It wasn't supposed to go like this at all.

Many of us scribes took up this golf-writing dodge for one very good reason: There aren't any night games.

Which leaves nights free for other games.

The Battle at Bighorn began at 4:52 p.m. local time in Palm Desert, Calif., on Monday. It ended at about 9:20 p.m., mercifully, after only 19 holes of bad golf. The 19th hole wasn't what most of us expected to be enjoying at 9:20.

We weren't alone.

David Duval teamed with Karrie Webb in a made-for-TV alternate-shot match against Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam. Duval-Webb were 2-up with three holes to play.

"Hot, dusty, and we lost," said Duval. "That combination is not good."

Then, possibly realizing he split the "losers" share of $500,000: "But we had a nice time."

The women must have had mixed feelings about this exhibition, too. Sorenstam and Webb were understandably delighted with the chance to play with two of the biggest names, and the biggest draws, in golf -- in prime time, before about eight or nine million homes. That's nearly as many as see them all season long on LPGA telecasts.

But then they went out, the four of them with five of this year's major titles between them, and stumbled around like you and me at our local municipal course. Except that it took them three hours to play 14 holes, and if we took that long the ranger would be hustling us out to the parking lot.

It was over 100 degrees when they started, and an hour later the wind was blowing 20 miles per hour and more. It was brutal and it showed. Duval drove into a bush. Webb kept dumping pitches into front bunkers. Woods and Sorenstam hit the ball so bad on consecutive holes that each had to play a shot left-handed.

"I wish I could have played better," said Sorenstam, who left with Webb immediately afterwards for the British Open, the LPGA's fourth major of the year. Said Webb, "I don't have any bad shots left for the rest of the week."

But at least there was modest excitement at the end, when Woods-Sorenstam won two of the last three holes to square the match.

"I didn't want it to end," said Sorenstam, who made a key putt on 18.

"We did," said Woods, whose putt on the extra hole ended it all.

There is not supposed to be any cheering in the press box, but there was a little late last night.

T.R. Reinman is a contributor to ESPN The Magazine.