Circus Coming to Colonial

She is playing an LPGA Tour event this weekend in Virginia, but no one should be shocked if Annika Sorenstam already has set her watch to Fort Worth time. In three weeks, Sorenstam will show up at Colonial Country Club and try to do what David Duval, Sergio Garcia, Jim Furyk, Mark O'Meara and Charles Howell III failed to do there last year.

That would be make the cut.

Will she or won't she? If she makes the cut, what about the shell-shocked male pros who don't? And if she doesn't, does it really matter?

It's a topic that has drawn a ton of reaction. From Tiger Woods to Ty Votaw to Tim Finchem, almost everyone has weighed in on the subject, except for Andy Rooney, but he has probably been too busy practicing his scowls.

In fact, Sorenstam's foray into men's professional golf promises to be one of the year's most heavily covered tournaments other than the majors.

The media will turn out in record numbers to follow Sorenstam, lured by the spectacle of the best female player in the world playing against a representative sampling of the best male players in the world.

It's going to be a circus. And those are Sorenstam's words, which she used the day in February she announced her intention to invade the men's tour. As far as anyone can tell, outside of a few anonymous quotes from LPGA Tour players, the only person upset about the whole thing is Nick Price.

He won last year at Colonial, but lately, he has been getting lambasted with Sorenstam questions instead of basking in the glow associated with the defending champion. Price also said the whole deal sounds like a cheap publicity stunt. He's wrong about that. It's certainly not cheap.

Price is being tacky, but he's actually doing everybody a favor by getting the negativity ball rolling, because you're going to hear a lot of people starting to unload on this venture, most of them refusing to allow their names to be used in print.

Woods is not among them, however. He is on the record saying that he sees nothing wrong with Sorenstam's playing Colonial, but that it would injure the LPGA's image if she stinks up the joint.

That's where Votaw stepped in. Because he is the commissioner of the LPGA, Votaw is particularly keen on how his association and its best player are perceived, mainly, by gosh, so those wonderful sponsors don't fall out of love with the golf product he's responsible for running.