Here Comes The Tiger

The Masters tee off today. What won’t be any different this year from the last decade or so of The Masters is that the media’s stories will all be about Tiger Woods. What will be different from the last decade or so of The Masters is that the media’s stories are all about Tiger but not about how well he swings the sticks. No, it’s still about the “scandal” from half of a year ago. I feel like this has gotten more attention than Michael Vick’s dog fighting ring. My opinion on this has already been documented though. The reason I’m going to be willing to put up with all the questions surrounding this is because I love watching Tiger Woods. The man is simply phenomenal. I hope he makes his return and just flat out stomps the competition. I don’t want it to even be close. I want him to make the non-verbal statement of “I’m back. I’m the best. Deal with it.” Ali vs Jerry Quarry style.*

Tiger’s Return

I’m in the process of getting over some sickness.  This wasn’t like a normal cold where you kind of feel bad for a little while but you can still function like a normal human.  This was one of those where you’ve been run over by a truck and all you want to do is curl up into a ball and cry until it’s over.  Needless to say, I’ve watched a lot of TV the past two days.

One thing I saw over and over, besides Ali Farokhmanesh’s “nerves of steel” three-pointer to sink Kansas, was Tiger Woods’ interview with ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi.  The first time I saw it, I watched with great interest.  The rest of the times…eh.

Then, another strange thing happened.

Drop it with this Tiger Woods stuff – I don’t care

I am sick and tired of all this Tiger Woods stuff. Does all of this surprise me? Yes. Does it disappoint me? No. You know why? Because I have nothing to be disappointed by. If you had asked me 15 days ago who Tiger Woods was to me, I’d have told you that he’s the greatest golfer in the world. If you asked me today who Tiger Woods is to me, I’d tell you that he’s the greatest golfer in the world. Thus, who Tiger Woods is to me hasn’t changed on bit. If you had met known Tiger Woods, then fine, be disappointed. That makes sense. To me? I don’t care. The only thing that disappoints me is that I won’t get to see the greatest golfer in the world play golf for a while, and considering how much I watched golf anyway, it’s not really all that much of a disappointment to me.

Tom Watson Is Still A Champ

I don’t really watch a whole lot of golf.  I’m not very good at it and I don’t think it’s that exciting, but occasionally I’ll get sucked in to the final round of a major.  This weekend’s British Open Championship was one of those times.

It started on Thursday when 59-year-old Tom Watson posted a 5 under 65 to tie him for second place.  I kind of figured he would fall off after that and fade into the back.  In the second round he remained tied for the lead and I started to wonder if he could finish the way he started.

In an odd twist, Tiger Woods missed the cut in a major for only the second time as a professional so the spotlight was all on Watson.

Weekend Update

Bryan and I were both out of town for Fourth of July weekend and weren’t on the internet at all. There were some pretty big things that happened in the world of sports that we feel should be mentioned but didn’t have the opportunity to write full posts on. I’ll just give a quick one or two sentences about each one.

– Steve McNair was shot to death in his downtown Nashville apartment. It currently looks as though it was a murder suicide by the girl whose body was found next to his.

– Roger Federer beat Andy Roddick for his 15th Grand Slam at Wimbledon, passing Pete Sampras previous record of 14 career Grand Slam victories.

– Tiger Woods won the AT&T National this weekend. This gives Tiger 68 career PGA Tour wins, five short of Jack Nicklaus and 14 short of Sam Snead’s record 82 career wins.

– Manny Ramirez returned from suspension and hit a home run in his second game back.

– USA beat Grenada in soccer to win their first round match of the 2009 Gold Cup and will face Honduras in their second game.

– Serena Williams beat sister Venus Williams to win Wimbledon on the women’s side and then the two teamed up to win doubles.

– Three stages into the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong is currently in third. He is seven seconds behind Tony Martin and 40 seconds behind Fabian Cancellara.

– Some big name NBA free agents have agreed to terms with different teams from the ones they played with this past year. The most notable are: Ben Gordon to the Pistons, Hedo Turkaglu to the Raptors, Trevor Ariza to the Rockets, Charlie Villanueva to the Pistons, Rasheed Wallace to the Celtics, Marcin Gortat to the Mavericks, and Ron Artest to the Lakers.

– And most importantly Bryan and I got the oportunity to play two games of Schleuderball over the weekend and we won both games.

US Open Yell

This barely counts as US Open news, but this showed up in our email inbox tonight.  I’ll print the email just as it was sent:

Guy hitting off the tee….his name is Todd Hamilton….WTF is the guy
yelling about?

Hamilton

Hopefully the audio file works.  It’s time for the “Get in the hole!” guys to step up their game.

Star Caliber Departures

The last two days have been huge in women’s sports. Yesterday, Annika Sorenstam announced her retirement from golf effective at the end of the year. Sorenstam is arguably the greatest female golfer in history winning 72 LPGA events including 10 majors in her 14 year career. She cited her wish to settle down and start a family as one reason for the decision. I can understand that, as she really doesn’t have anything else to prove on LPGA tour and while she has played in a men’s tournament, she never really expressed any interest in playing against the men on a regular basis.

The problem for the LPGA is that they are losing their biggest star and really their only marketing tool. The LPGA tour will turn to players like Lorena Ochoa, who is currently ranked #1 in the world rankings; 21-year-old Paula Creamer, #4; and 19-year-old Morgan Pressel, #15, to become the torch bearers for their organization. It will be interesting to follow the situation next season once “Life After Annika” begins.

One day after Sorenstam’s departure another female star announced that she would also being leaving her sport. Justine Henin, the #1 ranked female tennis player, announced that she would be retiring effective immediately. The 25-year-old cited “burn out” as her reason for stepping aside.

Henin won 7 Grand Slam titles and spent more than 100 weeks at #1, but I feel like she will be easily replaced. While she was a big star in the world of tennis, she was far behind players like the Williams Sisters and Maria Sharapova. Unlike Sorenstam, Henin did not single-handedly carry her sport into mainstream coverage. There will be another Justine Henin, just like there was another Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Jennifer Capriati, etc.

Hopefully for the LPGA, they can turn to one of their young, rising stars to take over and dominate the sport, but I’m not sure they have one just yet. The LPGA may suffer for the next few years while their stars battle to decide who is the brightest. This is a big time for them, but if they play their cards right, they can make their sport much better than it was before.

Appreciating Tiger

Okay, so for those of you who haven’t caught on, this is my first non-football post, so bare with me. But this post is about how much I respect Tiger Woods This is a respect that is rapidly moving beyond the fact that his wife is a Swedish super model and recognizing how many wins he has racked up before the age of 30. I now have an appreciation for how well he plays the game itself.

I am currently taking a golf class, which I attend every Monday and Wednesday for about and hour and a half. This class started in March, once it started to get warm enough to play outside. This means that I have been at this for over six weeks now… and I’m still absolutely horrible. I’m starting to at least consistently hit the ball, but hitting the ball consistently is a whole other issue. Today I heard somebody in my class yell out a few choice words and then simply say ‘this is the most frustrating sport ever.’

This made me start to think about just how good Tiger Woods is. With so much being about mechanics it’s hard to just ‘let your body take over’ so to speak, like in other sports, when an athlete can just play off sheer adrenaline. When people say that a player is ‘clutch,’ like Michael Jordan for example, I now have a new appreciation for how ‘clutch’ Tiger Woods is. Now, don’t get me wrong, Michael Jordan is amazing, no doubt about it, but he can take the pressure from an intense situation and turn it into adrenaline and use it to his advantage. Where as with Tiger Woods, on the other hand, he can’t even afford to feel the pressure. Because if the pressure gets to him, even if it’s just to hold on to a lead, and it throws off his mechanics in the slightest bit then he could easily end up getting a bogey on the hole. If he isn’t able to control his emotions, calm himself mentally, completely ignore any pressure that is on him and him alone, and doesn’t take the time to read a green and line up a put, or to decide where he needs to place a shot then it could cost him the tournament.