WILLIAMSBURG On the PGA Tour, an event almost isn't an event unless Tiger Woods plays in it. Ditto, sort of, for the LPGA circuit; an event's worthiness spikes the day Annika Sorenstam holds the trophy. Or, in the case of the Michelob Ultra Open, Annika gets a lovely blend of malted barley, hops and yeast sprayed over her noggin on the 18th green.

WILLIAMSBURG Jeong Jang on Saturday produced a classic, put-it-in-the-vault example of how to survive and thrive as a third wheel.

WILLIAMSBURG To corrupt a current phrase, the LPGA Tour is no country for old wom … um … for ladies of a certain age. Forty might be the new 30, but that generational re-jiggering doesn’t exactly transfer in bulk to the ranks of female pro golfers.

WILLIAMSBURG It's hard to look at 18-year-old Michelle Wie without thinking she's already played the best golf of her life. Not long ago Wie was an honest-to-God phenom, bombing tee shots with a long, languid swing. Contending for major titles. Talking - with a giggle and the blind boldness of youth - of skipping the LPGA Tour all together for a run on the men's circuit.

You wouldn’t think it, but sometimes having a steel rod buried in your chest can just be the greatest thing. Confirm that with Virginia Beach’s Liz Hickey before you scoff. I mean, one day Hickey is a pretty good Bishop Sullivan High basketball player with talent but zero stamina, who can barely make it through an entire eight-minute quarter without a rest.

RICHMOND JIMMIE JOHNSON, a winner 34 times along NASCAR's thunder road, paused Friday to ponder what for him is the unponderable: a two-year separation from his beloved checkered flag. "With all the success we've had, it would be really tough," Johnson said after practice for tonight's Sprint Cup race at Richmond International Raceway.

A few truths regarding the Denver Broncos: Coach Mike Shanahan's team hasn't made the NFL playoffs the past two seasons and is 16-16 in that time. In fact, the Broncos have won just one of their five postseason games since John Elway took them to back-to-back Super Bowl championships after the 1997 and '98 seasons.

If it's only a voice through a telephone, you almost don't know if it 's ESPN's NFL Draft wonk Mel Kiper Jr. or the NFL Network's Mike Mayock bending your ear from the other end. Both motor mouths have a distinctive vocal edge (Kiper is from Baltimore; Mayock is from Philadelphia), an unquenchable football thirst, and an all-day engine that only fires harder as next weekend's draft approaches.

YOU FRIENDS WHO call and e-mail your disgust with athletes gone wild, especially local ones, might want to give your blood pressure a break today. Maybe skip right over to "Opus" or to the grocery ads to check out the week's 2-for-1s.

SAN ANTONIO Twenty years have passed agonizingly in Lawrence, Kan., home of college basketball and James Naismith and Phog Allen and all those cobwebs Bill Self brushes away every day. For 20 years, the draining clock has pulled Kansas basketball away from the last of two NCAA championships, captured in 1988 in Kansas City, Mo.