Bits and Pieces

-Michael Wilbon letting us know who he is as he starts a regular writing gig with espn.com.  He's good, very good.

-Michelle Wie triple bogeys her 17th hole and falls four off the pace down in Dubai.  From mercurynews.com and the AP:

The 10th-ranked Wie, battling a bad back for weeks, was in second for much of the day after making two birdies on her first nine holes and an eagle after the turn. Wie was at 3 under before No. 8, where she hit her drive out of bounds and the next shot into a bunker. She finished with a birdie her final hole. 

Should have a little momentum with that birdie at her last hole.  England's Florentyna Parker leads after the first round with a 67.  (Don't think I've ever heard that name before - Florentyna.  Kinda pretty though a mouthful.)

-Looks like tomorrow's weather with a high of 43 is the closest we're going to come to golfing weather for a while.  Any golf withdrawal pains yet?  I've been putting here at home but nothing else - no chipping, no driving, no pitch shots to three feet or ten feet or thirty feet.  That means a whole lot of freshness the next time we can tee it up.

-Haven't celebrated a golf babe for a while.  How about Anna Rawson, who is being highlighted over at golf-babes.com? 

-More golf babes:  Andia Winslow.  Note in the write-up that she has played in one LPGA event and that she is African American.  More about Andia and Black lady golfers from blackvoices.com:

Winslow, a Seattle native, is the niece of former NFL great Kellen Winslow, and she claims that legacy proudly and takes it seriously. "The Winslow name is associated with strong competitors and I'm proud of that. Uncle Kellen is pretty good at golf. We are a family of competitors."

And that competitive spirit is what she intends to put on display when she becomes the first black woman since LaRee Pearl Sugg in 2001 to compete in an LPGA event. Indeed, if Winslow does what she has planned -- turn pro and play the LPGA tour full time -- she will become only the fourth African American to do so. Before Sugg, Renee Powell played more than a dozen years, from 1967 to 1980, and tennis great Althea Gibson played the women's Tour from 1964 to 1971 after her retirement from tennis.

 That answers a question I raised the other day, doesn't it?  And I'm sorry my interest in golf was not up to par back in the late '60's - I remember Althea Gibson and what a great athlete she was but have no memory of her playing golf.

-Colts and Titans tonight.  Both teams hurting bad.  A good match?  Or a blowout by Payton and company?  (A blowout by the Titans is not an option, right?)  Kravitz: "Must win.  Will win."  In any case, go Colts!