Three-time LPGA major winner, Solheim Cup captain announces retirement
· Yahoo Sports
Three-time major champion Anna Nordqvist has announced her retirement. This week's FM Championship in Boston will be her last event, and then she'll head over to The Netherlands to captain Europe at the 20th staging of the Solheim Cup.
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Nordqvist, 39, won her first major, the 2009 McDonald's LPGA Championship, in her fifth start on the LPGA after a decorated amateur career that included a short stint at Arizona State. The tall, reserved, steely Swede was picked for her first Solheim Cup team in 2009 and never missed one after that, becoming a force on Team Europe for the next 15 years with a 17-15-3 overall record.
Nordqvist's second major championship title came at the 2017 Amundi Evian Championship, which she won in a playoff over Brittany Altomare in driving rain and hail. Nordqvist always has been tough.
Her final LPGA title came at Carnoustie at the AIG Women's British Open, the one she wanted most, making her only the second player to have won the British Girls’ (2005), British Amateur (2008) and British Open (2021), joining England's Georgia Hall.
Nordqvist came incredibly close at the U.S. Women's Open too, losing in a playoff to Brittany Lang in 2016 after a controversial penalty that ultimately led to a rules change.
The 6-foot Nordqvist won nine times on the LPGA and earned more than $14 million, putting her 18th on the LPGA career money list.
"Twenty years ago, I came to the U.S. with two suitcases, a golf bag and a dream of one day competing with the best golfers in the world," Nordqvist wrote in a letter she read on Instagram.
"I don't know how to say goodbye to something that means so much to me, but this is going to be the last week walking inside the ropes, competing on tour," she continued. "I'm not sure what the future has in store for me, but it's with a grateful heart I have decided to retire from playing professional golf to focus on my health and my family."
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In recent years, Nordqvist has been tested in ways she wouldn't wish on anyone.
Two years ago, not long after Nordqvist revealed on social media that she and husband Kevin McAlpine, an LPGA caddie, were in the process of a divorce, McAlpine died suddenly at age 39.
Nordqvist described it as watching her life shatter into a thousand pieces.
“I think to be able to deal with it, to handle it, to get over it and like all the practical stuff that she's had to deal with in the aftermath,” close friend Suzann Pettersen told Golfweek last year, “I think you do change by nature, how you look at life, how you look at relationships, how you look at, I don't know, the game of golf means nothing, right?
“What's the importance of another shot or another tournament or another, I don't know, another victory? I really just think it puts life in perspective when you go through a kind of severeness like that, and I really hope I don't need to see any other friends have to go through what she's been through because I know it's been tough as hell to be honest, literally. I don't think there's another word for it.”
Add in health issues – in the summer of 2024 she had a benign cyst the size of a grapefruit removed from her stomach – and she's been determined to leave this game on her own terms.
If any other player had been Solheim Cup captain this year, Nordqvist would've been picked for the 2026 team. At the Amundi Evian, Nordqvist made history with her share of seventh, becoming the first current Solheim Cup captain to finish in the top 10 of any major during a Solheim Cup year.
Three weeks prior, Nordqvist became the first Solheim Cup captain to make the cut at the KPMG Women's PGA during a Solheim Cup year.
"I mean, like I've gone through hell and back the last couple years," said Nordqvist, "so I'm really proud of myself for never giving up, for fighting those days when it seems really dark."
Beth Ann Nichols is a Golfweek senior writer covering the LPGA and women's golf.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Three-time LPGA major winner, Solheim Cup captain announces retirement