ST ANDREWS honoured Swedish-born Annika Sorenstam (36), whose achievements rank her as one of the most successful female golfers in the sport’s history.

Ms Sorenstam attended a special ceremony at the St Rule Golf Club where she joined numerous members and representatives of the R&A and St Andrews Links Trust to be presented with honorary membership of the ladies’ club.

The club has four other honorary members—Janette Wright, Belle Robertson, Anne Laing and Catriona Matthew.

Ms Matthew received the honour earlier this year, as the club believed it would be fitting to award the honorary memberships in the year St Andrews hosts its first-ever women’s professional event.

Ms Matthew won the prestigious St Rule Trophy in St Andrews in 1993 and again in 1994, while Ms Sorenstam won it in 1990.

The presentation to Ms Sorenstam was made by Marigold Speirs, vice-president of the Scottish Ladies’ Golf Association.

Ms Sorenstam has won 69 official LPGA tournaments, including 10 majors, and tops the LPGA’s career money list with earnings of over $20 million.

She made history at the Bank of America Colonial tournament in 2003, where she was the first woman to play in a men’s PGA tour event since 1945.

In the year before the SLGA was formed, St Rule club member Agnes Grainger worked tirelessly for golf throughout Scotland, proposing a Ladies’ Golf Championship for Scotland.

She contacted other Scottish clubs and and the Scottish Ladies’ Cham-pionship was born —played for the first time in St Andrews in 1903.