Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Is Annika Pregnant?

Yesterday, Tiger Woods was in town for a press conference to promote his AT&T National over July 4th weekend at Congressional. In the presser, he was asked about his reaction to Annika's retirement announcement. The reaction was most interesting.

Q. What was your reaction when you heard Annika, that she would retire at the end of the season? And have you spoken with her since then? And, if so, what have you spoken about?

TIGER WOODS: I knew that was going to happen. She's done it all. She's been through it all. For men and women, it is two totally different things. Who knows, she might come back or not. I doubt it. I don't see Annika ever doing anything half-ass. The time she is going to spend with her child and her family, I don't ever see her ever wanting to come back to the game of golf in that capacity. What it takes to do that, I don't foresee her doing it. We talked quite a bit after that.

I just -- I'm very happy for her. She sounds happy, very at peace with what she's done and what she's said.
Now, I don't know about you, but reading between the lines (i.e., the bolded part) here seems to insinuate that Annika is already pregnant. I know that Tiger has to be aware that Annika wants to have a child one day. I'm pretty sure everyone knows that. But to talk about a child as though it is a certainty does make one wonder. It would go a long way in explaining the fairly sudden nature of her retirement announcement.

UPDATE 5/29 1:27p - I forgot to include a link to Geoff Shackelford's speculation as well. Bill Jempty saw our posts and doesn't think that she is preggers.

His post did inspire some Googling, though. There are some LPGA players that have played on tour well into their pregnancy.

Brenda Kuehn and Kristie Albers in 2001
, Iben Tinning and Laura Diaz in 2005, Hee-Won Han in 2006. Not necessarily a backup to my argument, but wanted to show that it has been done before successfully.

5 comments:

The Florida Masochist said...

Ryan,

One problem with this theory. Annika said her final event would be in Dubai. Her press conference was two weeks ago, Dubai is Decemeber. At the very minimum(lets say Annika got the news she is having a baby the day before her press conference) she would be 8 months pregnant at the time of Dubai. Do golfers play competitive golf at that stage of pregnancy?

I don't think so.

Bill

Waggle Room Ryan said...

Bill,
Logical answer. Does that mean that her schedule is absolute though? Not necessarily. But, like you said, no golf would play at the 8 month mark. Or at least I hope not.

The Constructivist said...

It would be one of the few records she hasn't broken, eh? Just kidding.

Here's the GC clip:

http://www.thegolfchannel.com/core.aspx?page=26000&select2=6781

The Florida Masochist said...

Ryan,

Han(2007 not 2006) was at least 5 weeks less what Annika would be at Dubai when Hee Won quit playing.(Kraft Nabisco)

Diaz and Tinning link is busted. They were both pregnant at the time of their playing against one another at the 2005 Solheim(Coincidence or did the Captains pre-arrange that match putting their two 'weakest players' that week in the same match? I'm betting it was pre-arranged.

Diaz was five months(she gave birth Jan 06), Tinning 3(March 06)

Albers was 6 months, Kuehn 8.5. One woman playing that late doesn't prove what you're arguing. If we'd get a bigger sample, I'd bet it would show 95 or more of the golfers quit by week 30. Annika will be at LEAST 34.

Waggle Room Ryan said...

Bill, my post clearly says that it doesn't prove any kind of speculation about Annika. I just wanted to point out that players play pregnant at varying points in their term.