There is a "women's tour," and it's run by the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). Its rules clearly state that participation is open to women only.

There is not a "men's tour." There is no such thing as the Men's Professional Golf Association. It's not the MPGA Tour, it's the PGA Tour, and it's open to the world's best golfers, regardless of gender. The PGA Tour has no rule prohibiting the participation of women. In fact, gender is never mentioned in PGA Tour guidelines.

The PGA has always been and will remain for the forseeable future (nearly) exclusively male because the best golfers in the world are, currently anyway, exclusively male. No woman golfer has yet appeared who combines distance and short-game skills sufficient to compete regularly on the PGA Tour.

Does Sorenstam? That's what she's trying to find out. And given that she's playing in an event to which she was invited, on a tour that does not exclude women from playing, why shouldn't she?

"If she can play on the men's tour, why can't a man play on the women's tour?"

Are the Tour guys who say this really so scared of competing with - gasp! - a girl?

But to answer the question ... there is a very good reason to have a tour for women only: Because otherwise there'd be no place for the best women golfers to compete.

This isn't a gender issue. This isn't about "women's rights" or "women's lib" or any of those other silly protests from some people who say, "is she can play on the men's tour, then why can't men play on the women's tour?"

Sorenstam is playing up in level, in terms of the playing ability of the respective tours. Men would be playing down in level. No reasonable person can disagree with the notion that the second-best male golfers - those who compete on, say, the Nationwide Tour because they are not yet (or no longer) good enough to play on the PGA Tour - would be able to dominate the LPGA at this point in time were they allowed to play on it.

Put another way, taking gender completely out of the equation: When Tiger Woods was 14, he played in the U.S. Amateur. Using the same logic of the anti-Annika crowd, this should mean that any amateur of any age 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds - should be able to go down in level and play in the U.S. Junior Amateur against the rest of the 14-year-olds. That's absurd.

Allowing men to play the LPGA Tour would be the death of a tour for the top women players.

However, allowing a woman to play a single event on the PGA Tour - where, again, gender plays no role in the rules of determining participants - will have no negative effect whatsoever on the fate or legitimacy of the PGA Tour. Quite the opposite, it is bringing far more attention to a PGA Tour event and the game of golf than it would otherwise be getting.

Eventually there will be some women who hit the the ball far enough and have the short game skills to compete regularly on the PGA Tour. That time is a long way off (or maybe not - Michelle Wie, anyone?), and even when it comes the PGA Tour will only be enhanced by having more of the world's best players playing.

"She's taking a spot away from some deserving player."

The "sponsor's exemptions" are most often given to past champions who have fallen on hard times, local golfers who may have lost their Tour card, the best amateur from the local college team, a young up-and-coming golfer who has not yet gone to Tour School, a local club pro.

Sometimes they go to a celebrity golfer - an athlete from another sport or a movie star.

Or the tournament director's nephew. Or the brother-in-law of the CEO of the company that is the title sponsor.

In other words, more often than not sponsor's exemptions go to players who have no possible chance of contending for the championship. At worst, Sorenstam merely falls into the same category; at best, who knows how highly she might place?

But it doesn't really matter how she does. The invitation to Sorenstam has been proved a great move by the amount of publicity that the Colonial has gotten. TV ratings will be huge, far greater than normal for a non-major; attendance and media interest will skyrocket.

The Colonial had eight spots to fill at its sole discretion, and it chose to fill one by inviting Sorenstam. Deal with it.

"It's just a publicity stunt."

Not that I think Sorenstam's motivation is publicity. She's gotten plenty of it, and maybe she's happy about that; but I find her completely sincere when she says this is about a personal challenge, not publicity.

The Colonial, on the other hand, clearly had publicity in mind when it extended the offer. But even it is all about publicity ... again, I say, so what?

The negative reaction from some PGA Tour players to the publicity generated is mostly about jealousy. It's a tournament that Tiger Woods doesn't play, which means it's one of a handful a tournaments each year at which Tiger Woods doesn't hog the spotlight.

And then along comes Annika and, what do you know, yet another tournament at which Nick Price or Scott Hoch or Vijay Singh doesn't get to be the focus.

What I don't understand is why these guys care. They are all millionaires many times over; they may make $800,000 for playing golf four days in a row. And yet their egos are so fragile that they have to lash out about losing the spotlight?

They reacted the same way when Tiger first appeared on Tour - he was a frequent victim of petty sniping himself. Ultimately, they all realized just how petty they appeared constantly whining about the attention given to Tiger.

Or, more likely, they noticed their bank accounts growing, and knew it was because of Tiger.

Sorenstam won't have the same impact, but the publicity - whether it results from a "stunt" or not - can only be good for golf. The huge amount of attention could draw many new players into the game, many new fans to tournaments and TV sets - and in the long run, that means even more money and an even bigger spotlight for everyone.

The Bottom Line

This is a very simple issue for me, and I have to admit that I just don't get the objections.

Here's what it boils down to for me: Annika Sorenstam is going to play a game for a couple (or hopefully more than a couple) days. She's going to do it in an event to which she was invited. And she's going to do it on a tour that has no rules regarding gender, no specifications that its events are for men only, no prohibitions against women playing.

What's the big deal?