In fact, the golf course has offered Sorenstam a sanctuary from probing about her private life. "Once I'm inside the ropes I feel very comfortable," she said. "I know what I'm doing and that's my kind of arena.
"What's important is to do something you enjoy doing, and that's what I do. I love to play, I love to compete, and that's something positive in my life right now. I've spent all my energy on it and it seems like it's working."
Her 59 tour victories compares with 43 for Woods but how she would fare competing in the men's tour is a moot point.
It is Michelle Wie's avowed intention to become the first woman to qualify for the Open and even if the 15-year-old American prodigy appears on the first tee at St Andrews this summer, she will achieve little other than a lot of headlines.
Wie could play the Old Course every week for the rest of her life and she would never outscore the physically superior male elite as represented by Woods, Vijay Singh and Ernie Els.
Indeed, Woods is among those who feel Wie would be better served learning how to become a regular winner at her own level and challenging Sorenstam rather than attempting to play against those she has absolutely no chance of beating. Having tested her game against men in last year's Colonial Tournament, and failed to make the halfway cut, Sorenstam says she has no intention of attempting to qualify for the Open or any other major in which male golfers compete.
Instead, having won her eighth career women's major at the Kraft Nabisco Championship last month, her sights this season are now set on challenging for an unprecedented Grand Slam that could climax at the British Women's Open at Royal Birkdale in July.
Since January 2004, she has entered 21 tournaments and won 11 of them, but she still has a way to go to match the record of Kathy Whitworth, the star of the 1960s and Seventies, who recorded an amazing 88 tour victories.
