WTGL, the new women’s team golf league created by TMRW Sports in partnership with the LPGA, today announced World Golf Hall of Famer Annika Sörenstam as the league’s newest hole designer, bringing her perspective as one of golf’s most accomplished players to the competition at the award-winning SoFi Center.
Annika Hole Design has created two holes for the upcoming season, with the first, SOS, debuted in WTGL’s opening match on Sunday, Nov. 8, at 3 p.m. ET on ESPN. The opening match will feature Los Angeles Golf Club, led by Michelle Wie West, against New York Golf Club, led by LPGA Hall of Famer Lydia Ko.
SOS — Par 3: Inspired by Sörenstam’s Swedish roots, SOS pays homage to a Swedish warship that sank in Stockholm harbor during its maiden voyage in 1628. The hole design places the ship in a Nordic setting of icebergs and icy waters and includes 12 tee boxes, includes 12 tee boxes, with playing distances ranging from 119 to 233 yards.
Players hit from an iceberg tee, carrying the ship and shaping shots around its towering sail to reach an island green.
The name has three references: the international distress signal; Swedish pop group ABBA’s hit song “SOS”; and the challenge facing players, a “Shot Over Sail.”
Sörenstam’s design draws on a pre-match visit to SoFi Center’s field of play, where she was intrigued by the challenge of hitting longer shots to the green inside the arena. She made that challenge central to SOS.
A tee shot that misses the green and lands in the surrounding snow carries no penalty but leaves an approximately 40-yard recovery shot from near the arena’s traditional Overtime shot location. A ball that finds the water incurs a one-stroke penalty, with the next shot played from the same area.
Both misses create the type of pressure-filled arena shot that inspired Sörenstam, making accuracy and shot shaping critical from the tee.
“Designing for WTGL and TGL gave us an opportunity to be creative with the setting while thinking about how the best players in the world would approach each shot,” said Sörenstam. “With SOS, we wanted to bring a piece of Sweden into the experience and create a hole that is fun to watch and challenging to play.”
Sörenstam’s second hole design, a par 4 that can play as long as 511 yards, will be unveiled during the WTGL season. Both holes will be played in the upcoming WTGL and TGL presented by SoFi seasons.