To answer a question I’ve heard frequently in the past 24 hours: No, I didn’t see it coming.

But perhaps I should have.

“It”, of course, is Annika Sorenstam’s startling announcement that she will retire from competitive golf at the end of the 2008 season. That she would announce a date for her retirement isn’t surprising. She is, after all, pushing 38. That she would announce it 48 hours after playing brilliant golf while vaporizng the field in the final round of the Michelob Ultra Open is quite surprising. In retrospect, she dropped more than a few hints during her post-championship press conference at Kingsmill. She talked a great deal about feeling “relieved,” about feeling “calm,” about feeling “at peace.” She talked about her upcoming marriage to and honeymoon with fiance Mike McGee. She responded sharply when someone asked an innocent question about whether she intended to defend her Michelob title in 2009. After satisfying herself that the question contained no hidden implications, she offered a non-response response: “…at the end of the year I always assess a season (with respect to whether or not to play the next year). I’ve been doing that for the last few years. At this point, I feel great about what I’m doing.”

Why now? I don’t pretend to know. You’d have to know Sorenstam very well to be able to answer that question, and I don’t. But I can venture a guess. She knows the clock is running, both competitively and biologically. When you’ve been the best – perhaps the best ever – at a given endeavor, you don’t want to settle for making the cut and finishing in a six-way tie for 30th. Sorenstam will reach that point soon enough if she continues to play. Moreover, the player who has replaced her atop the world standings, Lorena Ochoa, is 11 years her junior and is only now beginning to understand how good she can be. The prospect of chasing Ochoa for the next 4-5 seasons surely holds little appeal.

Her personal life is a significant factor – perhaps THE significant factor. This will be Sorenstam’s second marriage. Her first unraveled when, as a tour insider once told me, her husband “got tired of being Mr. Sorenstam.” Clearly, she doesn’t want to travel that path again. Just as clearly, she wants children. She has wanted them for a while, actually. Ultimately, it seems an issue of time and devotion. Sorenstam ascended to the pinnacle of her sport by making an enormous investment of hours, effort and emotion. Staying at the pinnacle will require nothing less. My guess is, she is no longer willing to make that investment – and she knows it. I applaud her for her wisdom. We were privileged to see her when she was a matchless, magical competitor. That is how I want to remember her. Perhaps that is what she wants to remember, too.