Annika-ching! It's all about the money

I remember Kim, a girl in my sixth grade social studies class, challenging me to an arm-wrestling match. Apparently, she didn't find my elbow-to-the-ribs humor to be too gentle.\nI didn't quite understand that girls have that growth spurt after puberty before boys do. And at that age, I had no choice but to accept the challenge. Of course, I lost.\nAnnika Sorenstam, playing at this weekend's Colonial on the PGA Tour in Fort Worth, Texas, reminded me of this incident all too well.\nThere are similarities. I risked humiliation by losing. So do the PGA Tour players. I believed I was superior to Kim. So do the PGA tour players.\nWhat is really at work here is the notion that the men are in a no-win situation. Had I backed out of my arm-wrestling match, I would have been accused of being a coward. Had I won, I would have been a bully. Since I lost, I was merely a wimp.\nThe PGA Tour regulars going up against Sorenstam are in the same dilemma, and they are dealing with things the way they usually do -- by whining. After all, my arm-wrestling match with Kim was about pride. This is about money.\nThose who complain that Sorenstam getting a sponsor's exemption to play in the Colonial takes away a spot from a deserving male golfer fail to realize that the people who run the Colonial are businessmen trying to make a profit. What male golfer, if given a sponsor's exemption, would draw the crowds that Sorenstam will be receiving? Phil Tataurangi? Pat Perez? Yeah, right.\nThe players know that playing on the tour is tough enough. They don't need Sorenstam, the LPGA Tour's all-time leading money winner, taking a paycheck they think should be theirs.\nMeanwhile, the money available on the PGA Tour has to make Sorenstam's eyes light up. The winner of the Colonial will make $900,000. \nOn the other hand, if Sorenstam had played the LPGA Corning Classic in Corning, N.Y., this weekend, she would be looking at a potential $150,000 first prize. To put that into perspective, the has-beens on the Champions Tour, (formerly the Senior PGA Tour), the most brutally boring outdoor activity since picking dandelions, will play for a purse 50 percent larger at their event in Columbus, Ga., this weekend.\nVijay Singh earned slightly over $1 million for winning last week's EDS Byron Nelson Classic, hardly confused with a major. Singh had been one of the biggest critics of Sorenstam playing the Colonial, even going so far as to say he would withdraw rather than play with her. After winning the Nelson, Singh decided to take the Colonial off. After winning $1 million in a week, I guess he can afford to take a week off and not deal with the scrutiny.\nMaybe this will put things into perspective: Brian Gay is 100th on the PGA Tour Money List this year with earnings of $286,762. Would you recognize Gay if he walked through the door? And he's on a pace to win about $600,000. Only five LPGA players have made more than Gay has this year. Sorenstam, on the other hand, has earned over $554,000, good for second on the LPGA money list. If she played on the PGA Tour and made that much, she would rank 59th on their list.\nAfter winning 43 LPGA events, one can see how Sorenstam doesn't want to wait for the LPGA Tour to market itself better.\nPGA players, meanwhile, will continue to bellyache. These were the people who tried to equate Casey Martin's being allowed to use a golf cart with a basketball player allowed to put springs in their shoes so he could jump like Michael Jordan. These are the people who complain if the castle they rent out during British Open week doesn't have a large enough moat. And my lord, will they complain if they get a bad lie or a bad bounce or a wind gust that came out of nowhere that blew their ball into the pond.\nThey need to be ignored. Sorenstam will help diversify the game. While Tiger Woods has had a great impact on golf's viewing audience, anything he has done to broaden golf's playing field hasn't manifested itself yet. All Tiger has proven is that golf isn't so much a game for whites as it is a game for suburbanites.\nNow it's time to diversify the playing field further. And Sorenstam shouldn't have to arm wrestle for it.