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.

Performance Enhancers at the US Open?

Did you hear? Witnesses spotted US Open champ Angel Cabrera inhaling Nicotiana tabacam, a plant popular in Cabrera's native Argentina. The plant contains a powerful drug that stimulates the release of dopamine, which helps a person relax. Apparently, the substance he was inhaling has more dangerous side-effects than steroids or HGH. Hopefully, the PGA Tour will act quickly, strip Cabrera of the title, and ban this substance. Apparently baseball players have been known to abuse the same product. MLB should follow suit.

I'm kidding. I don't really think the PGA or MLB needs to ban smoking. Still, it is interesting to wonder if tobacco helped Cabrera win the US Open, and if so, is it a performance enhancing drug? What is the difference between smoking to relax and taking amphetamines to get "up" for a baseball game? Or for that matter, taking HGH to help you work out more effectively or doping your blood to help you recover faster after biking for 4 hours?

The more I think about it, the blurrier the lines get. Congrats to "the Duck." The victory was well-deserved. Tiger Woods remains not as good as he was in the first 5 years of his career.

Notent Notables

OK, I'm back after my hiatus. To be fair, I was in Bulgaria for 8 days in the last month working at an orphanage with high schoolers. I have a great life.

• A Mets employee pleaded guilty to distributing stuff*. My immediate reaction: at least 50% of Mets between 1995 and 2005 were using stuff. My second reaction: oh well... Go Mets!
• The 1st leg of the Man U-AC Milan Champions league game was the best match I've seen since I moved to London. Both teams passed great and both had control of different stages. Milan took the 2-1 lead by supplementing their typical Italian League skill on the ball with some excellent passes. Man U won by taking over the midfield in English League fashion. Is Christiano Ronaldo the best player in the world? I'll buy it. Is Kaka hot both as a player and as a male? Sure. Is Rooney, with 6 goals in his last 5 matches including one of the biggest of his career, back? I hope so.
• Unless you're Kate Schardein, I was listening to Maximo Park before you. Add them to the short list of bands I liked before they were really big (Gym Class Heroes is the only other one I can think of). The latest band that Kate, my British band insider, introduced me to is Young Knives. They're good too.
  
• I hate the Bloody Sock story. If you think there was anything except blood on the sock, you're a deluded Yankees fan still bitter about being on the wrong end of the biggest choke in the history of sports. That's not my opinion, that's a fact.
• I missed two of my favorite English sporting events while I was in Bulgaria. The Oxford-Cambridge boat race has been gripping stuff in recent years because both teams are so elite that they're always close at the end. And the Grand National horse race is to the American Triple Crown what the gladiator fights in the Roman Coliseum are to modern day boxing.
• Also missed the Masters, but wasn't shocked that Zach Johnson won. I hate it when a guy who everyone who follows golf knows is good but just isn't a star wins his first major and the media feels obligated to write the standard Cinderella Story piece. At the very least, this guy is going to be David Toms: perennially towards the top of the money list and competing for majors every once in a while.
• Speaking of golf, here's a little prediction that I feel strongly about: at the end of his career, Geoff Ogilvy is going to be more popular than Greg Norman ever was. Sometime in the last year I read a little column on espn.com saying that the media love Ogilvy because he gives a great quote and always puts tons of thought into his answers. Since then, almost every golf story I read has an Ogilvy quote in it. Apparently, he's a really bright guy, he's incredibly candid, he's Australian and he's wicked good at golf: everything a golf reporter could want! I think I've finally found one guy I might root for over Tiger.
• Here's to David Halberstam. Amazing life.
• Finally, just in case you're curious, and because its fun to think someone might be interested, I'll leave you with my 2007 Keeper Fantasy Baseball League Roster. * denotes my 4 keepers coming into the season. Three things to note: 1) My other possible choices for keepers were John Lackey, Jermaine Dye, and Francisco Rodriguez...nothing too great. 2.) I'm in first place right now, insanely. 3.) In addition to standard 5x5 stats, we also count Ks and Errors for batters and L's and Complete Games for Pitchers. I highly recommend that format, although the CGs are a bit of a wildcard.

Listed in the order I acquired them...
2B - Chase Utley*
SS - Derek Jeter*
C - Brian McCann*
SP - Scott Kazmir
OF - Bobby Abreu
RP - Joe Nathan
SP - Cole Hamels
OF - Alex Rios
DL - Jason Schmidt
1B - Todd Helton
OF - Magglio Ordonez
RP - Francisco Cordero
P - Chris Capuano
Util - Jeff Francouer
P - Jason Isringhausen
Bench - Moises Alou
Bench - Daniel Cabrera
----All Below were acquired after the draft off the free agent wire----
P - Al Reyes
Bench - Ian Snell
3B - Morgan Ensberg
Bench - Bronson Arroyo
Bench - Rocco Baldelli

It's a very typical team for me. Somehow I always end up with the batters who get tons of RBIs but not a lot of HRs. And I tend to prioritize Ks over Ws for pitching. Capuano, for instance, has been on my team for three years without me having to keep him. I also drafted hoping to get some guys who turn into keepers. I could see Hamels, Rios, Snell, or even Francouer making that leap this year.



*Stuff, you'll recall, is what I've decided The Sports Sauna will call performance enhancing drugs.