Golfer Sorenstam will be speaker at Athena dinner

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Sorenstam

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Anthony Conn, The Vindicator’s reigning “Greatest Golfer in the Valley,” will have to relinquish that title — at least for one day — when Annika Sorenstam visits Youngstown next May.

Sorenstam, regarded as the greatest female golfer of this generation, will be the keynote speaker at the 20th annual Athena Award Dinner on May 24.

The Youngstown/ Warren Regional Chamber event, cosponsored by The Vindicator, celebrates professional women in the Mahoning Valley.

Sorenstam won 72 Ladies Professional Golf Association events — including 10 majors — during her 15-year career.

In 2008, she joined Arnold Palmer as the second Ambassador of the United States Golf Association.

A year later, along with Jack Nicklaus, she was named a Global Ambassador by the International Golf Federation and helped golf receive a bid in the 2016 Olympic Games.

Sorenstam’s husband, Mike McGee, is an East Palestine native. The couple has two children.

The chamber will solicit Athena Award nominations in early January.