For a non-golfing vacation, Annika Sorenstam's first trip to Bermuda was turning into a pretty busy one.

First she spent most of yesterday with 130 or so insurance types at Riddell's Bay Golf Club, signing brand new Titleist balls, posing for pictures and launching the occasional drive into the rain clouds.

Today, she was to appear at a press conference confirming the Island's involvement in a tournament to be known as the Gillette Tour Challenge Championship until it was hastily called off last night.

That means Sorenstam gets another day to relax and sit on the beach with her husband of two months, David Esch, before jetting home on Friday. When you're the world's top female golfer you grab these opportunities whenever you can.

"I can't believe I'm here, really,'' the personable Swede said between autographs yesterday. "I've heard so much about it that I've always wanted to come. It's such a beautiful place.'' Thanks to Gillette, this likely won't be her last visit. The shaving cream people are the title sponsors in a plan to bring together the top eight players from the PGA, Senior PGA and LPGA for a one-day tournament this fall at the Mid Ocean Club.

Details will be unveiled a press conference now scheduled for mid-March.

The rest of the LPGA Tour competes in the Australian Masters this week but Sorenstam decided to skip it. Next week is dark on the tour, giving her a two-week break. Playing in about 28 Monday-to-Monday tournaments a year, she figures she needs it.

"People say, `Wow, you get to travel so much.' But they don't realise that the only thing I see is airport to the golf course and back to the airport.'' Figure in the periodic corporate outings like yesterday and it doesn't leave a lot of time for anything else, although she tries to squeeze in an occasional game of tennis.

Tennis was her first love as child growing up in Sweden -- "Everybody plays tennis in Sweden,'' she said -- before taking up golf at the age of 12.

While she's vowed to leave her Callaways in the bag this trip, she will undoubtedly give Bermuda golf fans a show next time.

Her sweet swing from the white tees at a sampling of Riddell's Bay's 18 holes yesterday merely provided a glimpse of what's made her the LPGA's answer to Tiger Woods.

Sorenstam has won two of her three tournaments this season and leads the money list with $273,000 -- more than double second-placed Kelly Robbins -- including last week's victory in the Hawaii Open.

It's all very similar to two years ago, when she first burst onto the scene in just her second year on the tour, winning almost everything in sight, including the end-of-season Player of the Year Award. The difference is that now it's expected of her.

"1995 came as such a shock to me,'' she admitted. "I accomplished so much, everything I could have wanted, that last year I didn't have any goals left.

But this year I think I'm back to where I want to be, as successful as I can.'' And, yes, that includes the possibility of a third straight US Women's Open.

"Actually I look forward to every tournament I play in,'' she said. "Every round is a lot of fun.'' Brought here by XL Insurance for a morning clinic and an afternoon session of glad-handing, she impressed foursome after foursome of better-than-average male golfers with her pinpoint accuracy off the tee.

Asked to describe her game, she finally settles on the word "consistent.'' "I don't have a lot of strengths or weaknesses. I'm a thinker around the golf course. I'm not Laura Davies, who hits it a long way then sometimes has to dig it out of the bushes.''