FUNNY that ABC’s Jim McKay from St. Andrews yesterday said that writers have run out of adjectives to describe Tiger Woods.
Sorry, Jim, but that adjective-shortage angle has been played out, too.
That’s the problem; there’s nothing left to say or write. You’ve just gotta sit there and watch. Don’t bother with words. Save your breath, save the rain forest.
Tiger Woods, 24, could quit today and be the greatest player in the history of golf.
Whoa! What about Jack Nicklaus? He’s the guy the ABC/ESPN crew last week kept calling the “greatest player in the history of golf” during the first two rounds as Nick-
laus likely played in his last British Open. To many, he still holds the title.
We respectfully dissent. And in a big way.
Nicklaus, nor any other professional golfer, was ever a lock to win any tournament, especially a major. Woods is the first lock in the history of pro golf. It’s that simple, that clear cut.
Nicklaus was peerless in his time and he could still give Woods some useful lessons in on and off-course comportment. Woods can be an awful Nike brat at times.
But what Nicklaus often needed to win – help – Woods doesn’t need: For example, Nicklaus won the British Open at St. Andrews in 1970 in a playoff because Doug Sanders pushed a short putt on the last hole of regulation.
Woods doesn’t need anyone’s help. A great player can play great golf and still get smoked by Woods. No one before Woods has ever been that good.
And he’s not only golf’s first lock, he’s its first lock at a time when there are better golfers, and a lot more of them, than ever before. The best David Duval, perhaps the second-best player in the world, could do yesterday, was keep it mildly suspenseful. For a minute.
Yesterday, Duval, playing for second place, took an eight on 17 when he got stuck in one of St. Andrews’ many diabolical bunkers. Woods, in four rounds, didn’t land in a single bunker. Not one. And it’s not as if he lays up.
Tiger Woods doesn’t always win. He loses the way Secretariat didn’t always win. It’s a fluke, a throw-out. And Secretariat raced against only 10 or so at a time. Woods runs against 150 or so.
At this point, the only threat to Tiger Woods on a golf course, the only person he has to look out for over his shoulder, is Jeff Gillooly.
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A couple of months ago, Hoboken’s Ben Buchwald, a big baseball fan, was given a wonderful surprise by his girlfriend: Tickets to this past weekend’s Mets-Braves series in Atlanta, plus airline tickets from Newark to Atlanta, then back.
Nice, very nice.
But Major League Baseball, on behalf of its deal with ESPN, recently changed yesterday’s game from a 1:10 p.m. to an 8 p.m. start. That made Buchwald’s two tickets to yesterday’s game worthless. His return flight was scheduled for 9:15 p.m. He wasn’t even able to watch the game on TV.
Buchwald has sent a photo copy of his game tickets and airline tickets to Bud Selig’s office, requesting a $24 refund for yesterday’s baseball tickets, only.
“What,” he asks, “are my chances of getting a refund?”
No chance, Ben.
But MLB wants to make it up to you. How’d you like tickets to the next Mets-Yankees series? Just keep your eye out for that special YankeeNets offer, the one where you can buy tickets to a Mets-Yanks game provided you buy tickets to two worthless (but expensive) “Playoff Drive” Nets’ games at the Meadowlands.
Hey, two $15, upper-deck tickets to a baseball game will only run you about $210.
Not only will you again prove your active devotion to baseball, you’ll further prove Selig’s declaration that interleague play is baseball’s gift to fans. And Chris Russo and others on WFAN will tell you that you’ve taken advantage of a good deal.
And, Ben, don’t forget to write back to Mr. Selig, just to say, “Thank you.”
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HAROLD Reynolds, ESPN studio baseball analyst, is the brother of Larry Reynolds, who is Carl Everett’s agent. ESPN’s Reynolds, in case ESPN hasn’t or doesn’t tell him, should excuse himself from discussing any issues – and there seems to be no shortage – pertaining to Everett.
The most poignant moment in HBO’s “When It Was A Game III” isn’t found in 1960s baseball footage, but in narrator Lev Schreiber’s simply-spoken sentence that, by MLB decree and design, 1968 saw “baseball’s last pennant race.”
Pat Summerall has re-upped with Fox through the 2002 NFL season, after which he will retire.
As sprinters Maurice Greene and Michael Johnson sustain their trash-talking, stare-down act in each other’s direction, it’s nice to know that they’re eager to represent our country in the Olympics. In fact, given what American sports culture has become, their rotten behavior is downright patriotic.
MSG Network’s superb “It’s More Than Just A Game” TV ad campaign last week won two national marketing awards.
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SATURDAY, during Fox’s Mets-Braves, Joe Buck explained why Carl Everett is almost obligated to appeal his suspension, no matter the penalty, no matter how open and shut the case my appear.
Buck’s boothmate, Tim McCarver, said nothing in response.
McCarver, nine years ago, was three times a victim of a Deion Sanders post-game water-bucket attack, as open and shut an incident as one can find on video tape. Sanders was upset with McCarver for pointing out Sanders’ conflicting statements about whether to devote himself football or baseball.
Sanders was hit with a puny fine, but, through the Players Association, he appealed.
