updated 9:42 a.m. ET April 24, 2006

STOCKBRIDGE, Ga. - Annika Sorenstam’s right hand flew off the club on the follow-through, the first sign that something was amiss. Then, as everyone watched in disbelief, the ball sailed toward the trees along the right side of the fairway — and the dreaded out-of-bounds line.

The greatest closer in women’s golf had just given one away.

Tied for the lead, Sorenstam knocked her tee shot at No. 17 on the wrong side of the stakes and wound up with a double bogey that allowed Sung Ah Yim to claim her first LPGA Tour victory in the Florida’s Natural Charity Championship on Sunday.

Yim, a 22-year-old South Korean, tapped in a birdie putt at the final hole for a two-stroke win over Sorenstam, Cristie Kerr and Karrie Webb — three players with a combined 104 wins on the LPGA Tour.

Three straight rounds in the 60s gave Sorenstam a one-stroke lead going to the final round of a tournament that she won in a 10-stroke runaway last year. But the world’s No. 1 player slumped to a 75 — her tee shot on the next-to-last hole merely the worst swing in an unthinkably poor round at Eagle’s Landing Country Club near Atlanta.

“There’s no much to say other than it was a horrible day,” Sorenstam said. “I would like to forget about it.”

Early on, it was clear this wasn’t going to be a typical day for Sorenstam. She three-putted from 17 feet at the very first hole for bogey. She drove into a fairway bunker and had to hit a blind shot over a clump of razor-sharp pampas grass. And when she yanked another drive into a giant oak tree, leaving her with an impossibly poor lie at the edge of a bunker, Sorenstam screamed at herself, “What are you doing!”

Her putting was downright atrocious — at least five misses of no more than 6 feet. The last of those came on the 17th, when she had a chance to save bogey and preserve a ray of hope going to the final hole.

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Afterward, as Sorenstam was recounting her scorecard, she paused in the middle of things with a most uncharacteristic assessment.

“Ohhhh, this is horrible,” she said.

Sorenstam had won 11 straight events with a lead going to the final round — a streak that dated back to the 2004 Evian Masters. Since the beginning of 2001, when she reclaimed the No. 1 ranking from Webb, she had won 30 of 38 events when on top heading to the last day.

Yim, in just her second year on the tour, played in the final group with Sorenstam. Amazingly, the part-time university student was the one who held it together at the end, scrambling for a 72 that was good enough to win. She got up and down from the fringe on three straight holes before knocking in a 4-foot birdie putt at the par-5 18th to finish at 16-under 272.

“I was very, very nervous,” Yim said. “I could hear my heart beating.”

Sorenstam was seeking her third win overall in the Atlanta-area tournament, not to mention the 68th LPGA Tour victory of her Hall of Fame career.

Despite her struggles, it was still within reach when she went to No. 17 tied with Yim. The youngster had honors and drove into the middle of the fairway. Sorenstam followed with a shot that every duffer could relate to.

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Unsure at first where her ball ended up, Sorenstam lingered at the tee while a tournament official ran all the way across the fairway to look for it.

Sorenstam started to walk toward the fairway, then got the dreaded signal: the ball was a goner. She turned around, teed up another one and hit again — her third shot with the penalty.

“That was one of my worst swings of the week,” Sorenstam said. “Bad timing.”

Yim went to the final hole knowing that a par would probably be good enough to win. She laid up with her second shot, then stuck a wedge right alongside the flag. Sorenstam had a shot at eagle, but her chip from the second cut behind the green rolled tantalizingly past the left edge of the cup.

That took the pressure off Yim, who rolled in the birdie.

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