2008: Anna Grzebien is one of a group of LPGA golfers that has been dubbed the Wilhelmina 7 for its association with the prominent modeling agency.

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The legendary actress Lana Turner supposedly was “discovered” at a Hollywood drug store. In Anna Grzebien’s case, it was on the 18th green of the Safeway International LPGA tournament at Superstition Mountain, Ariz.

It was there she caught the eye of Dieter Esch, head of the world-famous Wilhelmina modeling agency, who was looking for attractive golfers to package in a group he’s calling the “Wilhelmina 7.”

“He asked who I was,” she said, “and it kind of went from there. I had a few interviews, met with a few people, and everything fell into place.”

Next thing you know, she was doing a photo shoot on Miami’s South Beach, wearing a bikini and a “spray-on” tan.

“When she called me after the photo shoot,” Marnie Grzebien, Anna’s mother, said with a laugh, “she said: ‘Mom, I’m not going to lie — they’re a little risqué.’ She also had some taken wearing lingerie. I’ve got all the photos, and they’re tastefully done, but I keep thinking: ‘Oh, my God, that’s my kid!’ ”

Growing up as the youngest of the three golfing Grzebien girls — all of whom were All-State selections at Narragansett High school — she was “little Anna.” While her older sisters, Lauren and Mary Ellen, went on to play collegiate golf at Northwestern, and then to careers in, respectively, private equity in Manhattan, and media consulting in Chicago, Anna always wanted to be a professional golfer.

She won the NCAA individual championship as a sophomore at Duke in 2005, and helped the Blue Devils win three consecutive team titles from 2005-2007. Of the three sisters, she was the fiercest competitor and, while cute in an all-American girl sort of way, was a bit of a tomboy.

Now, “little Anna” has become a “Golf Babe,” as one Web site terms the women of the Wilhelmina 7.

“I’m 23 now,” she said last week from Edina, Minn., where she played in her first U.S. Women’s Open championship, failing to make the cut after shooting rounds of 76 and 77.

“It’s neat to play another role. It’s fun to do other things. As a girl, everyone wants to get all dolled-up. At least I do. It’s been a neat experience, and I think it will help women’s golf.”

Endorsement opportunities for female golfers lag far behind the lucrative offers received by the men on the PGA Tour. Esch hopes to change that with the Wilhelmina 7, which, according to a news release, will “seek out sponsorship and endorsement opportunities for the women as a whole package, and individually.”

The Wilhelmina 7 “includes only those women with the game, the beauty, and the personality to create a major presence in women’s sports, both on and off the course.”

Despite her success in college, Grzebien has hardly been a major presence so far in her first year as a professional.

With only provisional status coming out of the Tour Qualifying School, she has had to enter qualifying tournaments in order to gain entrance to LPGA events, including last week at the Wegman’s, in Pittsford, N.Y., where, as has been the case in all but one of the nine pro tournaments she’s played, she missed the cut.

She was in a similar situation in Arizona in March — trying to make the cut on Friday after having qualified for the tournament on Monday — when she came to Esch’s attention.

“She was scrambling to make the cut,” Marnie said. “She was going for broke, taking risky shots because she knew she had to shoot a low number. On 18, she overshot the green and the ball landed in the skirt of an elderly woman sitting on one of those seats with a peg that goes into the ground.

“It landed right in her lap. Anna was mortified. She went up to the woman and said: ‘I’m so sorry.’ The lady said to Anna: ‘That’s all right, sweetie. Someone as cute as you — don’t worry about it.’

“Anna gave the lady a big hug,” said Marnie, “signed a ball and gave it to her. As it turns out, standing right next to this lady was [Esch] the owner of Wilhelmina modeling agency, who wanted to know ‘Who is that girl?’

“He had one of his agents call the house to ask if it was OK to call Anna. He said that women don’t get ‘diddly’ with sponsors, and that the agency has a lot of connections with perfume makers, jewelry, cosmetics — things like that — and were looking for attractive, outgoing players.”

Grzebien, as her Wilhelmina photos attest, is attractive. She’s also outgoing and intelligent — she graduated with a degree in psychology — but what she is, most of all, is a golfer.

“I’ve wanted to do this since I was a little kid,” she said.

Although she hasn’t done as well as she’d like so far in her rookie year, she says she’s optimistic.

She’s playing courses for the first time, usually without benefit of getting in practice rounds or participating in the pro-ams because she’s been playing in qualifiers, which are not held on the tournament course.

“It’s not the easiest way to go through the year,” she said. “A lot of the players out here know these courses like the back of their hand.

“I’m not happy with the way I’ve played, but I’m not discouraged by it. Two years ago, I probably would have been miserable at this point, unhappy about everything, letting my scores define who I am.

“I’ve yet to do anything like I’m capable of. I just need to get a breakthrough and get on a roll.”

Her modeling shows she’s not an easy young woman to define, and may be part of the breakthrough she’s been looking for since turning pro.

“I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve,” she laughs, “and I pull them out when I need them. The photo shoot took almost eight hours, but it felt like 24. It was fun for the first couple of hours, then I was wondering when it was going to end.”

Glamorous as modeling may seem, Anna would much prefer to spend the day on the golf course.

“This is just a fun little project,” she said of the modeling. “Golf is still number one with me, by far.”

jdonalds@projo.com