Believe it or not, Annika Sorenstam never was “The Natural’’ when it came to golf. In fact, tennis was her game of choice as a child growing up in Sweden.

That’s right, the legendary Bjorn Borg was her idol, not Nancy Lopez. Only a series of twists and turns led her to where she is now -- the greatest female player ever.

In a lot of ways, it’s been a long and winding road for Annika, in which a critical stage passed smack dab through the middle of Arizona. Once again, happenstance made her a Wildcat rather than Sun Devil.

And who knows? Had Sorenstam not captured the first of her back-to-back Open wins in 1995, the SuperSwede might still be living in Phoenix near the Pointe at Tapatio Cliffs instead of Incline Village at Lake Tahoe. Then again, such are the quirks along the path of greatness.

With 62 wins and counting, as well as nine major championships, don’t bet against her this weekend as she goes for the third leg of the grand slam at the U.S. Women’s Open at Cherry Hills near Denver. She has separated herself from her peers even more than Tiger Woods’ dominance over the PGA Tour gang.

For Annika, it all goes back to her childhood, where she and her younger sister, Charlotta, grew up playing with racquets rather than clubs. But according to her biography, an “ordinary backhand’’ kept her from beating Charlotta, who was ranked among Sweden’s top 10 tennis players. Frustrated, Annika took up golf full-time by age 16.

Not surprisingly, Sorenstam was quite good at this suddenly new endeavor, and made the Swedish National team within a year’s time. You would think that the coach of that Swedish team, former ASU player Pia Nilsson, would have pointed Sorenstam toward the Sun Devils. Alas, it never happened.

“As the story goes, Annika originally wasn’t going to go to college,’’ said Linda Vollstedt, the coach at ASU in 1991, the year Sorenstam was a freshman at UA. “But that summer prior, she was playing with the Swedish National team in an event in Japan, where (former UA coach) Kim Haddow was coaching the U.S. team.

“Apparently one thing led to another, and Kim was able to convince Annika to come over here and go to school at Arizona. . . . I never really had a shot at (recruiting) her, although I had coached that very same U.S. team before in that very same event.’’

At UA, Sorenstam snared the NCAA individual championship in ’91, and finished second the following year, when the tournament was played at the Karsten Course at ASU. The same player that beat her in Tempe, Vicki Goetze-Ackerman, made Sorenstam the runner-up later that summer at the U.S. Women’s Amateur.

“Annika was a great player back then,’’ Vollstedt added. “But to think anyone would be as great as she has become, that was hard to conceive.

“She certainly wasn’t a Michelle Wie at that stage. But she did have drive and desire and sheer will power . . . and she also worked harder than everybody else to get where she’s got.’’

Sorenstam left UA following her sophomore season and struggles ensued. The pro game didn’t come quite as easily, as Sorenstam took two years to earn her LPGA card. Even at the LPGA Qualifying School in 1993, Sorenstam barely squeaked by finishing in a tie for 28th, which only earned her conditional status.

Almost as amazing, she was a runner-up four times before finally breaking through to make her first win that 1995 U.S. Open at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colo. To show just how far Sorenstam has come since, she was so shy on the flight back home to Phoenix that night that her future husband, David Esch, had to hold up the trophy to acknowledge a standing ovation on the airplane as Sorenstam slunk deep in her seat.

Esch, the boyfriend at the time -- and her soon-to-be divorced spouse of nine years -- had worked for PING. He had met Annika while she was practicing at Moon Valley Country Club in the winter of 1994, and the union turned out to be one of the reasons why she left the Valley.

What happened was, during that awards presentation at the Open, Esch was wearing a PING cap. Sorenstam played for Callaway, and when the late Ely Callaway saw the conflict on national TV, he quickly hired Esch to work for his California-based company, which prompted them to move to San Diego, and eventually to Lake Tahoe.

In all, Sorenstam spent a little less than four years of her life in Tucson and Phoenix. Still, in the seasons that have followed she has thrilled the locals by winning here three times, including the 2001 Standard Register Ping, when she shot the record 59. It hasn’t been quite as flashy at Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club the past two years, but she will be working on a three-peat when the Safeway International rolls around next spring.