….here’s hoping our efforts this week will enlighten you some more.

The HSBC Women’s World Match Play Championship is coming to Wykagyl Country Club and our tournament homepage here should be an invaluable reference. There you’ll find up-to-the-minute tournament results, course information, and what to do in case you’re ever attacked by a mountain lion.

OK, maybe not that last one, but it’s still pretty good…

In my own conversations and in reading a growing number of negative stories recently, two things are apparent about USGA president Walter Driver:

Reasons you don’t want me following you in a golf tournament:

Consider the final round of The Journal News/WGA Open, won by Tony DeMaria in a three-hole playoff. I spent the afternoon bouncing from one group to another, and until the playoff itself, I never saw a birdie.

Instead, I started following Purchase’s Carl Alexander and he quickly made bogey. Then I jumped over to Whippoorwill’s Jim Wahl and he made bogey. Then I followed Saint Andrews’ Greg Bisconti and he made two bogeys.

Even when I caught up with DeMaria, he had just played his last five holes in six-under par, only to miss two short birdie putts as soon as I started following me.

It’s bad enough that I stink. I shouldn’t have to make everyone else stink as well.

I’d say it’s admirable that the HSBC Women’s World Match Play Championship extended its final sponsor’s exemption to 2005 champion Marisa Baena, but bear in mind this came only after the tournament was rebuffed by Michelle Wie.

Either way, Baena, who won the inaugural HSBC in 2005, is in, completing the field of 64 players.

“We were considering Marisa from the beginning,” tournament director Jason Soucy said.

So much for Ron Philo Jr. being the player to beat in The Journal News/Westchester Golf Association Open.

The defending champion, who now teaches at Hudson National Golf Club, pulled out of the Open at GlenArbor Golf Club in Bedford Hills when he learned he was eligible to qualify for next week’s British Open.

WGA executive director Bob Thomas received word of Philo’s withdrawal late Sunday night. The 41-year-old Philo had won last year’s championship at Fairview Country Club by three strokes.

This much we do know:

Michelle Wie will NOT be playing in the HSBC Women’s World Match Play Championship at Wykagyl Country Club in New Rochelle July 19-22.

Both tournament director Jason Soucy and Wie family spokesman Jesse Derris confirmed that Wie was offered the last sponsor’s exemption into the field, but declined. After opening the U.S. Women’s Open with an 82, Wie had pulled out of the tournament the next day with the recurrence of a wrist injury.

The HSBC will still feature 17 of the top 20 players in the world, including top-ranked Lorena Ochoa and Annika Sorenstam. The exemption offered to Wie is expected to be filled early next week.

“I’m excited about the 64 players who are able to participate,” Soucy said.

We should know today whether organizers of the HSBC Women’s World Match Play Championship will extend a sponsor’s exemption to Michelle Wie.

That in itself might not be earth-shattering news, but given the teenager’s recent spate of injury and mediocre play, it would telling if the HSBC folks are even seriously considering it.

There is no question that Wie is a huge draw, and if she is in the field, match play is such that she could still be dangerous while occasionally spraying it all over the lot.

But the message organizers would be sending is that they don’t care about Wie’s recent struggles as long as she can get a few more bodies through the turnstiles.

If it was me, that’s not the type of message I’d want to be sending.