"Tigers are orange" or "Orange plays like a tiger" or "Tiger Woods watch is on level 'orange.'"

Significant win for the Orange today over Providence. If you missed it, Scoop Jardine began a suspension for an university policy violation of some undisclosed sort. (I'll keep my ears open.) Thus Boeheim was forced to beg former SU point guard and current Providence assistant coach Allen Griffin to suit up. SU led comfortably most of the way, got tired and let Providence briefly take the lead, then came back to pull away for the win.

Ignoring the obvious (The Scoop Issue), there were a lot of good things about the victory. First off, Syracuse held court in the dome. Also, every game against teams from the bottom half of the Big East is must-win for the Orange, since they've yet to beat anyone from the top half. Free throw shooting was excellent down the stretch. (A-O unveiled a new sky-high free throw shot that flies suspiciously like a beer pong shot. He went 4-5 from the line.) Donte Greene put the team on his back offensively when he had to. And overall, the team rolled with a late run and gutted out an ugly game.

Jim Boeheim coached a gem. He has always shown a great deal more courage and trust than the average coach in playing guys with 4 fouls with lots of time left. He did that today with Harris and Ongenaet and it paid off again. At one time, I would have disagreed with the strategy, but after years of watching Syracuse, I'm buying into it. Even if the bench was deeper, Harris would have been playing with eight minutes left. That was a pivotal part of the game.


As for Tiger Woods, he's put the Sports Sauna on notice with his 8-stroke victory over a strong field at the Buick Invitational, his first tournament of the year. As I've said before in this space, I've been waiting for Tiger to return to his turn of the millenium game when he was winning majors running away. Maybe he's dialed in now after a couple tumultuous years (swing change, wife, dad passing away, kid). I for one would love to see it.

Tiger Woods Dominance Watch

Fans of The Sports Sauna will be familiar with my belief that Tiger's golden age came back at the turn of the millennium, when he was winning tournaments by massive margins. Today's Tour Championship may be foreshadowing a return to dominance next year. Tiger shot -23 and beat the field by 8. That's the Tiger Woods of 2000-01. That's the most amazing athlete I've ever seen. Tour Championship is a step below a major. I'll be watching to see if that carries over to next year.

A Few Thoughts on the 2007 PGA Championship

• So Sunday I hiked about 17 miles over three mountains in the Adirondacks. I got back today, excited to flop on the couch and watch golf. I turned on the TiVo to watch the entire Sunday broadcast. After I flipped forward to Tiger teeing off, I got out my computer to check my fantasy baseball team, then my email. Insanely, I had an email from PGA.com with the subject: "Tiger Wins the PGA Championship." Bears eat beets! I was more incredulous then angry. Why the heck did PGA send me that email? I didn't open it. Just deleted it. Of course, I still ended up watching golf for four hours.

• Tiger won. That's 13 majors. If you haven't watched him play, you've got plenty of time. He's gonna be the best golfer in the universe for the next 15 years still.

• I just realized the CBS golf broadcasting team is unbelievable. Jim Nantz anchors with the funny and insightful Nick Faldo, the best wingman in golf broadcasting today. Gary McCord is hilarious. David Feherty is hilarious AND interesting. Nobody breaks down a slo-mo swing as well as Peter Kostis. Those are just the big names. After that, you've got Ian Baker-Finch, who is very well-spoken. There's Bill Macatee, who is good enough to anchor. And, oh by the way, "Gentle" Verne Lundquist is out there as well. Peter Oosterhuis has an excellent last name. And Bobby Clampett has hilarious hair. I'm very happy CBS has two of the four majors these days.

• I caught a bunch of the Crowne Plaza ads with Feherty, (writer) Dan Jenkins, (golfer) Natalie Gulbis, (Latino) George Lopez, Lee Trevino, and Alice Cooper. Clearly a rip off of those "Man Law" commercials, but who cares? They're as hilarious as Bobby Clampett's hair. Find them on YouTube. Watch them. Download them to a DVD. Lock that DVD up in a safe. Take it out in a year and watch them again. They're that funny.

• Part of the reason why no one can catch Tiger on Sunday at majors is Tiger's conservative approach when he has the lead. He never gives up strokes, so he forces everyone else to press to catch up. And it's even more difficult if you're playing with Tiger. He'll be slamming drives into fairways and dumping shots safely on the green and the guy playing with him will feel that much more pressure to hit a better shot. We have an old saying in Monster Croquet..."Conservative Comeback." And I think we can all agree that what's true in Monster Croquet is true in golf.

• Ernie Els cannot beat Tiger. The two majors he won after Tiger joined the PGA Tour both came with Tiger out of the running. He missed some short putts Sunday that would've put him neck-and-neck with Tiger. I think it'd be cool if Tiger kept a notebook with all the pictures of the top 200 golfers who have ever been in a tournament with him, then crossed out their picture with a big red sharpie whenever he felt like he owned them. Last week he crossed out Rory Sabbatini's name. Stephen Ames was crossed off when Tiger beat him 9 & 8 in the 2006 Match Play championship. Els was done back in 2000 when he lost to Tiger by 15 and 8 at the U.S. and British Opens. Now it always feels like he's 8 strokes behind Tiger on Sunday at a major.
  

• Speaking of 2000, Tiger won his first major (1997 Masters) by 12, his third (2000 U.S. Open) by 15 and his fourth (2000 British) by 8. Since then, he's only won two majors by as much as 5 (2005 British and 2006 PGA). And, of course, he's never duplicated the "Tiger Slam" of 2000-01. So I'm still waiting for him to regain his early career dominance.

Quick PGA Comment

I'm heading to the mountains for some hiking this weekend, but I'm sure about 33.3003% of our readers are interested in my thoughts for the PGA this weekend. In a related note, I finally got our aerial antenna connected to our TiVo box allowing me to record the local channels' HD signals. Basically, no technological innovation in the remainder of my lifetime can top this current arrangement. If you do not have TiVo, go out and buy it, rent it, steal it...whatever you have to do. Use it for a week... lock it in a safe for a year then take it out and use it again... it is that good.

As for the PGA, here's my prediction... TNT comes on at 11am and Ernie Johnson announces that overnight, PGA officials met with the players on the leaderboard and have decided that it just wasn't worth playing this weekend. It's too damn hot and, well, frankly, everyone knows Tiger is going to blow away the field anyway.

Southern Hills this year might be the least "Tiger-proofed" course since the word "Tiger-proofed" was coined (which, as a sidenote, might be the most awesomely-cool term ever to reveal how dominating an athlete was). The rough is not long, so there is low punishment for a little inaccuracy off the tee. Why do you think John Daly is on the leaderboard? I think it would be really interesting if he puts up some kind of crazy weekend that blows the field away, like he used to do when he was playing his brains out back at the start of the millenium. If that does happen, you've got to wonder if "Tiger-proofing" actually does work.

Meanwhile, Tiger is dialed in with his short irons. For me, short iron-play is the easiest part of the game to keep doing well once you're dialed in. Driving and long-irons require a long swing that's slightly harder to keep consistent, and putting has a bit of luck involved (see: Tiger's putt on 18 yesterday). So I think Tiger keeps sticking his approach shots. He is, after all, the best short-iron striker ever.

So as much as I'd like to see how low Tiger can shoot, I just don't think it's worth it to make these guys march around for five hours in 100+ degree weather. Call off the tournament. Give the trophy to Tiger.