The July 4th Knucklehead Marathon Part Seventeen

Our seventeenth winner is golfer Annika Sorenstam. She gets the award for the following.

SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. — This hasn't been the smoothest of years for Michelle Wie. It has featured injury (to her wrists), inactivity (she has completed only six official rounds) and insult (she offended Annika Sorenstam).

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She was sidelined four months, returning at the Ginn Tribute Hosted by Annika in late May in South Carolina. She played 16 holes in the first round before withdrawing. She said her left wrist was the problem. Others noted she was two bogeys away from shooting an 88, which, because of a rule aimed at tour nonmembers, would have resulted in her being banned from the tour for a year.

Two days later, Wie showed up in Maryland to begin practicing for the LPGA Championship. Sorenstam was not amused.

"I just feel that there's a little lack of respect and class just to kind of leave a tournament like that and then come out and practice here," Sorenstam said.

On Tuesday, asked about her relationship with Sorenstam, Wie said only, "I haven't seen her yet."

Sorenstam, the Open's defending champion, stood by her initial comments.

"I said what I wanted to say and I stand for what I say and I still feel that way," she said

Annika is the last person who should be complaining about playing golf somewhere else while another tournament is going on. Lets take a trip back in time to this blog post of last November.

The LPGA is playing their Tournament of Champions in Mobile Alabama this weekend. So where is the tour's number #1 player?

-- ANNIKA SPEAKS: Sorenstam continued to snub the TOC despite being in a heated race with Karrie Webb and Lorena Ochoa to win her sixth straight player of the year award.

She chose to play this week in Greg Norman's Merrill Lynch Shootout in Naples, Fla., and addressed her decision Wednesday in an interview with Tom Hanson, a former LPGA caddie and tour insider who is now a reporter at the Naples Daily News.

"It's great to be invited here," Sorenstam said of playing with 23 PGA Tour pros. "It's a chance you just don't want to turn down. To be honest, I haven't been in Mobile in I don't know how many years. It wasn't like I was going to play there."

Sorenstam has played here only twice in seven years, the last time in 2002, when she finished fourth.

She was asked why.

"The course is not my favorite," she replied.

Sorenstam also learned that some LPGA players had been critical of her playing in Naples instead of coming to Mobile.

"I think that's uncalled for," she said. "I have supported the tour for many, many years."

No, Annika its that you don't feel the rules apply to you. That's why players are critical of you.

Annika didn't even have a bad wrist to excuse her playing in the Pro-AM. LOL, Michelle was wrong, and so was Annika. For being a hypocrite, Annika Sorenstam is today's seventeenth Knucklehead of the Day.

Linked to- Amboy Times, Bright & Early, Leaning Straight Up, Right Wing Nation,