Every golf season begins with several weeks of exhibition tournaments. There are basically two types; there are those in Hawaii that make us all envious we had that nice of weather in January and then there are the celebrity pro-ams. Every other sport has a “pre-season,” so it only makes sense that golf would too. It is in mid-February when the competition really starts, and this season it started in a big way with the return of Tiger Woods from his knee injury. Tiger has a special talent, he’s a gifted athlete and he makes people want to watch golf. In an ESPN.com poll, over 50% of the nation that was polled said that they will only watch golf if Tiger is playing. Why is that? Here are five reasons we came up with that may qualify:

Ever wonder why Tiger only wears red on Sundays? To support the Chicago Bulls of course!

(1) Tiger is passionate and fun to watch
(2) Tiger has his own line of Gatorade
(3) Tiger has his own video game franchise (Step off John Madden)
(4) Tiger is married to a super model
(5) Tiger inspires others to play

Although not in our top five, his ethnicity also contributes to his popularity, and anyone that says differently would be Rodriguezing (that’s the new slang for lying). Tiger is in fact less African-American than President Obama, and he’s only 50%!!! Although Tiger is still four behind Jack Nicklaus in Major wins, Tiger has done something Nicklaus did not, and that is he revolutionized golf. Just like Michael Jordan did to basketball, Tiger has made many want to be like Tiger. While you can not play basketball and still respect Jordan’s greatness, you cannot understand Tiger’s greatness unless you have played golf. Although there are many outstanding golfers that have come and gone in the past 100 years, Tiger possesses a major intimidation factor over his opponents. Even though Tiger just came off of knee surgery, we are still surprised he lost in the second round of the Accenture Match Play Championship. The presence of Tiger will usually cause opponents to shrink and not think straight. Much like a football or basketball player needs time to get their legs under them after an injury, Tiger’s loss this week is merely evidence he needs to get his legs under him as well.

Baring any major injury, it is foreseeable that Tiger will get at least four more Major wins and pass Jack Nicklaus. Critics are always out there, and one widely held belief is that golfers now have a huge advantage on players of old. Among the advantages modern players hold is the technology in equipment and the creation of energy drinks and power bars to give them better stamina on the course. Okay, the energy drinks and power bars may have been a rumor we heard, there isn’t much validity to it. The equipment has widely contributed to the length and accuracy that a player can hit a ball. Not to mention, golf balls themselves have come a long way. There are golf balls that can either fly higher, roll longer, feel softer, or bite better. I have the balls that are made to stay short and left, at least that’s how they come off my clubs. If you have ever seen an old golf club you’ll notice how the woods are actually wood and all the shafts are stiff. Nowadays it seems every golfer is hitting a frozen turkey with a flex shaft, which will give the bullwhip effect to the club and make the ball launch off the club face. When all is said and done, you cannot dispute Tiger’s or anyone’s success because of equipment. You might as well say NBA players in the past were at a disadvantage because they didn’t have cool shoes, and their short shorts did not allow for proper circulation down south, which both negatively impacted their performances. One of the great things about golf is that the players compete only against themselves, and the course, there is no subjective judging or outside influences. A player either hits it long and straight or they don’t. Pretty simple, right? While the NBA searched desperately to find another Jordan, golf will be equally as challenged to find another Tiger when he retires. Luckily they shouldn’t have to worry about that for a long time!

It’s been a couple of weeks since we posted our last rumors, none of which came true, but all of which came from viable sources. While a lot of rumors circling around have made it to national headlines, here are a few you won’t see, at least for a while. Don’t ask where we heard them from, we aren’t going to tell you. All we can tell you is that we may have gotten them from a cousin in the Dominican Republic…

The BCS served McDonalds pie this year with the usual humble pie.

BCS to Extend Invitation to the Mountain West Conference

It seems like every year that an attorney general will sue the BCS. In recent years it has always been Texas, who wouldn’t have to keep suing if their Longhorns would stop choking. This year it’s Utah that is actively protesting the BCS and claiming they have a right to the National Championship. The Utah Utes are part of the Mountain West Conference, which does not get an automatic bid to the BCS. Think of your favorite pie…if you only had one piece would you share it with a peasant kid? Of course not, you’d just give them $1 to go get two McDonalds apple pies. To the big conferences, the Utes and the Mountain West are little snot-nosed kids, why would they share? They won’t, they’ll just give them the dollar (or millions of dollars) and say, “If you are that good and so deserving, then we will see you next year, enjoy your apple pies.” How the tide has turned, the BCS in a moment of financial anorexia have decided to share their pie an extend a automatic berth to the Mountain West next year.

PGA to Hold Global Warming Tournament

So many sports have fund raisers to promote and support various causes. Sometimes in college basketball you will see the coaches in sneakers to support cancer research. This year in particular, every women’s team has pink uniforms and shoes in support of breast cancer research. The PGA has decided to jump on that wagon and hold a tournament to promote awareness of global warming. Thousands of pounds of fake snow will be strewn across the tee boxes and greens on the course. Also, all the players will be requisite to wear eskimo coats and ski masks. Instead of a nice car, a sled with a prize winning team of sled dogs awaits the lucky golfer who gets a hole-in-one. Al Gore has not been invited to the tournament for fear that he will declare he invented golf too.

New Kind of Madness to Invade March

There is only one time of the year that everyone gets excited about basketball, and that is the NCAA’s March Madness. 65 teams battle in a single elimination tournament for the right to be crowned the National Champion. For those teams that don’t make the March Madness Tournament, there is the NIT (National Invitation Tournament). Then there are those teams that weren’t invited to either that sit at home. Following suit of college football, where just about every team with a winning record gets to play in the bowl, college basketball wants to do something similar. Starting next year, it is rumored that college basketball will add one more tournament for the rest of the teams in the country that had a winning record and no invitations to a tournament. They will duke it out in what will be called the “Mediocre Madness Tournament.” Now everyone can get excited to fill out three brackets!!!

2008 was hailed by ESPN as “the greatest year in sports.” It all comes down to the eyes of the beholder, I doubt the sports fans of the greater New England area, Los Angeles, or Seattle would share those same sentiments. It seems unlikely that a golfer and swimmer are in the top 3 sports stories, but that’s just what kind of year it was:

Top 3

Tiger Woods sinks a put to force an 18 hole playoff in the '08 U.S. Open

(1) New York Giants Impropapble Super Bowl Win - It was the most viewed Super Bowl ever, and it did not fail in delivering a spectacular show. The New England Patriots were heavy favorites as they attempted to be the first team to win 19 games in a season and finish undefeated (the ‘72 Dolphins still claim to be the only perfect team because they won the Super Bowl in their undefeated year). The only thing standing in their way was a mediocre New York Giants team that had to rally off consecutive wins on the road to get into the Playoffs and then win three straight on the road to get to the Super Bowl. In a season of “unbelievables,” the Giants victory was the top one. 

(2) Tiger Woods’ U.S. Open Victory – You don’t have to be a Tiger Woods fan, let alone a golf fan, to appreciate what Tiger did in the ’08 U.S. Open. Tiger was having extremely noticeable pain in his knee and it was visibly apparent. He limped his way into an 18-hole playoff with Rocco Mediate after draining a birdie putt on the 72nd hole. After the 18-hole playoff, they were still tied, but Tiger snatched the win on the 91st hole. Tiger had season ending knee surgery after the tournament and news leaked that he was advised by doctors to not even play. Throw out Michael Jordan and his performance with the flu in the ’97 Finals, what Tiger did was far more amazing. 

(3) Michael Phelps’ Historic Performance – Go back 8 years to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, how many swimming events were televised? I am guessing not many, and the amount of people that watched them was more or less the same. Enter Michael Phelps in 2004 and he changed the face of Olympic swimming, perhaps forever. Phelps started the Beijing Olympics off to an amazing start for the Americans with his 9 gold medals. Who would have thought that the track and field teams would be the ones to disappoint us…and that aside from basketball, swimming events would have been the most watched? I’ve got a feeling that fencing and handball will never get that popular. Take away skimpy bikinis and sand volleyball will plummet…

Honorable Mentions: Boston Celtics Beat Kobe, Lakers / Philadelphia Phillies Win the World Series

Seattle Sonics fans have lots of good memories, one of them will now be when the Sonics were in existence.

Bottom 3

(1) The Supersonics Exile from the NBA - Small markets beware! NBA Commissioner David Stern and just about every owner that is not a citizen in the community that he owns a team in do not care about your team. Forget about history, forget about the fans’ love for “their” team, if it isn’t making the owner or the NBA as much money as they think it should then they will sell it. What happened with the Seattle Supersonics is despicable, their owner sold the team and moved them to Oklahoma City. Most will argue, but I believe it all started with the community of Seattle choosing not to fund the building of a new arena. Why don’t the players pay for it instead of hard working citizens in Seattle anyway? Most of them aren’t millionaires because they are talented, it’s because they are big and tall, right? Someone get back to me with answers to my questions! 

(2) Plaxico and His Guns - From Super Bowl Champion to under arrest, Plaxico Burress had a up and down year to say the least. So Plaxico has a lot of guns, none of which he is licensed to have, what should he do with them? Hide them? Sell them for profit? Nah, Plaxico decided to take one with him to a club and shoot himself in the leg. This should be a lesson to him that he is not above the law, but so many NFL players have gotten off the hook lately (except Michael Vick) that I think Plaxico might get his hand slapped and dismissed. If Plaxico would have played Halo, he would know that shooting yourself with a shotgun is not good. 

(3) Coaching Carousels – Between the three major league sports (NFL, NBA, and MLB) there were over 30 coaches dismissed. The number balloons out even more if you add in collegiate sports. Two of the NFL’s latest dismissals are both surprising and sudden. The Denver Broncos fired Mike Shanahan, their two-time Super Bowl Champion coach that had been there nearing 20 years. The New York Jets fired Eric Mangini, who was a genius only a season ago and who’s players all seem to not be in agreeance with ownership over his dismissal. I have another job (besides a sports writer), if I don’t perform well then my boss doesn’t get fired. I would get a pay decrease or get fired. Shouldn’t players be held to the same standard? It’s their job to win isn’t it? I’ve yet to see a coach hit a baseball, catch a football, or make a 3-point basket. 

Honorable Mentions: UNC Falls Short in Final 4 / AFL Philadelphia Soul Win Arena Bowl but Lose Money

We’ve seen it in a variety of sports, their star player goes down and we all think that hard times are ahead for that sport. Michael Jordan left the NBA, then came back, then left again, the came back and all that time the NBA did not lose a step. Wayne Gretzky left the NHL, but hockey was just as unpopular as it was before he left. The NFL has always had a health pleothora of hall-of-famers and great players being reared in the league, so it has never had to worry about losing fan appeal. With every Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky that leaves, there is always the constant comparison of current players being the heir to the “throne.” The PGA Tour is currently experiencing that growing pain as Tiger Woods put up his clubs after winning the U.S. Open and re-aggravating his knee injury. For those that love healthy competition and the game of golf, the game has not changed. With Tiger out, other golfers are stealing the spotlight.  While the PGA Tour is no doubt worse off financially without Tiger, it is not lacking the least bit in drama.

Anthony Kim looks prepared to have a great career on the PGA Tour.

The Ryder Cup has always been a fun and exciting event to watch, the Revolutionary War of golf. International play always brings out more passion, please refer to the Olympics. What made the United States’ victory this year so sweet is that the team was expected to put up little fight against the name-worthy Europeans. For those that aren’t regular viewers of the PGA, they may have looked at the US roster and though, “who in the heck is that?” The US looked destined to lose yet again, dating their last win to 1999 when Justin Leonard sinked the Cup clinching putt. I remember that moment in golf history very distinctly, only because of what my mother said after Leonard sinked the putt and pranced around the green, “My, that guy has a shapely butt.” Further proof that you don’t have to be a hard-core golf fan to enjoy watching it. This year’s Ryder Cup was accompanied by Boo Weekley riding his driver like a bull, something I saw in “Happy Gilmore” but never thought I’d actually see on the PGA Tour. I’m still waiting for the day when people brings beach balls to a tour event. There might have been some at the Ryder Cup, but e never saw them on TV. European team member Lee Westwood did complain, along with other players, that the Kentucky crowd at Valhalla C.C. was a little ruckus and distracting. I believe Westwood was greeted in the clubhouse with a handkerchief to wipe his eyes with a big American flag on it. What made the victory just as sweet was how hard the Europeans took it, some were blaming it entirely on captain Nick Faldo (just as an FYI for those who aren’t aware, captains do not play in the Ryder Cup, they are more of a coach). I’ve never understood how a person that never took a golf shot all weekend can be blamed for the loss…

With the Ryder Cup out of the way, many PGA players focused on the the concluding tournament for the FedEx Cup. The FedEx Cup is much like NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series, where points are earned throughout the year toward the Cup, and the winner is the one with the most cumulative points. The underlying drama with this one was seeing if Tiger could win it having sat out half the year (which he almost did last year without playing in a number of events), but it was Fijian Vijay Singh that ended up hoisting the Cup. For those of you looking for a reason to watch golf in the absence of Tiger, look no further then second year pro Anthony Kim. He’s going to be good, mark my words.

Growing up I was different from other kids, I played golf. When I was younger, golf was not nearly as popular as it is today. When I was in elementary school my father helped me build my own set of clubs, they were ‘Dukes.’ In middle school I got a new set, they were perfect for me, later I learned they were women’s clubs… I remember going on many golf outings with my father and two of his co-workers, Buck and George. Buck and George were both older guys, George was as skinny as a beanpole and Buck was was a larger squatty man. I remember once George told Buck that he would give him his pants if Buck hit a longer drive than him. Buck hit his ball way past George and grinned at him saying, “Honestly George, what the hell am I supposed to do with a pair of your pants? Wear them on my right leg?” It was with those three men I learned the rules and etiquette of golf, they taught me to love the game. Leave the rake on the outside edge of the bunker, the furthest person out putts first, the person with the best score on the previous hole tees off first, NEVER step in somebody’s putting line or have your shadow in their way, if you enter a hazard you drop the ball where it entered the hazard, if someone is on the fringe of the green you leave the flagstick in the cup, and lastly, if you accidentally tap your ball off your tee just tee it back up, “nobody saw it.” I only received one formal lesson, but they all gave me pointers and tips that helped tremendously. Keep your head down, bend your knees, keep your left arm straight, keep your wrist stiff, follow through your swing, hit before your ball when you’re in bunkers, and don’t try to kill the ball. The one thing I always struggled with was that they were all much better than me, then my father taught me, “you are only competing against yourself. Not me, not Buck, not George, just yourself. I began to appreciate how difficult it was to be good at golf and how as physical the game was, it was also psychological.

David Duval lines up a putt with his sunglasses nestled tightly on the back of his head.

When we weren’t on the course, we were watching golf, to this day golf is watched religously every Sunday. I learned to emulate great players like Fred Couples, Davis Love III, and David Duval. Duval was my favorite, I emulated his swing, I got sunglasses like his, and I put them on the back of my head when I putted just like him. It was all peachy and then something came along that changed the face of the game forever, hybrid woods. I’m kidding, it was Tiger Woods. When Tiger started on tour golf became almost trendy, more people watched golf, more people played golf and public courses started getting thrashed by ignorant fools who thought golf was just about hitting a little white ball into a white cup with some slanted whacking sticks. To this day, however; there are still the people that say “golf is so boring.” I ask them, “do you play golf.” most of them don’t and if they do they stink. It takes a mediocre golfer to appreciate the great ones that play on Sunday. It takes a good golfer to point out what the great ones do wrong when they mess up. With all the new technology, it makes it easier to learn the game and appreciate the intricacies involved with it. After following golf for over a decade, there is something relatively new that I have never had explained to me properly. It’s not because everyone has their own interpretations, it’s just that nobody knows. I’m not talking about Jesper Parnevik’s weird fashions, I’m talking about the FedEx Cup.

Two years ago the PGA incorporated the FedEx Cup. I believe it’s purpose was two-fold. First, it encouraged golfers to play in more tournaments because points were awarded for every tournament played in. Second, it gave more excitement to the end of the season instead of having the interest of golf fans fade after the PGA Championship, which is the last major tournament. After some research it’s still a little vague, all I gather is that it consists of four tournaments at the end of the year. With each tournament the field shrinks. The top 144 compete in week 1, the top 120 from that tournament in week 2, the top 70 from those two tournaments combined in week 3, and the top 30 from those 3 tournaments get to play in the final event, the BMW Championship. Some team of nerds that can get their fingers out of Chinese finger traps in seconds and do Rubik’s cube in minutes came up with a point system for each finishing spot in each tournament. Did it dawn on any of them that this isn’t fun for the fans because they can’t compute the scores unless they have a calculator or a posh abacus in front of them? Why does it need to be so complex? Why can’t they make it like golf scoring? It would only sense, the higher you finish the fewer points you receive, the lowest score wins! The PGA tour could use a little of my advise: keep it simple, keep it fun, and you will keep the attention of your loyal fans.

I don’t know what is worse: having to wait 2 weeks for the Super Bowl, being a sports writer that has to find a Super Bowl topic that hasn’t been beaten like a dead horse, or the innocent public having to read the crap that the sports writers put in front of us. Today, all 3 have joined forces, in the form of the crappiest article ever written on espn.com. David Thorpe of espn.com posted an article this morning entitled, “Best football players from NBA rosters.” In this article, Thorpe goes through a football roster and plugs NBA players into every position. In his opening paragraph he wrote, “take a second to imagine the kind of havoc some of these guys would wreak on the football field.” This has to be the most ludicrous notion I have ever heard, that basketball players can make a switch to the NFL. I don’t think Thorpe has even watched any of the fights this season, none of them can even land a clean punch. Heck Thorpe, the golf season just started, why don’t you write an article on best women’s golfers in the NBA, that would for sure involve Mike Miller, Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, and Adam Morrison (he wouldn’t be the first LPGA golfer with a moustache). How about the best basketball players from soccer? I can see David Beckham running the point and Freddy Adu throwing down some LeBron-esque dunks! Ooh, what about John Daly on the pitcher’s mound? Hey, if David Wells can do it, anybody can. Better yet, what about professional wrestlers in baseball? They would fit right in with the steroids and all; however, their flopping abilities may be better suited to the NBA. If you are not an insider subscriber to espn.com, I’m terribly sorry you cannot participate in reading this laughfest of an article, maybe there is a reason they make you pay to read that stuff, it’s that bad.

Michelle Wie, You Need to Find Your Place!

Is anybody else sick and tired of hearing about Michelle Wie? I certainly am. Never has such mediocrity ever been tolerated so much in golf. It’s like the golf world is trying to find another Tiger Woods, thinking they have found it in the form of a teenage girl. Please…it’s also like the NBA trying to find another Michael Jordan. I’ve got a message for all the people in the basketball and golf worlds:THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER TIGER WOODS, AND THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER MICHAEL JORDAN! LeBron James is really good, but will he win 6 championships? I highly doubt it. Michelle Wie will do good things on the LPGA, and at Stanford (where she plans to attend college), but will she ever win a PGA tour event? Simply put, no! In her few years of participating in PGA tour events, Wie has never made a cut! Yesterday Ms. Wie posted a +8 on her first 9 holes at the Sony Open, so playing this weekend isn’t looking too bright for her either. It seems as though Michelle is a lost cub, just like Simba in the Lion King. “You need to find your place in the circle of life.” And Michelle, just to get the thought process started, your place is not on the PGA tour.