SORENSTAM IN CLASS BY HERSELF.

Byline: DAVE SHELBURNE Golf

Call it another Swede win for arguably the most successful professional golfer in the world.

Annika Sorenstam overcame a three-stroke deficit in the final round of the Samsung World Championship on Sunday to win her fourth title in that event, held at Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert.

In the process, the 34-year-old native of Stockholm, Sweden, recorded her sixth victory in 15 LPGA starts this year, giving her eight wins worldwide for 2004. She also moved past the $2 million mark in season earnings for a fourth consecutive year - no other woman has done it even once - and raised her career win totals to 54 on the LPGA tour and 66 internationally.

If it also didn't secure her fourth consecutive LPGA Player of the Year award and seventh overall - matching Kathy Whitworth's tour records - all the better for the ratings of the LPGA's season-ending Tournament of Champions and ADT Championship, which are on consecutive weeks next month.

As she did at Bighorn against a field of 20 of the best women's golfers in the world, Sorenstam should be facing impressive fields again in the TOC at Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Birmingham, Ala., and the ADT at Trump International in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Meg Mallon, a three-time 2004 winner and reigning U.S. Open champion, is certain to be on hand for both - she is the defending ADT champion. Three-time 2004 winner Lorena Ochoa, the tour's Rookie of the Year in 2003, also is likely to play in those high-profile LPGA events. So are 2004 tour major winners Karen Stupples (Weetabix British Open) and Grace Park (Nabisco Championship).

If the past four-plus seasons are any barometer, all of those players will be trying to hold off Sorenstam.

When Karrie Webb won a second consecutive Player of the Year award in 1999, Sorenstam willed herself to get better. She began a rigorous workout program, got stronger, longer, straighter and more accurate and began to dominate. She has won 36 tour events, including five majors, since the start of the 2000 season, working in a tour-record round of 59 in 2001 and matching the legendary Mickey Wright with 11 victories in 2002.

Last year, Sorenstam played in a PGA Tour event - the first woman to do so since Babe Zaharias nearly 60 years ago - and came within four shots of making the cut. She performed with style and grace despite complaints from some that a woman should not play in a PGA Tour event. Afterward, she said she would not do it again - that she only wanted to see how well she could compete against the best players in the world.

It says here that she's one of them.

--School days: What has been called the world's toughest golf tournament got under way Tuesday, and Tommy Barber of Burbank, with brother Jeff as caddie, was in the field for the first stage of PGA Tour Qualifying School.

Barber nearly won a Southern Section championship while at Notre Dame High of Sherman Oaks and was a two-time Western State Conference MVP for state champion College of the Canyons.

The former Los Angeles City Amateur champion also has family history on his side as well as family on his bag. His grandfather, Jerry, won the PGA Championship in 1961. His father, Tom, is a member of the Southern California PGA Hall of Fame. And his mother, Diane, nearly won WSC women's MVP honors at Canyons the year after Tommy helped the Cougars win state.

Jeff, a teaching pro at Griffith Park, got the caddie job because he and Tommy read putts the same way - no small consideration when a few strokes can make the difference between advancing or just spending a $4,500 Q-School entry fee on some hard-earned tournament experience.

Four-round first stages will be at 12 sites nationally, with Team Barber at the Greg Norman course in La Quinta. Should they survive, second-stage play begins Nov. 10, with PGA Tour players and Nationwide Tour players joining the field after exemptions into any of those six sites - including Black Horse in Fort Ord and Oak Valley in Beaumont. Final-stage play will be Dec. 1-6 in La Quinta at the PGA West Stadium Course and the Nicklaus Tournament course.

--Names in the game: Other area players competing in first-stage play at the Norman course include Nathan Celusta of Simi Valley, Brad Gallagher of Valencia, Brian Hull of La Canada and Charlie Wi of Westlake Village. Also in the field are former Cal State Northridge golfers Vic Wilk and Mantor Hayes - this year's Southern California Golf Association Mid-Amateur champion.

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