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Ten-time major champion Annika Sorenstam will compete at the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open this June at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club.

Sorenstam, 51, earned an exemption to the championship by winning last year’s U.S. Senior Women’s Open. She last competed in a U.S. Women’s Open in 2008 and is a three-time winner of the event.

The World Golf Hall of Famer won 72 times on the LPGA Tour, her last title coming in 2008. That year, she announced she was stepping away from competitive golf.

Pine Needles in Southern Pines, N.C., was the site of Sorenstam’s second major title, the 1996 U.S. Women’s Open.

“I’m excited to have the opportunity to play in a U.S. Women’s Open again, especially with it being held at Pine Needles,” Sorenstam said in a news release. “I really never thought I would play in another one, but everything just sort of fell into place. Teeing it up in the greatest championship in women’s golf, at a venue that has so many incredible memories for me, and to be able to do so with my family means a lot to us.”

The purse for the 2022 Open will be a record $10 million, almost doubling the 2021 purse of $5.5 million.

–Field Level Media