is that Lopez hasn’t finished in the top 10 since 1998. In April she entered the Ginn Open and finished dead last in the field with rounds of 83 and 80.

Fans have a tendency to want their beloved stars to go out on top, becomingly, so that we can preserve our visions of them of them in their prime. We don’t want to see them battle with  physical decline. But that isn’t necessarily fair to them. Athletes are in the business of exhausting every last possibility in them, and it can’t be easy for them to reverse their competitive engines.

Many champi­ons find that the effort to stave off the inevitable becomes a contest in itself. After retiring twice from the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan played two relatively ordinary final seasons with the Washington Wizards, which may have disappointed his fans, but which gratified him personally “An itch to scratch,” he called his desire to keep play­ing. Asked if the comeback would be a letdown if he failed to make the playoffs, he simply replied, “Nope.” Kareem Abdul­ Jabbar enjoyed his last two seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, but once they were over he described retirement to me this way: “Your pride and vanity get in the ‘ray of dealing with it.”

Chris Evert was 34 and still a viable player when she decided to quit; she was tired of the pressure and wanted to start a family. Her retirement was relatively graceful, but even she found that life after competition felt aimless at first. “In the beginning, you want to be missed,” she told me. Once, when she was working as a broadcaster, she went out to hit tennis balls for pleasure and found herself on a court next to Steffi Graf, who was still at her peak. Evert changed courts, embar­rassed to be seen hitting less than well.

She vacillated between emptiness and relief, uncertain how to feel. Then one day it struck her: “My God, I don’t have to win and I don’t have to lose today. That’s free­dom.” Gradually, Evert got used to a more ordinary routine. She spent time with her kids, cooked dinners and visited her sister. “It should be an adjustment, not a catas­trophe,” she observed.

But more often than not, retirement is not a neat, graceful completion. Rather, it’s messy, open-ended and occasionally unflattering. It’s a difficult move to slip seamlessly into ordinary life at the end of an extraordinary career.

(Sometimes it helps to feel as if your left shoulder is pointing toward the ground.) Amateurs often tilt their left shoulder upward, as if they were playing a full shot, which causes the club-head to bot­tom out behind the ball and hit it fat or thin. Place the ball slightly back in your stance and shift your weight to your left side. This will promote a steeper, more descending down­swing and the proper ball-turf contact for a solid shot.

Good chipping  and pitching is all about distance control. If the ball stops within a yard or two of the hole, you can expect to one-putt more. This drill is one of my favorites. Chip one ball about three yards, then pitch your next shot so it lands on top of the first ball and rolls beyond it. Try to land the third ball on top of the second and so on.

The object is to finish with a fairly straight line of evenly spaced balls. This drill improves your hand-eye coordination and teaches you how to incrementally increase the dis­tance you carry—or fly—the ball. It also improves your ability to judge early, which is essential to chipping and pitching as you move farther away from the green.

Low, Running Chip

A back pin location with plenty of green to work with, or a flat run-up to the green. With these shots, I use a less-lofted club (my gap wedge; amateurs might consider using an 8- or 9-iron) because I want to keep the ball low to the ground. Play the ball back in your stance, in line with the big toe on your right foot.

This positions your hands in front of the ball, reducing the club’s loft even more. Keep your left wrist firm and swing the club- head down and through the ball. Make sure you take a big enough back swing to get the ball to the hole.

Short Pitch

This is the shot to hit if you don’t want the ball to run too much and you need. ‘to carry an obstacle. Center the ball between your feet and dis­tribute your weight equally. Your hands should be even with the ball and the shaft perpendicular to the ground.

You don’t want the shaft leaning forward in this shot because that delofts the club, and you need maximum loft. As you swing back and through, try to keep the shaft pointing at your belly. This will encourage you to hit the ball with the club’s full loft, producing a higher shot with less roll

Downhill Floater

This is a tough shot, especially if the green is running away from you and you’re hitting out of the rough. To pop the ball out softly, play it back in your stance with your weight favoring your left side and knees bent.

Using your most-lofted wedge, open the clubface slightly and swing the club-head down the slope past your left foot, keeping the face pointing toward the sky. Allow your knees to give a little and chase the slope with the club as you follow through; otherwise, you’ll hit up on the ball and skull it.

Try Up : For Left Hand Player.

Players often try to add loft to their chips by scooping with their right hand, which results in poor contact. Practice hitting chip shots with your left arm only. With no interference from your right hand, you’ll find it easier to keep your left wrist firm and make solid contact. Feel as if you’re swinging the handle of the club and brush the turf in front of the ball.

by John Updike.

No other writer brings the pain and the pleasure of golf to life as intensely and as exquisitely as John Updike. In this compilation of pub­lished essays and excerpts from his works of fiction, Updike portrays himself and his characters as morose, gloomy and immersed in a futile, maddening pastime (a topic addressed in “Is Life Too Short for Golf?”).

While it has an indisputably male perspective, Golf Dreams is worth reading for the beauty and originality of its language—Updike’s description of making a great shot in “Tips on a Trip” should be read aloud. Our favorite chapter is “Women’s Work,” a fascinating glimpse into a man’s thoughts on watching women compete, origi­nally published in the program for the 1984 U.S. Women’s Open. While other great writers of the 20th century didn’t bother to veil their misogyny, Updike writes of his awe of the players, whom he compares to Amazon warriors “doing authen­tic battle.”

FROM BIRDIES TO BUNKERS by Alice Dye, with Mark Shaw

The first lady of golf course design published her memoir in 2004; nine years after husband Pete’s classic Bury Me in a Pot Bunker. Subtitled “Discover How Golf Can Bring Love, Humor, and Success into Your Life,” Dye’s effort is a delightful compendium of lyrical anecdotes and observations on the game.

She describes her own competitive career, which includes numerous amateur championships and a berth on the 1970 U.S. Curtis Cup team, dishes on friends like Jack Nicklaus, opines on topics from grooves to gambling and, best of all, describes the process of designing courses with Pete, making sure women would enjoy playing them as much as men. The book is pep­pered with photographs: Dye seated atop a bulldozer, with her husband and children, with famous tour players, clearly a woman who enjoys life to the fullest.

GOLFING MEMORIES AND METHODS by Joyce Wethered.

Originally published in 1934, this modest, old- fashioned book is part memoir, part instruction manual and all heart. Wethered, who was born in Surrey England, in 1901, won four British Ladies’ Amateur and five English Ladies’ Championships, and became famous for her beautiful swing.

In a distinctive, upper-crust tone that makes you feel like you’re having tea with the Queen, she describes how she retired at 23 because she found competition so stressful, then returned briefly to compete in the 1929 British Ladies’ Amateur Championship at St Andrews. The book’s high point is her moment-by­moment description of her match against U.S. champion Glenna Collett, in which Wethered pre­vailed, 3 and 1. It’s been said to be one of the most exciting matches ever.

Even the great Bobby Jones remarked, after playing around with Wethered: “I had never played golf with anyone, man or woman, amateur or professional, who made me feel so utterly outclassed.”

Annika has had Callaway Golf equipment in her bag since she turned professional in 1994, and she wants you to have the same competitive golfing skills advantage she does. Using Callaway Golf’s proprietary Callaway Performance Analysis System, you’ll be custom fit for the clubs that best suit your swing in a state-of-the-art fit bay—the same environment used at Callaway Golf Performance Centers around the world. Using tvvo high-speed cameras and ball-flight simulators, a computer monitor will display your launch conditions—ball speed, launch angle and spin rates.

With the help of this technology Annika‘s sister, Charlotte Sorenstam, will provide complimentary club-fitting sessions during your stay. She’ll make recommendations on the driver and irons that best suit your swing, as well as shaft flex, shaft length, grip, and loft and lie. Your clubs will be shipped directly to your home. Academy instructors also utilize K-Vest technology to record and analyze your swing in 3D animation. Later, they can e-mail virtual golf lessons to you at home.

Annika’s quest for perfection is ever present at the Academy; boutique-style instruction, limited to eight participants at a time, maximizes individual attention, while customizable packages can be put together to meet your unique golf or fitness needs. Relaxation and indulgences are not forgotten: After spending hours on the range or working out in the world-class gym, enjoy poolside lunches and gourmet dinners specially prepared by the resort’s executive chef, Christian Schmidt. Before you leave, be sure to complete an evaluation; Annika reads every single one because she truly wants to exceed all expectations.

If you are looking for a golf instruction book that takes a more holistic approach, this is it. Pia Nilsson, a former coach of the Swedish National Golf Team, adopted her teaching methods to instill her players with a deeper will to win. She and teaching pro Lynn Marriott, both GFW contributors, have produced a revolutionary way to learn that they call GOLF 54.
(Some golfers claimed to have dropped 10 strokes after reading the book.) These lessons apply to
life as much as to golf. For example, Nilsson and Marriott advise readers to learn to control what they
can (attitude, diet, commitment) and leave the rest (weather, playing partners) to take care of itself.

THE UNPLAYABLE LIE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF WOMEN AND DISCRIMI­NATION IN AMERICAN GOLF by

Marcia Chambers.

This expose is a first-class book about golfers who refused to be treated as second-class citizens. Chambers, a GFW contrib­uting editor and former New York Times reporter specializing in legal issues, documents the discriminatory policies sonic private clubs have had toward women. She puts current sexist policies into a historical context and describes what happens when women (and sometimes their husbands) dare to ques­tion the status quo: for example, fighting for weekend-morning tee times. This is not a relaxing read, but it’s an essential one.

FIVE LESSONS: THE MODERN FUNDAMENTALS OF GOLF by Ben Hogan, with Herbert Warren Wind.

Nearly five decades before Nilsson and Marriott, Ben Hogan, one of histories greatest golf practitioners, enlisted Wind, one of histories greatest golf writ­ers, to distill his years of training into five simple sessions. Hogan believed that all “average golfers are capable of building a repeat­ing swing and breaking 80,” and his prescription are as accessible to women as it is to men.

Enhanced by the classic illustrations of Anthony Ravielli, which bring to life the body‘s sinewy torque and release better than any photograph, the words and draw­ings imprint themselves on the psyche. Some hours after reading the chapter on the grip, you may find yourself grasping an imaginary club, the concise instructions still crystal clear in your mind.

by George Plimpton.

A beloved figure in the lit­erary world and a founding editor of The Paris Review, Plimpton became famous in the 1960s for trying his hand at such profes­sional sports as NFL football and major league baseball—and living writing for Hollywood. But he loved golf and wrote prolifically on the subject.

In this collection of tales about a fictional golf club, his female characters are as entertaining as the male ones. There’s the low- handicapper Jane, whose romantic musings about her fiancé, William, include the delight she takes in his nearly equal handicap. And then there’s the club champion Agnes Flack, who hits it 240 yards and never lets a touch of rain put her off her game.

In the deliciously absurd “Feet of Clay” the final round of the Women’s Singles Championship involves a thunderstorm, a Pekinese and an “expensively uphol­stered” Lulabelle Sprockett, heir to Sprockett’s Superfine Sardines.

THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF WOMEN’S GOLF by Rhonda Glenn

This first-rate compendium opens with Mary, Queen of. Scots (who incurred the disfavor of the local Presbyterians when she mourned her husband’s death with a few rounds of golf) and ends with Nancy Lopez.

The pages in between cover the most important amateur and professional golfers of their time, some obscure (Edith Cummings, winner of the 1923 U.S. Women’s Amateur) and some famous (Mickey Wright, Patty Berg).

Glenn, a writer and golf commentator, brings this well-researched and diverting text to life with a gen­erous number of historical photos. So how in heaven did they play in those enormous dresses?

THE CONFIDENTIAL GUIDE TO GOLF COURSES by Tom Doak

Now one of the world’s most in-demand golf course architects, Doak played more than 1,000 courses in the 1980s and ’90s, and in this mighty work, he delivers the truth on the failings and the successes he found. The book opens with “The Gourmet’s Choice”-31 of his favorites, including Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic and Royal Dornoch GC in Scotland—and continues with comprehensive directories of courses in the U.S. and abroad.

He dedicates the closing pages to hugely enjoyable lists of the best and the worst in categories ranging from “Courses I’d Most Like to Play with Dianna [his wife]” (St. Enodoc GC in Cornwall, England, tops the list) to “Courses I’d Never Play Again” (New Jersey’s Stone Harbor GC).

The honest clarity of his critiques almost makes you wince; in fact, Doak mentions that Alice Dye gave him a “motherly scolding” for having written the book at all. He seems to have grown more diplomatic, because he refuses to allow the book to be reprinted.