Philadelphia, PA -- (Sports Network) - With about six weeks to go in this decade, you've already seen several lists about the 2000s.

You may see more later in this very space, but it might be appropriate to reminisce about some of the bigger stories we might have forgotten happened in this historic decade.

The 10-year span was historic, more than anything else, for the play of some individuals. We'll call them Tiger and Annika. But aside from perhaps the best individual decades by single players, this era should also be memorialized for some social changes.

Well, attempts at social changes anyway.

Tiger Woods has already emerged as a star both on and off the course, but he took the Michael Jordan route in terms of his personal views. Woods isn't terribly interested in sharing his thoughts on social issues, and that's his prerogative.

Woods was already becoming the best player in the history of the sport when the decade started and as an African-American, among other nationalities, he could've been an agent for various causes.

That's just not his style.

It was the style of his former Stanford teammate, Casey Martin.

It was in 2001 that the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of young Martin, who you might remember sued the PGA Tour to let him use a golf cart because he had a disorder that made walking excruciating.

The tour, the benevolent group that it is, believed this would provide him with an unfair advantage. Meanwhile, one false step over a pebble and Martin could've lost his leg or worse.

It was the Supremes that exercised some good judgment, and justice, ruling that Martin could use a cart to make his living. Martin played the PGA Tour in 2000, never made an impact and hasn't played in a PGA Tour-sponsored event since 2006 and is currently the golf coach at the University of Oregon. For a period of time, Martin battled the giant that is the PGA Tour. Jack Nicklaus was against him. So was Arnold Palmer, but all Martin wanted was to play the game he loved and earn money at the thing he was best at.

Martin didn't seek fame or notoriety, just a chance. He was a hero.

Martha Burk was not.

Her intentions were good, be clear on that. Burk battled Augusta National since it had zero female members. In 2002 and 2003, her protests led the Masters committee to broadcast the championship without commercials, rather than face the negative P.R. associated with advertisers pulling out.

But no matter how noble the cause, Burk's protests led to a more circus-like environment than anything else. She was forced to protest the Masters away from Augusta National, and the protests were mostly laughed at.

Again, Burk's stance that women should be members of Augusta National is admirable. There's a compelling argument about the rights of private clubs, but it's 2003 (back then it was), and women should be members at these places.

What ultimately did in Burk's campaign was the craziness of her rallies and protests, and, it just didn't work. It's almost 2010 and Sandra Day O'Connor, Condoleezza Rice, Oprah and Nancy Lopez aren't members.

There are women on the waiting list at Augusta, but just waiting.

As the decade progressed, however, the women wouldn't have to wait to get into men's fields, and the leader of that movement was Ms. Sorenstam herself.

She received an invitation to play in the 2003 Colonial on the PGA Tour. Some men didn't like that, most prominently Vijay Singh, who claimed she didn't belong.

Maybe she did, or maybe she didn't, but Annika said she wanted to play once to try it. Sorenstam wanted to see if she measured up to the best men in the world. She didn't, then never tried it again.

So when fellas like Singh get their knickers in a twist over this, they look foolish. She didn't want to play full-time on tour, she didn't want to take anyone's spot. The tournament offered a chance to play, Sorenstam tried it, enjoyed herself and moved on.

Her decision to play at Colonial actually prompted one of the finest displays for social change in recent memory. Brian Kontak, the Rosa Parks of golf, planned to sue to get into the U.S. Women's Open that same year.

His theory was, "If they can play in our events, why can't we play in theirs?" Solid thinking. It's through logic like that where change becomes reality. You had to feel for Kontak...men have had so many disadvantages to overcome, especially in golf.

Kontak, who apparently elected to tackle this equality issue instead of the fact that women make about 70 cents to the man's dollar, became a punch line and Singh was vilified.

Sadly, whatever legacy Sorenstam was about to leave was promptly destroyed when it appeared almost every week, somewhere in the world, a male tour had a female in the field.

Sometimes it wasn't even women, but kids like Michelle Wie. She played in Hawaii and even left the course on a gurney once because of exhaustion. Most of these females seemed to want some publicity, and Wie went as far as stating that she wanted to play the PGA Tour. Eventually, she backed off that stance a when she realized she not be been good enough to win with the women. Wie finally won on the LPGA Tour for the first time Sunday.

Oh, and there was one other thing.

It probably bears mentioning that Mianne Bagger became the first transgendered woman to compete in a professional tournament at the 2004 Women's Australian Open.

Basically, everyone played everywhere, or at least tried to.

Sure, at times professional golf resembled a circus during the '00s.

We had Jan Stephenson claiming Koreans were destroying the LPGA Tour. We had a tour try to get a disabled kid essentially banned from competition. We had one of the four biggest stars on the PGA Tour say women didn't belong.

It was quite a decade for social change. Makes you wonder what can happen in the '10s.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

- I'm not going to gloat, but I did predict Michelle Wie would win before the year was out. With a week to go in the LPGA Tour, she made me look like more of a genius than I already thought I was.

- Doug Barron's suspension is going to be a very compelling story. He's suing based on the fact that he had medical conditions that required beta-blockers, but Barron applied for, and was denied, the ability to use those treatments. My legal background is solely based on years of watching "Law and Order" but it seems if he can prove his injuries and conditions were real and could be helped with these drugs, Barron might have a case.

- Tiger Woods was probably not proud his driver went flying into the gallery on Saturday. Just a hunch, but you don't want to make a habit of hurling a piece of metal into paying customers at about 45 mph.

- Movie moment - One of my favorite movie trends is the one where the obscenely hot girl can't find the right guy. I got roped into watching "The Ugly Truth" with Katherine Heigl the other night (it's hideous). Her character is mean and career-driven and can't find love. She could stab a guy's mother in the throat with a prison shiv carved out of a toothbrush, and a guy would hang in there simply because she's fantastic-looking. Producers, next time you have a film idea that requires me to believe that Penelope Cruz, Drew Barrymore or some other beauty can't get a guy, think for one second before you proceed.