Passages

Sorenstam is leaving the LPGA tour, Henin is retiring from tennis, and Robert Rauschenberg has died. Rauschenberg, whose American Flag painting might be the most readily recognizable, grew up so poor that his mother often pieced together his clothes, making them from scraps of material she had sewn together.

Art - no matter how abstract - is always firmly planted in reality. Someone's reality.

Sorenstam is 37, about to get married, and wants to start a family. Oh, and she is designing her fifth golf course and plans to produce a line of golf clothing, too. Living the good life of hotel rooms and elevator dings just doesn't have the luster it once did. I know nothing, really, about her. Nor do I get any sense of her beyond appreciating that she was the shot of youthful Wie before Wie. I just spent the morning out on a golf course doing a fashion shoot with pretty young non-players who could make even steel blue polyester look great, a local hall-of-famer pro who did her own stint with the LPGA and could wear clothes like a mannequin, and two stylish boomer players who generated more energy and pop than a room full of Fisher-Price kindergarteners. With so few stars to look up to, it's a shame to lose one. "I'm second on the money list," said Sorenstam. "People who know me know I don't settle for second."

On the other hand, maybe it is time for her to leave.

But as for Henin, I am saddened. A regular, slight, fit, quiet, hardworking professional athlete solid enough to win Grand Slams and grounded enough to not try dress to entice a male audience to yell out, "Show us your tits!"? She may be the last one and at 25, she is done.