The LPGA was out in front of the PGA Tour on a season ending championship. The ADT Championship playoff series predates the FedEx Cup by a year. Now it seems that Carolyn Bivens is stealing another march.

The LPGA is getting closer to piecing together the puzzle that it hopes will land a five-year network television agreement beginning in 2010.

Tour executives met with numerous television and marketing executives two weeks ago while the tour was staging the Sybase Classic in New Jersey.

Plans call for a competition series that would exist within the LPGA’s seasonlong calendar of events. The series would consist of eight events, likely including at least one major and one event outside the United States. Players would qualify for a championship event based on their performance in the series.

That championship could be a new tournament scheduled during the first quarter of each year as a lead-in to the LPGA season. Sources said the weekend before the Super Bowl was being considered

NBC is believed to be interested. 

When I first saw the announcement, I thought it was a joke. But it’s true: Annika Sorenstam is retiring from tournament golf at the end of this year. The New York Times reports:

At a news conference at the Upper Montclair Country Club, where she will play Thursday through Sunday in the L.P.G.A.’s Sybase Classic, she calmly revealed her plans. There were no tears, no deep breaths and, she said, no regrets.

“I have other priorities in my life,” she said, and she listed them: a golf academy, a foundation, golf-course design projects (she is working on her fifth course, with two more planned), corporate relationships, clothing lines and hosting golf tournaments. She said there were more, including starting a family.

“I enjoy playing golf at the top level,” she said. “I made this decision far back. I know what it’s like to be at the top.”

As of this writing, Sorenstam has won 72 tournaments, including ten majors. She ranks third on the career list. Only Kathy Whitworth, with 88 victories and Mickey Wright with 82 are ahead of her.

Sorenstam has clocked 8 L.P.G.A. Player of the Year awards, 8 money-winning titles and 6 Vare Trophies for lowest scoring average.

For years, she was the Tiger Woods of the LPGA. She’ll be missed.

PS Mrs. GolfBlogger, the labor and delivery nurse says she wouldn’t be surprised if Annika’s pregnant. I pointed out that Laura Diaz and others had played through similar conditions, but she’s sticking to her prediction ...

Now here’s something few saw coming: the LPGA’s Lorena Ochoa is dominating with her POWER GAME.

Just five six and 135 pounds, Ochoa is driving the ball an average of 277.5 yards.

That would be good for 131st on the PGA Tour list—not impressive by comparison, but still so very, very long. The average male amateur drives the ball 192 yards—eighty yards short of Lorena’s average.

The Sun-Sentinel has more.

Golf fans still have a chance to witness a Grand Slam this year.

But it’ll be won by Lorena Ochoa.

Beginning in June, the LPGA will play two majors in a span of three weeks. If she stays hot, she’ll be three quarters of the way there at the end of that span.

For all the media hype about Tiger, Ochoa has been relatively forgotten. She’s won nine of her last fourteen, including two majors, and recently became the second youngest ever to qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame. Ochoa has won four of five this year.

Now THAT’S dominance.

I hope the golf media starts to give Ochoa the coverage she deserves.

After her victory this past weekend at the Kraft Nabisco—one of the LPGA’s majors—the golf media is asking whether Lorena Ochoa is the LPGA’s answer to Tiger Woods.

She is.

Ochoa is 8 for her last 13, with two majors.

Tiger is 8 for 13, including a major, with a chance at a second coming this weekend.