Tiger Woods can't make this one go away

Well, it probably won’t be long now until Tiger and Elin show up on 60 Minutes, holding hands and setting the record straight. Just like, you know, Roger Clemens did.

    Whatever happened between Woods and his wife, in the wake of (since denied) suggestions from the National Enquirer that he had been having an affair, he’s taking a pounding here. His agents and handlers and press people should know that people will talk and figure things out for themslves, that when no reasonable explanation for a minor car crash at 2:25 a.m. is forthcoming, that others trying to put two and two together is par for the course.

    They won’t be the first or last married couple to have difficulties, if that is indeed the case. And who wouldn’t understand that any high-profile public figures in that situation would prefer privacy?

That said, let’s just say that if Elin went after his car with a golf club – a 9-iron would seem to have enough loft here – and, distracted, he took out a fire hydrant and bumped a tree in the process, well, that makes more sense than anything that has been told to us.

    One thing about Woods: He is the suing kind. If the Enquirer story was wrong, as maintained by the New York socialite in question – a woman who certainly seems to have bagged her collagen limit, by the way – then Woods can cue his lawyers.

He has done it before; remember when he won a judgement against an Irish magazine that published fake nude photos of his wife before the Ryder Cup a couple of years ago. He also has sued the maker of his yacht for using an unauthorized plug from Tiger and won the suit. He also went after an artist at Augusta who paints and sells portraits of past Masters champions. He didn’t win that one.

    So he has options if, indeed, he has been libelled and Elin had nothing to be angry about. In which case, he still needs to come up with a reasonable explanation as to what happened at that time of night and the way he is canceling meetings with the police, it doesn’t sound as if he has one for them, let alone the rest of the world. And they’re the ones who will be laying charges, if it gets that far.

    None of this will go away simply because Woods and his people want it to go away. He’s too much of a world brand, a world brand with a carefully nurtured image,  for people to stop asking reasonable questions. Finding a friendly “interviewer’’ who will let him (and them) spin a bunch of nonsense isn’t going to get it done.

   

Here's one landscape that did change today

LAKE LOUISE, Alta. – Okay, Tiger Woods got cut up a little, apparently, and it isn’t as serious as first indicated. Tim Finchem and everybody else in pro golf can start breathing normally again. The sporting landscape as we know it didn’t change drastically and now the joke will go around that, well, Woods has had a lot of trouble with his driving lately.

So back to a landscape that did change, the beautiful picture postcard here, where a crisp, clear and stunningly sunny morning gave way to cloudy in a hurry. So what, you might ask?

Well, in the middle of a World Cup training session, it turns out to have a large effect on things. The course, in what the skiers call flat light, changes character and tends to slow down. This surely is a relative term because these guys move awfully quickly, even the “slow’’ ones.

I had almost forgotten that it’s always a gas at the bottom of a ski hill, watching these fearless athletes turn from dots far up the mountainside into, mere seconds later, snow-throwing skiers screeching to a halt mere yards away. These guys are seriously fast; on-course wobbles detected on the large video screens are easily recognizable and translate into the precious tenths and hundredths of a second that separate the very best from the second flight.

    Michael Walchhofer, the Austrian star who has won 14 World Cup races, Olympic silver in 2006 and the 2003 downhill world championship, was the quickest down a course where he won six years ago. The rest of the field lines up behind him, separated by degress of those precious fractions of a second. John Kucera, who won here in 2006 and is the reigning downhill world champion, is the best of the Canadians, a solid fourth albeit nearly a second off Walchhofer’s time.

    After the first flight of skiers had gone, clouds blew in, obliterating the sunshine and changing the course drastically. There was even snow at the top of the hill and most of the later skiers got far from the best of it.

    There’s a keen sense of anticipation here for Saturday’s race. It’s the first race of the World Cup speed season in a year in which the Olympics looms very large.It’s held on a course on which Canadians have done well in the past and look at the list of fastest qualifiers, which is a good indicator, although not always definitive, of the contenders..

    Behind Walchhofer, whose credentials are easy to recognize, comes Bode Miller, the talented U.S. problem child who has returned to the U.S. team fold this year after last season spent doing his own thing – which included avoiding every podium.

    Ski fans, at least, can fasten their seat belts.

Too much snow and almost too many elk

LAKE LOUISE, Alta.—They cancelled the skiing here Thursday because it is snowing.

Does this make sense? Is this not like cancelling a swim because it is raining? Or bagging the kite-flying because it’s too windy?

Well, no, not quite. The second training run for Saturday’s opener of the World Cup ski season, speed division, the men’s downhill, was wiped out because snow just isn’t what you need in the air. On the ground, yes, but there’s a problem with visibility because these guys are traveling something like 130 km/h and seeing where you are going at that speed would be something of a help, no?

Speaking of visibility, you can’t see Lake Louise from the beautiful (and expensive) old headquarters hotel here and the lake is about 125 feet away. So . . . we sit.

Organizers also would like competitors to be on some kind of reasonably level footing, too, and enough snow is falling that will change the character of the course for the 93 skiers entered.

They ran the first practice run Wednesday, with Robbie Dixon in fourth as top-placed Canadian, and they will try again Friday, scheduling another attempt at 11 a.m. local time. The weather forecast is calling for more of the same, so if they don’t get in a second run Friday, they can still run the race as scheduled Saturday with only the one practice session.

Europeans finished 1-2-3 Wednesday and perhaps they feel at home because of the prices in the hotel here. It’s pushing $8 for a coffee and a morning muffin. It’s like being in Switzerland, with less yodelling.

None of this snow, by the way, translates into a blanket of the white misery for the Grey Cup, which is slightly more than 180 kilometres east of here Calgary this coming Sunday. It was dry and mild at Calgary when the plane got in Wednesday night. On the drive over, the snow didn’t start until about the final 60 kilometres. There were also numerous enormous horned animals by the side of the highway, always a treat to skim past on a pitch-dark night. Signs warned of elk crossing and that must have been them. Too bad I forgot my Taser.

Ames got 'out of my own way' at the right time

Stephen Ames figured he might have passed a very large hurdle by winning his fourth career PGA Tour event this past Sunday – and not only because the win pretty much puts his 2010 schedule back into his own hands.

No, Ames, on the phone from his home in Calgary, suspects he might have passed a very large mental block by doing something he has never done before: State a goal and then go out and meet it.

“Right. I’ve never done that before,’’ Ames said of his Saturday night suggestion that he needed to shoot 64 Sunday to get into a playoff at the Children’s Miracle Network Classic at Disney World. “It’s something I have been trying to work on. Usually, with me, it’s a matter of me getting out of my own way. This is something I want to do, maybe put out a number, or a goal to think of, and then to just go out and let it happen.’’

If this sounds complicated, think of it this way: Ames’ physical game has always been stronger than his mental outlook. He has been a fine ball striker for a long time, but many is the time he walked off the course and said he didn’t have it between the ears. This time he did, winning the playoff over George McNeill and Justin Leonard.

His short game, which has been the main focus of his recent work with coach Sean Foley, paid off; he was getting up and down from everywhere and chipped in three times for the week.

Ames had fallen to No. 71 in the world before this win, which lifts him to No. 49 and makes a huge difference for him.

“Now I can pick and choose. It gets me back into the Masters, gets me into the World Golf Championship events,’’ he said. “It makes a big difference, without a doubt.’’

The Masters invites the top 50 world-ranked players at the end of the previous year, which means he should be in automatically for next April unless there’s some kind of dramatic shakeup at Dubai this coming weekend. He isn’t playing again until the Mercedes, the winners-only event that opens the season in Hawaii.

Ames and his family – and his 10-year-old son Ryan was there at Disney, walking the course with him – spend Christmas in Hawaii. He had planned the play the second week of the season, at the Sony Invitational, and now will play them both.

“I’m playing a lot early, ‘’ he said. “Now I’m in both tournaments in Hawaii, San Diego, Los Angeles, and I guess the (Accenture World) Match Play.’’

That tourney, a WGC event, is limited to the low 64 in the world rankings. He might have got to that point otherwise, but there’s no question about it now.

Hey, Belichick: What about my bet?

What in hell is Bill Belichick thinking? That was the question asked of the television set Sunday evening – possibly not in the most modulated tones – by a man who had a money-line position on the New England Patriots to beat the Indianapolis Colts.

Everyone who cares surely knows what happened by now. The Pats, facing a fourth-and-two at about their own 28 and the clock ticking down toward two minutes, decided not to punt the ball. They led by six points, 34-28, and Peyton Manning, the icy-eyed assassin who runs the Colts offence, had just shredded the New England defence a couple of minutes before for a TD that brought them to this point, after being down 13 points with four minutes to go.

Belichick called a time out, elected not to punt, then saw his play call come up a foot short of the first down that would have allowed the Patriots to pretty much kneel out the game. On a juggled pass, no less. Given a field of less than 30 yards, Manning easily drove the Colts to the winning touchdown. The 35-34 margin didn’t cover the point spread – the Colts had been favoured by 1 1/2 – but, again, goodnight to all us saps who bet the Pats on the money line.

In the cold light of day, I now know what Belichick had been thinking: He was thinking, basically, “My defence can’t stop this guy going 75 or 80 yards. This isn’t the Tedy Bruschi-Rodney Harrison defence any more. Most of those guys are gone. I now have a better chance to gain two yards, with Tom Brady as my quarterback, than I do stopping Manning at this point, whether he’s going 30 yards or the length of the field.’’

Afterward, there must have been 11 Patriots walking off the field looking sideways at the coach and good luck, Bill, getting this defence fired up to shut down Drew Brees on Monday night in two weeks. This great big public vote of no-confidence will be an obstacle for Belichick to overcome within his own locker room before they play New Orleans.

This has to be the first time I’ve ever sat there and said, “What the hell is Belichick doing?’’ You watch some of the NFL stuff and it’s terrible. Andy Reid’s clock management is ridiculous, to name one of a dozen. And about 25 of these coaches seem to specialize in the five-yard pass play when it’s third-and-seven. Almost everybody in the league coaches not to lose and that’s why Belichcik seems head and shoulders smarter than most of them. His halo slipped a little here, though – even for those who didn’t bet the Pats on the money line.

And speaking of NFL gambling, how about all you fantasy players out there with Maurice Jones-Drew? With 90 seconds left against the Jets, he shut down a toughdown run and took a knee at the one-yard line so the Jags could take two more knees, kill the clock and kick the game-winning field goal on the final play. How did you all enjoy that play? It didn’t affect the regular gamblers, the Jets not coming close to covering and the total already having gone over the number. But some fantasy players must have gone berserk.

This wasn’t some split-second decision, either. Jones-Drew had been instructed to stiff himself.

“They said get as close as you can and take a knee,’’ he said. “I was looking for someone to tackle me.’’

“Sorry to my fantasy owners,’’ Jones-Drew added. “I apologize. I had myself today.’’

Well, that surely makes some of them feel better.

Danton comeback? It has been done, but . . .

Mike Danton is opening the next chapter of his life these days. He has given an interview to Nick Kypreos that is due to air Wednesday evening and whatever the background of the case that sent him to jail, one thing he is saying stands out: He said he wants to make it back to the National Hockey League and is working to that end.

Good luck to him in this regard. He will surely need it. The number of athletes who have been away from their game for six years and returned to the very top level is extremely short.

Today, on Nov. 11, it is fitting to think of the veterans and those who served. Some of them were athletes and that is a pretty good place to start, when talking about athletes who went away, for whatever reasons, and then came back to their sport.

Ted Williams would seem to be the gold standard for this kind of thing. He missed the entire 1943-44-45 seasons, serving in the military, yet picked up his Hall of Fame career right where he left it off.

Michael Jordan likewise missed three years, in his second absence from the NBA, before coming back to the Washington Wizards. Jordan was good, but not great, in his return.

Because of legal difficulties, Muhammad Ali missed three years in the prime of his career before he went back to fighting. He was not quite the same fighter he was before he left.

In hockey, very few NHL players missed full seasons during the war. Most who enlisted played for army or navy teams, so they weren’t completely off the ice. The hockey encyclopedia shows Syl Apps missing two complete years before resuming his Hall of Fame career with the Leafs after the war. In more modern times, Mario Lemieux missed less than two seasons for medical reasons before resuming his career and winning a scoring title.

Guy Lafleur sat out three seasons before making a comeback for three more seasons, but was a rumour of his former self.

Michael Vick recently missed a couple of seasons while doing jail time and no one is yet sure how much of his ability will come back with him.

You see what Danton is up against here? These are some of the greatest of the greats – Williams, Jordan, Ali, Lemieux – who missed a maximum of three years out of their sports and they weren’t in prison during that time.

Danton, who was an ordinary NHLer in his 87-game career (nine goals, five assists) certainly wasn’t at the same level as those others mentioned. But there is at least one case of a guy who went away and then come back to the NHL after a long absence. Did it right here, too.

Carl Brewer is the one guy Danton can point to and say, “It can be done.’’

Brewer, who is gone now and missed by many, was a different kind of guy. He retired early from the NHL, got his amateur status restored and played for Team Canada. Then he coached Finland’s national team for a year before returning to the NHL for three seasons. He left the St. Louis Blues after 1972, sat out a year, returned to play for the Toronto Toros in the World Hockey Association in 1973-74, then quit for good.

Except six years later, he came back, at age 41, to play for the Maple Leafs. He played 20 games before, once and for all, retiring.

Danton, who is 29, last played in the NHL in the spring of 2004, for the Blues. For what it is worth, he and Brewer also share the same birthday, Oct. 21.

It’s surely a longshot for him to make it back to the NHL, but it isn’t unprecedented.

Those three-point NHL games surely work against you, too

Those who think the three-point game has been the Maple Leafs’ greatest weapon so far this season might be correct. But it also is a very large obstacle to overcome and Thursday’s results point out exactly why.

Montreal beat Boston 2-1 in a shootout and Ottawa beat Tampa Bay 3-2 in overtime. So there are four teams ahead of the Leafs in the Eastern Conference – well, sure, everybody’s ahead of the Leafs, pending the outcome of Friday’s game in Carolina – and there they go splitting up three points.

Once you get on the wrong side of things, which the Leafs most certainly are by winning only one of their first 13 games, the three-point game works against them. And remember, approximately 20 per cent of NHL games get past the 60-minute mark and add the third point. So there is a constant supply of them working against you when you’re down.

Once a team is on the right side of things – in the playoffs, say – the three-point game becomes an ally. A club can lose a bunch of games but still rescue points here and there, the way the Leafs are doing it lately.

But the only sure way up the ladder is to win games and preferably win them within 60 minutes. A few of those will lift any team from nowhere to somewhere in a hurry.

As for the Leafs, could they have a better chance for a win than they get in Carolina tonight? The Hurricanes, winning only twice in 14 starts, have lost 10 games in a row and Eric Staal is out. Plus, Ray Whitney is hurt and could be a game-time decision. If the Peddimen can’t handle this one, look out.

While we’re up, happy 148th birthday to Dr. James Naismith, the Canadian who invented basketball. Plus, note that tomorrow marks the 47th anniversary of Glenn Hall playing in his 502nd consecutive NHL game in goal. Without a mask, too. Absolutely unbelievable in this day and age.

You can talk all the great sports records that will never be broken and this one surely fits at or near the very top. The streak ended not with a slapshot to the mouth, although he took plenty of those, but after Hall threw his back out bending over to lace up his skate.

Here's a surprise: Yankees will have money to spend, too

Here is not exactly the best news for baseball teams that aren’t the New York Yankees: It took them nine years to get back to winning a World Series, and now they will have money to spend in the off-season.

Does that part of it never end?

More than $40 million comes tumbling off their $201 (opening-day) million payroll. Off the books are Johnny Damon, World Series MVP Hideki Matsui, outfielder Xavier Nady, who was hurt almost all season, and Andy Pettitte. Those four alone made $39 million in base salary. Plus, they are finally out from under all the deadwood, the Kevin Browns and Jaret Wrights et al. As it stands now, they are not on the hook for any money in 2010 to players gone from the organization. (The Blue Jays, alas, owe B.J. Ryan another $10 million and the Red Sox are on the hook for $9.25 million to Julio Lugo.)

The Yankees are likely to retain one of Damon or Matsui, each of whom was a $13 million player this year. Damon can still run a little and play the outfield, although not well. Matsui gets a lot more big hits, but has been strictly a DH with bad knees.

The Yankees, who also developed a fair bit of homegrown pitching this season, recognize a need to get younger at other positions and with Nick Swisher signed for 2010, they probably won’t bring back both Damon and Matsui.

There is no telling what the free-agent market will be like for outfielders anyway. It kind of fell apart last year; remember Bob Abreu getting “only’’ $5 million. (Update: It has certainly changed for Abreu; he just signed a two-year, $19 million extension with the Angels.)

Matsui is an interesting case. Could he go to Seattle and join Ichiro Suzuki to form a kind of Japanese Ruth and Gehrig? That would be something to see.

Could he go to the Red Sox and their tiny left field in Fenway Park? The Sox could lose Jason Bay and have outfielders in the system who aren’t quite ready.

Could he go home to Japan with his World Series MVP, finishing his U.S. career in a blaze of glory?

There are plenty of possibilities and in an off-season that will be as interesting as any in recent years -- primarily because of the lack of good free-agent pitching – Matsui will be one of the bigger names in play. Kind of like he was in the World Series against the Phillies.

For the record, Paul Molitor also was a DH when he won the MVP award in the 1993 World Series for Toronto. But Molitor also started two games at third base and one at first base in Philadelphia. Remember the ruckus in the third game, when Molitor started at first base and John Olerud, who had merely won the batting title, sat out?

Amid all the Leaf jokes, a night of heartfelt speeches

Dennis Hull, who is one of Canada’s very funniest after-dinner speakers – and that may be chort-changing him – was working the crowd at the Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame dinner Tuesday.

He said he came out of his room at the Royal York Hotel earlier in the day and got on the elevator. He went down a floor, the elevator stopped and who got on but Brian Burke?

Hull pointed at the buttons (so he said) and asked Burke, “So, are you heading for the basement?’’

The entire place cracked up. It was one of many Maple Leaf jokes and such is the currency now that the Toronto Maple Leafs have become a complete laughing stock, not only around the country but right here in Toronto, where this newspaper asks for public input in making fun of the team and gets enormous response.

Fun is fun, but all of this should be humiliating to the owners, to Larry Tanenbaum and the board of directors, who have in the past several years run this once-proud Canadian institution into the ground to the point that they are the butt of joke after joke and no one seems in the least offended. There were a couple of Maple Lef Sports and Entertainment representatives there, smiling somewhat grimly, and surely this is getting old for them, to be the constant target of one-liners.

You reap what you sow, though, and this kind of public humiliation surely is the other side of the scale to the vast and apparently endless profits reaped in behalf of that logo.

That said, the dinner was a very nice evening again, with some terrific heartfelt speeches. Warren Moon paying tribute to his mother, who was there, talking about her courage in raising a family alone and in always providing the necessities for everyone in her household, was moving.

So was Hugh Campbell, talking about his days in Edmonton, and John Campbell, who had the largest and loudest cheering section, talking about his trip from a little homemade half-mile track outside Ailsa Craig, Ont., to this kind of national exposure for the sport he has dominated.

Mark Messier broke down a half-dozen times, talking about the support it takes for any athlete to get to the top, and Angela James showed again why she is such an inspiration to young women and not only young women who want to play hockey.

Ken Shields, the most successful college basketball coach this country has ever produced, had a moving speech, talking about how humbled he was in the prsence of such great athletes. He seemed stunned by his inclusion, yet he shouldn’t be. He has the credentials.

Earlier, he had been telling me a story about his childhood, growing up on a Prairie farm, listening to Foster Hewitt broadcast Maple leaf games. He had dreamed, like every other Canadian kid then, of becoming a Maple Leaf, but his family moved to the Queen Charlotte Islands and basketball became his game.

He’s 63 now, but he said he never forgot about those magical hockey nights and the first time he was in Toronto, it was while he was playing college ball. The national championship was in Hamilton and Shields found himself in Toronto’s Union Station, changing trains with an hour to fill.

“I knew Maple Leaf gardens was just off the subway line. I knew what to do. I left the team, got on the subway, got off at Carlton Street and walked to the Gardens. There it was. It was closed, but an attendant inside saw me standing there looking. He opened the door and asked me what I was doing. I told him. He took me inside. I just stood there, looking up at the banks of seats, looking at Foster Hewitt’s broadcast gondola. I couldn’t believe I was there.’’

He hustled back and made his train to Hamilton. Then helped win the national title. In his Hall acceptance speech, he alluded to that early love of the Leafs.

“I always dreamed of becoming a Maple Leaf he said. “Of course, if they keep going the way they are, I still might.’’

Just another Leaf joke on another night of so many.

I haven't seen in it in decades and how about you?

I have been attending major league baseball games, thousands of them, for more than 50 years, but I don’t think I have ever seen a player do exactly what Johnny Damon did for the Yankees Sunday night. With two out and the score tied in the ninth inning of a pivotal World Series game, no less.

He singled and stole second base and, with the Phillies over-shifted toward right field for batter Mark Teixeira, he popped up from his slide and outsprinted third baseman Pedro Feliz to the uncovered third base. Feliz had caught a so-so throw from catcher Carlos Ruiz with his momentum taking him a step toward right field. Damon was gone just like that and neither pitcher Brad Lidge nor the catcher could react and get to the bag in time. Shortstop Jimmy Rollins later took the blame, saying he should have figured out the play and begun moving toward third base. Even a couple of steps by him would have shut down Damon.

You can bet Derek Jeter, if he had been out there, would have read the play correctly and begun hustling to the unoccupied bag. He did something similar on a play against the Angels in the last round of the playoffs.

This was dynamite stuff. It may have been seen before – hands up, all you who can remember the details – but not by these eyes. Because Lidge was unwilling to throw his good slider in the dirt now, with the winning run at third base, he threw consecutive fastballs to Alex Rodriguez, who tattooed the second one for the game-winning RBI.

For all the complaining about salaries and payroll and such, which is a separate issue entirely, it should be noted the Yankees have made a number of these heads-up plays this post-season at pivotal moments, while their opponents, respectively the Twins, Angels and Phlllies (so far), have not.

The Yankees pulled one real brick in the third game, refusing to field Cole Hamels’ sacrifice bunt when everybody in the park knew it was coming. The mistake cost them two runs. But they rallied to recover from that gaffe and after the game, the telling quote came from Hamels, who couldn’t hold a 3-0 lead and later said he couldn’t wait for the season to be over.

Really, Cole? You’ve already had enough? I can’t think of a single Yankee who would say such a thing out loud or even think it. They have been focused on winning 11 games since the playoffs began and nothing else.

Still with the World Series, it said here four days ago that Cliff Lee would have been my choice to start the fourth game on short rest, rather than Joe Blanton. Manager Charlie Manuel said he never considered it because Lee has never started on three days’ rest before. Well, that’s fine; you put it down to Manuel knowing his pitchers better than we do. Then Lee, who refused to even address the question after stiffing the Yankees in the first game, tells reporters after the Phillies get down 3-1 that sure, he would have liked to have pitched. Kind of hung out his manager there, didn’t he?

By the way, Lee is minus-$155 for the fifth game, with A.J. Burnett plus-$140. For those of you convinced you have this all figured out, as always, don’t bet more than you want to win.