Tiger Who?

The Presidents Cup is not the Ryder Cup, says Ian Baker-Finch:

"I hope it doesn't become as combative as the Ryder Cup, personally."

What a pity. Try as they might to turn this into a competition that the rest of us casuals might watch, instead you have Jack Nicklaus, captain of the home team U.S., saying that the visitors shouldn't be out there signing autographs, thereby making his apple-cheeked boys "look like jerks." As The Star's Dave Perkins drily notes: "This is not something many U.S. players often need help with."

You have Baker-Finch, the assistant captain of Internazionale -- now doesn't that sound better than the Internationals -- blandly declaring that he likes it just the way it is.

Echoes of the past, where you have Tiger Woods getting in a snit because one of Inter's caddies came out wearing a Tiger Who? cap. The nerve! "I thought it wasn't real respectful," Woods was quoted in The Australian.

Fellas, it's a competition. That means fans, some of whom might ask for autographs. It means fair play -- and some gamesmanship. It means a little talk -- even if it is trashy at times.

Nobody says it has to be the Ryder Cup with its rah-rah jingoism and its blonde-haired brides lining the green. But it sure needs something other than this kind of stone-faced solemnity.

Vaguely related:

Is golf a sport? The Sports Law Blog wonders whether that, and other sporting questions -- including, shootout fans, the significance of the tie in the NHL -- could be one day answered by robots. (And to add to the discussion, what about the rouge in the CFL? What about Don Cherry's popularity?)

Comments

[denial]

cy, my whole life is a series of vaguely related events, so i'm going to jump all over your 'is golf a sport'. i'm going to do this in an PTI way, except nobody cares what i think (especially me). we can call this "90 regretable seconds with denial" (and if you're an ex-girlfriend of mine, then don't say it).

a. Is golf a sport?

no. anything that you can do where your heart is at a lower resting rate than if you were submerged in carbonite like han solo is not a sport. competition, sure -- the spelling bee on ESPN is competition. hot dog eating is, at its most primitive level, competition. but sport necessitates some level of physical fitness..at least it used to. and for those who say Tiger, I say John Daly. and i bid you a fond farewell until we meet at b.

b. the shootout

just plain wrong. a silly way to decide something, unworthy of the game, the players, the fans, the goalies (some of whom will probably go bohonos for posting a shutout in regular time but losing on a fake out by 1 Aki Berg).

c. significance of a tie.

hockey is a strategic game, like soccer. in fact, the 2 sports, and their fans, have more in common then they might think (other than that most americans don't get either sport, because it's too cerebral and requires too much tolerance). there have been teams that knew how to engineer a tie to perfection, and they deserve that point. a point in the NHL is a big deal.

d. the rogue in the cfl

i don't understand this, but i wish to disgaree with it with all of my heart.

e. don cherry's popularity

in the desert people will drink their own blood, after a while. hell, they'd drink a mountain dew if it came to life or death. in the absence of any actual reflective analysis, people turn to cherry -- not because what he says is worth listening to, but because there's nothing else to link who we are now, to who we were 20 years ago when we watched and loved this game. cherry is that reminder, and that's his role. that he doesn't realize this and says dumb things that embarass most sentient beings is just a bonus.