Thursday, June 12, 2008

A Tiger tale

One other sports note today. They will tee it up at Torrey Pines this morning for the U.S. Open golf championship.

Torrey Pines is what we hackers refer to as a “muni.” It’s a city course owned by San Diego that anyone can play, but not this wekeend.

The course that’s set up for the best golfers on the planet is very much unlike anything we likely will ever see. Thank God for small favors. Balls that leave the fairway this weekend will enter some truly menacing terrain, with knee-high rough. They are actually talking about the possibility of losing balls in this stuff. No sweat, I manage to lose my share of balls on some of the shoddy tracks I frequent.

But all of this is merely a sideshow to the real story of this annual Father’s Day golfing tradition.

The real story at Torrey Pines will happen a little after 11 a.m. today. That’s when Tiger Woods will stalk onto the first tee.

It is the first time he will have done so in about two months. Woods, the best golfer – if not the most dominating athlete – on the planet, underwent arthroscopic surgery on his knee.

This morning’s will be his first competitive round in more than eight weeks. Most of the experts believe he will struggle to compete. They point to the last time Woods took this much time off, when he left the tour for a couple of months to deal with the death of his father. In that instance, he again returned to compete in the Open, and he was never a factor, missing the cut for the first time in his career.

Most are expecting a repeat. I hope not. I will likely be glued to the tube regardless. That’s because I’m a frustrated duffer who longs to chuck his day job and join the tour. Yeah, right, maybe if they need help with the grounds crew.

But watching Woods is simply mesmerizing. When he’s in the hunt on the weekend, it’s impossible to look away. That’s why I think he just might stun the world this weekend.

If he does, remember where you heard it.

Woods is the best, most dominating athlete in the world. This weekend just might serve as an exclamation point.

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