Teed Off Over Annika

Vijay Singh is the latest pro golfer to learn that you'd better watch what you say in public.

Mr. Singh told the Associated Press Sunday that women's professional golf champion Annika Sorenstam has no business competing on the men's tour in next week's Colonial golf tournament in Fort Worth, Texas. "I hope she misses the cut," he said. "Why? Because she doesn't belong out there."

Singh should know better. The men's tour has never had a rule excluding women. Babe Zaharias played in the Los Angeles Open in 1945. But to its shame, until 1961 the tour had a whites-only rule, meaning that in those days Tiger Woods or Singh himself - a Fijian of South Asian descent - wouldn't have been allowed to play.

The Swedish Ms. Sorenstam dominates women's golf far more than Mr. Woods rules the men. She won 13 times last year, the most by a woman in 40 years. She's the first female pro golfer to shoot 59. She'll be the first woman to compete on the men's tour in 58 years.

The Colonial course is tough, and Sorenstam isn't planning to play others on the men's tour. Singh probably said out loud what a lot of the men are thinking. But Woods has the better attitude. He says Sorenstam should play in four or five men's tournaments to really test herself. If she made the cut at Colonial, he says, it would be a "fantastic performance."

In any event, her participation will be fantastic for golf.