First, on Friday, Semgroup filed for bankruptcy protection.

The SemGroup Championship has been played in May at Cedar Ridge Country Club in Broken Arrow, but it seems likely a new title sponsor for the event will be needed, as Tulsa-based SemGroup LP filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday after losing a reported $2.4 billion in hedged trading on the oil futures markets.

Doug Eibling of Octagon, a sports management and marketing company that owns the LPGA event, said Friday a search has started to replace SemGroup as the title sponsor.

The bright side of this is that there may already be other sponsors coming to the table.

Eibling, the tournament’s director, said that as SemGroup’s troubles became public knowledge this week, Octagon received calls from three potential title sponsors, which he declined to name.

Who knows how reliable that statement is, of course, but you have to take it on face value. This is something the LPGA probably did not see coming. If you have been watching the stock market of late, though, you would know this is a distinct possibility because of a SEC investigation into the organization.

Also, even if the event remains, it will likely not attract the same caliber of field it once did because of the number of players sponsored by SemGroup – Cristie Kerr among them. Still, it would be a great event to salvage since it is played on a major championship layout.

If that was not bad enough, there was arguably worse news reported by Ron Sirak on Saturday about the Ginn Tribute. Namely, that it’s done.

The Ginn Tribute which, along with the Ginn Open, has a $2.6 million purse, the richest of any U.S.-based LPGA event except the U.S. Women’s Open, will not return in 2009, multiple sources told Golf World. While neither the LPGA nor Ginn would confirm the demise of the Tribute, which is played at RiverTowne CC near Charleston, S.C., neither expressed optimism about its future.

“If I had to handicap the situation right now I would say that it is less than 50-50 that the Ginn Tribute will happen in 2009,” LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens told Golf World at the Evian Masters. “That said, we will have a tournament to replace it.”

Of course, Commish Bivens is really leaving herself open to some criticism here. She basically killed off the ShopRite Classic just outside of Atlantic City – a well-supported event that the players liked – in lieu of giving the Tribute this date.

Unfortunately for the LPGA Tour, this event never really got off of the ground. Poor weather last year led to lousy attendance. The event brought in local Beth Daniel as the Tributee of the event in the hopes of drumming up additional interest.

The biggest problem, though, was getting into a relationship with a real estate company. Given the downturn in the real estate realm, this was inevitable anyway. Even worse, though, is that Ginn bit off way more than they can chew. By taking opportunities to sponsor four events – 2 LPGA, 1 PGA Tour, 1 Champ Tour – they were on the hook for almost $25 million in sponsorship dollars.

Sirak mentions that the Ginn Open may become the new Ginn Tribute. But that would throw a wrench into the rumor that Ginn would like to step up and host a LPGA Tour major. Again, it would be in the best interests of the Tour not to do that.

The pairings have been out for several days now, but wanted to get them in a post on here for reference’s sake. The US Women’s Open begins in Minnesota at Interlachen on Thursday. Cristie Kerr is defending champion, Paula Creamer already labeled the great American hope, and the media seems to expect another showdown between Ochoa and Sorenstam. All that said, here are some of the important Thursday/Friday pairings.

No pairings by the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, btw.

First, the traditional pairing:
7:33 a.m. – 1:03 p.m. — Cristie Kerr, Miami, Fla.; A-Maria Jose Uribe, Colombia; Lorena Ochoa, Mexico

Then the “model” pairing”:
7:55 a.m. – 1:25 p.m. — Natalie Gulbis, Las Vegas, Nev.; Young Kim, Korea; Carin Koch, Sweden

How about the youth movement?
8:17 a.m. – 1:47 p.m. — A-Kimberly Kim, Hilo, Hawaii; Julieta Granada, Paraguay; Michelle Wie, Honolulu, Hawaii
1:36 p.m. – 8:06 a.m. — Brittany Lang, McKinney, Texas; A-Amanda Blumenherst, Scottsdale, Ariz.; Na-Yeon Choi, Korea

There’s something about this dynamic that could be hilarious, or at least very entertaining:
7:33 a.m. – 1:03 p.m. — Karrie Webb, Australia; Yani Tseng, Chinese Taipei; Christina Kim, San Jose, Calif.

Two (EDIT: Nay, all three) players in this group are having solid years:
1:14 p.m. – 7:44 a.m. — Angela Stanford, Saginaw, Texas; Lindsey Wright, Australia; Jeong Jang, Korea

If Lorena had not won the Women’s Open, she’d be in this pairing:
1:14 p.m. – 7:44 a.m. — Annika Sorenstam, Sweden; Paula Creamer, Pleasanton, Calif.; Suzann Pettersen, Norway

Should be a good couple of days!

I’m not sure about the timing of this announcement, or even the meaning of this role, but I believe this is really the first relationship of its kind between the USGA and a specific golfer.

Three-time United States Women’s Open champion and World Golf and LPGA Hall-of-Fame member AnnikaSorenstam has been named a United States Golf Association Ambassador, according to USGA President JimVernon.

“Annika has earned a rare place in golf’s history, and we are very privileged to bring her aboard the USGA,” said Vernon. “As a USGA Ambassador, Annika will help us make the game more accessible and more relevant to players of all skill levels. She’ll provide key help in many ways, and we will begin the relationship through an innovative webcast from this year’s U.S. Women’s Open.”

The relationship sounds very amorphous but that they wanted to get her on board now, as she is transitioning from playing competitor to golf industry icon. Here are some of the things she will definitely do with the organization:

In addition to robust online content at this year’s Women’s Open, Sorenstam will appear on the USGA’s Web site (www.usga.org) and will highlight the Rules of Golf. MikeDavis, the USGA’s Senior Director of Rules and Competitions, added: “It makes perfect sense as Annika has attended a USGA Rules Seminar and has always displayed a passion for learning and mastering the Rules of Golf.” Sorenstam will also work with the USGA in a variety of ways to grow the game with a focus on growth in the women’s game and junior participation.

Some cool news for LPGA fans, though:

Sorenstam’s first round at the championship, to be held at Interlachen Country Club in Edina, Minn., (June 26-29), will be streamed live on the USGA’s U.S. Women’s Open championship web site (www.uswomensopen.com), a first in the world of women’s golf. “Users will be able to view every shot that she and the other players in her grouping make during her first round on June 26,” added Vernon.

On Friday of the championship, June 27, www.uswomensopen.com will stream video featuring the traditional grouping of defending U.S. Women’s Open champion CristieKerr, Women’s British Open champion LorenaOchoa and U.S. Women’s Amateur champion MariaUribe. The 2008 U.S. Women’s Open will be the first international women’s golf event to feature this fan-friendly option.

Yesterday, Tiger Woods was in town for a press conference to promote his AT&T National over July 4th weekend at Congressional. In the presser, he was asked about his reaction to Annika’s retirement announcement. The reaction was most interesting.

Q. What was your reaction when you heard Annika, that she would retire at the end of the season? And have you spoken with her since then? And, if so, what have you spoken about?

TIGER WOODS: I knew that was going to happen. She’s done it all. She’s been through it all. For men and women, it is two totally different things. Who knows, she might come back or not. I doubt it. I don’t see Annika ever doing anything half-ass. The time she is going to spend with her child and her family, I don’t ever see her ever wanting to come back to the game of golf in that capacity. What it takes to do that, I don’t foresee her doing it. We talked quite a bit after that.

I just — I’m very happy for her. She sounds happy, very at peace with what she’s done and what she’s said.

Now, I don’t know about you, but reading between the lines (i.e., the bolded part) here seems to insinuate that Annika is already pregnant. I know that Tiger has to be aware that Annika wants to have a child one day. I’m pretty sure everyone knows that. But to talk about a child as though it is a certainty does make one wonder. It would go a long way in explaining the fairly sudden nature of her retirement announcement.

Brenda Kuehn and Kristie Albers in 2001, Iben Tinning and Laura Diaz in 2005, Hee-Won Han in 2006. Not necessarily a backup to my argument, but wanted to show that it has been done before successfully.

Lorena Ochoa won the Sybase Classic in New Jersey for the third consecutive year on Sunday. It is her sixth win of the season. Before that, Annika Sorenstam had won two of her last three starts including a seven shot thrashing at the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill. In between the Sorenstam victories, Paula Creamer won her second event of the season – with Lorena Ochoa in the field – at the SemGroup Championship in Oklahoma. Before all of that, Ochoa reeled off four consecutive victories.

On the season, only one person other than these three players has won an event on the LPGA Tour. That person is Louise Friberg and she won in Mexico at the Mastercard Classic. Other than that, no LPGA player has won. A limited few have sniffed victory. Juli Inkster lost in a playoff in Oklahoma for the second consecutive year, but this time went down to Creamer instead of Mi Hyun Kim.

The domination of three players over this tour is staggering. It is something that is reminiscent of the Big Three of Nicklaus, Palmer, and Player in their run of trading major championships – particularly the Masters – over a nine year period. The fact that it is happening in a single season is equally as impressive as that feat. Venues change from week to week, so do the players, as do the playing conditions. Despite all of that, Ochoa, Sorenstam, and Creamer still seem to find a way to win between the three of them.

Even when the three of them are not winning, they are still playing excellent golf. Creamer is the lagger of the three. In her nine starts this season, she has two wins and two other top 3s. The rest of the finishes are outside of the top 10. Again, that makes her the worst performing player of the three. That would be a career season for 90% of golfers on any professional tour.

Sorenstam has just two finishes out of the top 10 and three out of the top five, including a T11 this weekend in New Jersey. Ochoa has finished outside of the top 10 only once this season – at Kingsmill. She is winning at a 67% rate, a stunning and unheard of rate, even if down from the 80% winning percentage she had earlier in the season.

The interesting part about the dominance of these three players is that it can be spun into a negative thing.

Barker Davis of the Washington Times wrote a piece on April 25 in which he claimed, “[T]he fact that two players have dominated the LPGA to such a degree almost concurrently says nearly as much about the lack of depth in the women’s game as it does about their individual greatness.”

On the Golf Channel’s Golf Central program last night, the topic of conversation switched to the same subject matter. Brandel Chamblee disagreed with Davis’ premise that this is a potentially bad thing. He claimed that sponsors love superstars, not parity. (That is not universally true. See the NFL for details.) In golf, that is true. The PGA Tour really only has two or three superstars and sponsors fawn over them.

The LPGA Tour may be able to experience the same kind of rub from the Big Three. That makes this year particularly critical for Commissioner Carolyn Bivens on multiple fronts. The Tour needs to close the deal on a television contract that is as beneficial as possible in 2008. Also, the Tour needs to sure up events that may be losing sponsorship or ending altogether – particularly the Ginn events and the event at Superstition Mountain.

With Annika’s announcement of stepping away from the game at the end of the season, the LPGA Tour will be hard pressed to be in a better position to negotiate with all parties come 2009. Yes, Ochoa leads a pack of next generation players and she seems poised to become one of the all-time greats. But, the position of strength for the Tour today is that there are two all-timers in the midst of an amazing season with another potential great joining in on the fun.

The fact that more writers appear to be covering the LPGA Tour in Tiger’s absence is telling. Quite possibly, the LPGA Tour has never enjoyed a window this large through which the game can grow. It must take advantage of this situation.

With the news that Annika Soresnstam was leaving professional golf (not retiring, per se), I devoted an entire segment of this week’s 19th Hole Golf Show to it. Check it out on the sidebar if you don’t want to read what my thoughts are because you can hear the same thing, more or less.

Let us be clear: Annika Sorenstam said nothing about retirement in her press conference and statement yesterday. Read what she said, courtesy of LPGA.com:

“After much consideration, I have made the decision to step away from competitive golf at the end of this season,” said Annika, who has added three more victories to her career total so far in 2008. “Because I love the game so much, this is obviously a hard decision to make, but it feels like the right one. I made this decision because I have a number of other priorities in my life, including starting a family, that I want to be as dedicated to as I have been to playing golf and it was always important to me to go out on my own terms.”

Two things stick out to me here. Of course, the “step away” phrase is very vague. It does not indicate finality in any sense. I should know as a fan of the Green Bay Packers, what with all of the talk about Brett Favre’s daily statements that indicate that he could return if new QB Aaron Rodgers turns out to perform poorly. When people are vague, they usually are on purpose. Step away can leave room for an eventual comeback effort. It could also actually mean that she is done for good. Honestly, though, I don’t think she knows whether or not she is truly done. She does know that she is done for now.

She is done for now for all of the reasons that you and I know. Annika will be married in early 2009, wants to start a family, and has about a dozen side businesses that will keep her challenged, busy, and rich. Basically, she is at the next stage of her life – committing to being a wife, mother, and a businesswoman – and needs to lay the groundwork for that. After she does that and she decides that the fire still burns to play golf competitively, then she’ll come back and do that.

If she doesn’t, though, the LPGA is not in bad hands. That is probably why Annika had no problem announcing the beginning of her farewell tour yesterday. Between Lorena, Paula, and a host of up and coming players, the LPGA Tour has a very bright future. Annika can walk away knowing that the house is in order and that she has nothing left to teach the kids. The Tour is hosting events all around the world (even if several are struggling here). A real television contract may be in the cards for the first time in the Tour’s history. Purses have never been higher. The ladies played St. Andrew’s at the Open for God’s sake. Between 1994 and 2008, a lot has changed – much thanks due to Annika.

Despite all that she has achieved, Annika has not done all that she wants. While many women on the LPGA Tour play while pregnant, take a break to have a child, and return, it appears Annika does not want to do that. She said that she wants to be as committed to the next phase of her life as she has been to golf. That is her option. Annika has more than earned the right to do what she pleases.

Sorenstam has never been one to carry much about records. Kathy Whitworth’s 88 victories are within reach with 4 or 5 more normal seasons for Annika of 4-5 wins. If this season is the end, though, will anyone really doubt that she is the best LPGA Tour player ever? Jack Nicklaus does not own that record on the PGA Tour and Woods is shy of the mark by almost 20 wins yet they are still 1 and 1a in the conversation for best male golfer ever.

Fortunately, though, the announcement in May gives us an opportunity to see her final season through a different lens. It gives us an opportunity to remember what she did so well, how she has remained humble throughout all of her success, and see how far she has come. But it also gives the apparent battle for domination between Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa some extra meaning. This is Annika’s last stand, so to speak, and Ochoa will be the survivor no matter what. Still, Annika can prove to those who doubted her after her 2006 neck injury and 2007 season that she is still the best in the world. She can deliver a message to Ochoa that she is letting her off easy and that she could come back and do the same thing anytime that she wants. For me, that makes the rest of this season even more exciting.

Just saw it as an AP news alert. More to come as the story develops.

UPDATE 1:51pm – Here is the Doug Ferguson article confirming it.

Annika really stuck it to everyone this weekend at the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill. She won by seven, a record for the event, on -19. Seriously, she put on a beatdown of epic proportions on the field. It was never in doubt on Sunday – or really on Saturday.

Now everyone is talking about how Annika is back. To be frank, though, Annika has been back since the opening event of the season. Yes, the two wins she had notched up until this weekend were without Ochoa in the field. Still, Annika had been finishing strong in events during the Ochoa winning streak. She had two runner up finishes, a tie for 9th, and then a not-so-good 44th at the Ginn Open. Overall, though, 8 events, 3 wins, two runner ups, and 7 top 10s. She has been back.

The real question was when she would stare down Ochoa and beat her like Paula Creamer did in Oklahoma. It took one week. Things are starting to be put into perspective in the last two weeks. Lorena can be beaten. She is not going to win 20 events this year. She still could win 10. But, she is going to have some serious competition for the titles that she earns this season. Ochoa may be playing incredible golf, but she has two ladies that are on her heels.

The LPGA Big Three is real, alive, and well. And that can mean nothing but good for the Tour.