She may have been overshadowed in recent years by the exploits of others, but Karrie Webb is unquestionably one of the most accomplished players in the history of her sport. In 14 years as a professional, the 33-year-old Webb has won 43 tournaments around the globe, 35 of them on the LPGA Tour. Her resume includes seven major titles, including the 2001 McDonald's LPGA Championship at DuPont Country Club in Wilmington. But as Annika Sorenstam is being celebrated as perhaps the greatest player in history and more recently, as Lorena Ochoa has become a dominant force, it's easy to overlook Webb's accomplishments. In 2001, Webb followed up her win at McDonald's by successfully defending her U.S. Women's Open title and also claiming the Tyco/ADT Championship. She won four tournaments over the next three years, including the 2002 Weetabix Women's British Open.

Following her win at the Kellogg-Keebler Classic in June of 2004 however, Webb went 21 months without another victory. There were some bright spots along the way. At the 2005 McDonald's LPGA Championship, the first at Bulle Rock, Webb officially qualified for the LPGA Hall of Fame, by marking 10 years of membership on the LPGA Tour. At a press conference, following her opening round, Webb was moved to tears when asked to contemplate what she had achieved. "I think when you're doing it you don't appreciate it as much as when you take a step back," she said at the time. "While you're doing it, you're just doing it and you're working hard, things are going well, that's what happened the first six or seven years of my career. I've just recently had time to reflect and realize what I have achieved." By the spring of 2006 Webb was in the midst of a resurgence.

She captured her seventh major title at the Kraft Nabisco Championship with a dramatic playoff victory over Ochoa and went on to win five times that season. She also lost a playoff to Se Ri Pak at Bulle Rock. Webb is winless on the LPGA Tour since November of 2006, but she returns to Maryland this year as the fifth-ranked player in the world. Last year at Bulle Rock Webb fought to the finish, before finishing a shot behind Suzann Pettersen. She's finished in the top 10 at McDonald's six times since 1997. This season she's recorded top-5 finishes at the HSBC Women's Champions in Singapore and the Stanford International in Coral Gables, Fla. And the woman who for much of her career kept her emotions under wraps on the course, seems to be taking a newfound joy in the game. "I know I've still got the talent to be one of the best players in the world," she says, "and compete week in and week out like that and to win golf tournaments.

The couple of times where I've played well this year, I just loved that feeling of having a chance to win. That's what motivates me to continue to play." Before the 2008 LPGA season started, Webb returned home to Australia and won the MFS Women's Australian Open for the fourth time, by defeating Ji-Yai Shin of South Korea in a playoff. She has also won the ANZ Ladies Masters in her homeland six times. Back in the days when she was the top-ranked player in the world, Webb didn't enjoy the hoopla that surrounded her whenever she competed in Australia, but with the passage of time she has learned to cherish her rare trips home. "I now actually really relish the chance to go home and play," she says. "It's the only time in the year that I have a home-field advantage.

I really enjoy playing in front of the Australian crowds, and my family and friends get to come and watch so I've really enjoyed it the last three, four or five years. It's certainly something I'll do until I retire." Over the course of Webb's career the LPGA Tour has become a true world tour. Competitors from around the globe have LPGA Tour aspirations and the Women's World Cup of Golf brings players together from countries from more than 20 countries. Lately there has been renewed talk of golf becoming part of the Olympic movement, perhaps by 2016, when Webb will be 41. The notion intrigues Webb, who carried the Olympic torch as it passed through Australia. "It's been talked about throughout my whole career," she says. Now, if it were put in the Olympics, I'd probably be retired by the time it came around. It would be a little disappointing that I couldn't play, but I think golf is one of the mainstream sports in the world now and I think (the lack of) drug testing was probably one of the things that was keeping us from participating in the Olympics.

I think now that we've jumped that hurdle, I could see it maybe two Olympics from now." Webb isn't sure how much longer she'll continue to play, but like Sorenstam, sees herself leaving the stage when her passion for hard work on the range and the putting green dissipates. "I think I'd be along the lines of Annika," she says, "in that I won't want to put the hard work in anymore. I think I'll always probably have the talent to compete but it will be whether I'll want to put the hard yards in still. " I'll play until then. I don't know if I'll ever officially announce my retirement like Annika did. Because you never know, you might want to come back. So I think I'll just silently leave and if, when I do leave, that's it, that's it, but I'll always have the ability to come back, if I want to."