"Ready or Not, Here We Come!": Ginn Tribute Opens with a Bang (and Much Whimpering)

"Ready or not, here we come!": This is what Annika Sorenstam and Michelle Wie were hoping would be their message to the world of women's professional golf during and after the Ginn Tribute. But instead both raised serious doubts about the wisdom of their early return from multiple injuries.

Wie almost golfed for the cycle (birdie, par, bogey, double, triple, quintuple) before deciding to withdraw without playing her final two holes, the 8th and 9th (and risking both re-injuring her wrists and an 88 or worse that would have banned her for a year from the LPGA so long as she remained a non-member). Sorenstam, meanwhile, birdied both those holes to fight her way back to even par (T33).

To be sure, many big names played terribly on Thursday. Brittany Lincicome, Natalie Gulbis, Catriona Matthew, Brittany Lang, Lorie Kane, and Carin Koch failed to break 80; Se Ri Pak, Ai Miyazato, Morgan Pressel, Stacy Prammanasudh, Laura Diaz, and Grace Park didn't break 75; and Mi Hyun Kim, Juli Inkster and Kyeong Bae barely avoided joining them. But you can bet Wie's woes and Sorenstam's struggles will be the lead story in the media. Too bad for the LPGA.

"Ready or not, here we come!": This is the message sent by Angela Park's 66, Sun Young Yoo's and Pat Hurst's 68s, and Jeong Jang's and Dorothy Delasin's 69s to Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer, and Laura Davies. Don't expect us to back down or fade away just because you, too, broke 70 today.

"Ready or not, here we come!": With 32 people under par (including Karrie Webb, Julieta Granada, Seon Hwa Lee, Sarah Lee, Becky Morgan, and Nicole Castrale) and another 21 at par (including Shi Hyun Ahn, Cristie Kerr, Jee Young Lee, Meena Lee, Young Kim, Jimin Kang, Sherri Steinhauer, and Angela Stanford) there's far more to the tournament than the agony of defeat and the possibility of victory for the folks I've highlighted above. And with a cut line that could be anywhere from +2 to +6, on a treacherous course that has already sabotaged many players who at one point or another in their Thursday rounds got to -4, it's far too soon to tell who's already out of it and who's going to be in the mix on Sunday. But what a strange start to the Ginn Tribute!

I guess I shouldn't be too disappointed that my friend Moira Dunn is at +2 through 16; at least she'll have a decent chance to outplay a bunch of big names struggling to be on the right side of the cut line at the end of the day Friday.