As Hawai'i nears the end of its long run of early-season professional golf events, the LPGA will officially open its season when the SBS Open at Turtle Bay tees off tomorrow at the resort's Palmer Course. The LPGA's Fields Open in Hawai'i is next week at Ko Olina Golf Club.

Joo Mi Kim won last year's second SBS Open, beating Lorena Ochoa and Soo Young Moon in a playoff. That trio joins a 138-player field that includes all but two of last year's top 30 money winners, and 16-year-old U.S. Amateur champion Kimberly Kim, formerly of Hilo.

Still, there are two very conspicuous absences.

Annika Sorenstam, the best female golfer in the world over the past six years, has never played the SBS Open. That means, in accordance with LPGA rules that require top golfers to play in each event at least once every four years, Sorenstam is obligated to play in 2008.

Punahou senior Michelle Wie, the sport's biggest draw, is also missing SBS a second straight year. Wie could not fit the event into her limited schedule (she is allowed six exemptions a year as a non-member) last year. Now she is rehabilitating a sore right wrist and a left wrist in a cast.

Wie is telling friends her left wrist is fractured in two places, an injury caused when she reportedly tried to break a fall in training.

Ochoa's near misses last year at Turtle Bay and Ko Olina, and at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the year's first major, only seemed to inspire her. The 25-year-old from Mexico won six tournaments, captured her first Rolex Player of the Year award and shot to the top of the money list when she became the second in LPGA history to surpass $2 million in earnings.

Karrie Webb later became the third. Webb, inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame in 2005, is coming off two wins at home in Australia the past two weeks. The 1999 and 2000 Player of the Year has 35 LPGA victories, with five coming last year when she soared back to the top of the tour. Her first 28 wins came in her first seven seasons, and she had gone winless in 2005.

Webb and fellow Hall of Famer Juli Inkster, who finished seventh on the money list at age 46, are now surrounded by twentysomethings — and younger — on the leaderboards. Paula Creamer and Morgan Pressel haven't turned 21 yet, while Julieta Granada, Brittany Lincicome, Natalie Gulbis and Ai Miyazato barely have. But all are here and were among the top 25 LPGA players last year.