Ballers, Gamers and Scoundrels

She’s only 18.

She’s only 18.

She’s …

If I keep saying it (okay, typing it), maybe I’ll stop thinking that we’ve seen the best of Michelle Wie. Maybe I’ll not acknowledge that feeling in my gut that the young woman TIME magazine once declared as “one of 100 people who would shape our world,” whom Arnold Palmer once said might influence golf as much as Tiger Woods “or more,” may not reshape anything at all - except her already-sizable bank account.

But she’s only …

And yet, it doesn’t look real good right now. Late last week, Wie withdrew from the upcoming Safeway International, citing yet another wrist injury, this one incurred on the range at Stanford, her school and my alma mater. Doctors there subjected her to every alphabet test imaginable - MRI, CAT, etc. - and her handlers tell us it’s nothing serious, just a strain. But after Wie essentially lost much of 2007 over a wrist injury that reportedly first occurred over a year ago, I’m more than a tad concerned that we’ve not heard the last from Wie’s wrist.

And that’s not good. For a golfer, a wrist injury may be the most debilitating injury imaginable, or at least tied with a funky back. At the moment of impact with the ball, it may be the most critical part of the body, certainly an area that absorbs the most shock. A tender wrist, let along an injured one, renders everything else moot - tempo, hip turn, head movement, follow through. None of them matters if the wrist is wrong.

Oh they can certainly heal, just like any other part of the body. And Wie is no doubt in her prime healing years. But an injured wrist makes it difficult to practice. And until fully healed it’s susceptible to being re-injured easily - like by trying to cut the food or your plate or turn the steering wheel.

But let’s face it, my worries for Wie extend beyond her wrist.

It’s not as if she’s dazzled us with her game for quite awhile now. It’s been two years since she was more of a contender than a side show. In 2006, she finished third in two events, including the U.S. Women’s Open. She also took fifth at the LPGA Championship. She was finally starting to show us that she had as much game as flame, that she was as skilled a golfer as she was powerful off the tee.

She was almost making me stop being annoyed at those who managed her career, the people - including her father, B.J. - who steered her to too many men’s events where she only experienced defeat and humiliation by missing cuts. Or who fueled the hype machine that landed her on magazine covers before her time and duped Madison Avenue into making her rich before she earned the right to be so. (At the age of 15, some guessed Wie would pocket earn up to $13 million in endorsements in her first year, which would have placed her third among Forbes’ list of highest paid woman athletes - behind only Marie Sharapova and Serena Williams.)

She was to be a six-foot-tall global marketing machine who could smack a golf ball 300 yards and rock the runway in high heels.

There was buzz of Wie clothing and jewelry lines. Brandon Steiner of Steiner Sports Marketing once told USA Today: “Once the apparel line gets rolling and you have a couple other major endorsements her earning could reach $30-40 million a year.”

Right now, though, there is simply no buzz. There’s no sizzle about Wie and I can’t help blame those who placed greed above the long-term welfare of, yes, a child.

Even worse, there are still lingering negative vibes from 2007 when Wie and her camp were criticized for pulling out of a tournament after 16 holes, citing, duh, a wrist injury when she was playing so badly she was in danger of losing her ability to accept sponsor exemptions -the only way Wie can play in an LPGA event since she is not a member of the LPGA Tour.

I know, she’s only 18. I keep telling myself that and, like others, still give Wie the benefit of the doubt because she is so talented, so engaging, so smart (hey, she is at Stanford!) and, yes, so young.

But I still can’t help but wonder: Have we seen the best of Wie?

Too bad Novak Djokovic didn’t choose to play golf. Don’t they have golf courses in Serbia? Why didn’t someone tell him tennis just isn’t that hot any more - at least not as hot as golf. Maybe if someone had, we just might have another reason to watch golf.

Don’t get me wrong. I feel blessed to be able to witness Tiger Woods’ inexorable march towards greatness. Unprecedented greatness.Woods so dominates his sport that any discussions about his potential no longer include “if,” but “when.” Experts have stopped even wondering if he’ll break Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major championships.

And after Woods won his 62d tournament on Sunday - capturing the Buick Invitational as if he was the only one with keys to the car - to tie Arnold Palmer for fourth place on the all-time list of tournament victories, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks he won’t someday eclipse the mark of 82 wins held by the late golf icon, Sam Snead.

Even Nicklaus and Palmer simply sit by and chuckle, content at the reality that any days when they might have been considered “best ever” to play the game are long confined to dusty archives.

Shoot, now I’m wondering if Tiger Woods just night be the most dominant athlete ever.

If Djokovic had picked up a sawed-off nine-iron rather than a tennis racket, maybe we wouldn’t be wondering who’ll ultimately come along and take Tiger out. Let’s face it, everyone of his era is done.

Much of the world rooted for Phil Mickelson to be The One until he pulled a duffer-knucklehead move and yanked a driver out of his bag when he had the U.S. Open won and yanked it into the next county. Haven’t seen him since.

Vijay Singh made a nice run a couple of years ago, but Tiger is golf’s Eveready Bunny. While Phil and Vijay, Ernie Els and a few others have had moments when they seemed as if they might be worthy rivals to Woods, they all faded to being merely good while Tiger kept going and going and going…

For the last several years, Roger Federer has dominated tennis like his BFF Tiger owned golf. But just last year, the gregarious Serb emerged with a hint of change. He was brash, funny and had serious game. He wasn’t intimidated by Federer’s resume and he had the skills to counter Federer’s gifts.

In head-to-head matches, Federer still leads Djokovic 5 matches to two. But D-man has won two of the last three, including an almost surgical straight-set dismantling of Federer in the semis at the Australian Open. On Sunday, he took four sets to defeat the equally interesting Frenchman, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, to win his first Grand Slam title.

The days of a Federer v. Somebody (usually Rafeal Nadal) Grand Slam final are no longer a given - thanks to the engaging Serb and the intriguing and personable Tsonga (who might even compete with Nadal for the biggest guns on tour). And tennis just might be better for it.

Golf should be so lucky. Instead, we are simply left to watch Woods click off the tournament and major wins one-by-one and guess what numbers he’ll leave in the record book.

Oh well, poor us. Hook up the TiVo, tell your kids to watch, and enjoy. It won’t ever happen again.

Yes, he DOES think this is funny!

Oh, those clever folks at Golfweek. They’re doing a serious moonwalk after perpetrating what may be the biggest gaffe in the history of sports journalism. As I’m sure you know by now, those clever folks at the tiny (and mostly invisible) golf publication thought they’d weigh in on the controversy stirred over a flippant remark made by Golf Channel commentator Kelly Tilghman a couple of weeks ago during a tournament telecast. At the end of a discussion regarding how young players have no shot at winning as long as Tiger Woods is on the Tour, she said they should “lynch him in a back alley.”

Tilghman was suspended for two weeks following a firestorm - on both sides - regarding her faux pas.

Things were pretty much dying down when the clever folks at Golfweek got a bright idea. Led by Dave Seanor, vice president and editor of the weekly magazine, the men and women who cover birdies and bogeys and guys in bad pants every week suddenly decided to become Edward R. Murrow and take a journalistic look at why the remark stirred such a frenzy- and they shanked it.

But get this: After touting the cover on its website since Monday, the cover itself is now gone, replaced by a montage of covers dominated by (and this is where they really get clever) an issue featuring Tiger Woods. Nonetheless, another section of the site still says “ Cover story: Kelly Tilghman saga.”

Early this morning when I first logged onto the site to see if Golfweek would address its insipid decision, the cover had been replaced by another cover, one touting a cover story called “Bitter Pill to Swallow.” But if you clicked on it you got the Tlighman story. Now the montage of covers leads you to a page that allows you to subscribe.

Moments after I wrote this post it was announced that Seanor was dumped. He was replaced as editor immediately by Jeff Babineau, a nine-year veteran at the publication. An executive at Turnstile Publishing, Golfweek’s parent, also issued an apology. “We apologize for creating this graphic cover that received extreme negative reaction from consumers, subscribers and advertisers across the country,” said Turnstile president William P. Kupper Jr.. “We were trying to convey the controversial issues with a strong and provocative graphic image. It is now obvious that the overall reaction to our cover deeply offended many people. For that, we are deeply apologetic.”

The decision to illustrate their story by putting a noose on the cover now supplants the darkening of O.J. Simpson by Time magazine as the most racially insensitive magazine cover ever. Congrats, Dave! See ya.

Some folks wonder where I’ve been since word of the cover first began to surface. Like many, I thought it was a joke - a spoof by some characters trying to get attention. When I learned it wasn’t, I was actually torn between slamming them (way too easy) or refusing to buy into the blatant attempt to call attention to themselves in a very competitive field. So I laid low and watched (with a bit of glee, I admit) as the tinderbox raged.

Everyone except Rev. Al Sharpton has lambasted the Golfweek editors. PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem called use of the image “outrageous and irresponsible.” He added: “It was a naked attempt to inflame and keep alive an incident that was heading to an appropriate conclusion.”

Not surprisingly, Seanor says he was surprised by the reaction. “We knew that image would grab attention, but I didn’t anticipate the enormity of it,” he told the Associated Press on Thursday. “There’s been a huge, negative reaction,” he said. “I’ve gotten so many e-mails. It’s a little overwhelming.”

Seanor thought for a moment when asked if he had second thoughts about choosing such an y image for the cover. “I wish we could have come up with something that made the same statement but didn’t create as much negative reaction,” he finally said. “But as this has unfolded, I’m glad there’s dialogue. Let’s talk about this, and the lack of diversity in golf.”

And maybe the lack of diversity at Golfweek?

When I told a friend on the cover this morning while we rode the train into Manhattan, he looked at me acquisitively and said: “For a moment there I thought you said they put a noose on the cover.”

Then he remarked: “What Tlighman said was one thing, it was on the spur of the moment and was a ignorant attempt at humor. But these guys actually did this on purpose. They sat around a table and decided to do this.”

I’ve thought a lot about how that meeting went. I’ve wondered who the people were that sat around that table and discussed the cover. I wondered what they looked like, where they were from, what experiences they had in life.

I wondered why no one there - not a single person at that table - knew this was just stupid.

For more than two decades, I’ve been a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, an organization of more than 2,000 African Americans in media who are committed to improving the coverage of issues important to people of color and improving diversity throughout the media, particularly at the management levels where vital decisions are made.

Next stop: Golfweek.

I actually feel for Kelly Tilghman. By all accounts she’s a young woman doing her best with a great opportunity to co-anchor a national golf telecast alongside the legendary Nick Faldo. Being on television is harder than it looks. Being on live television is an excursion rife with mines. Unfortunately she inadvertently stepped on one and it exploded in her face.

Today, Tilghman was suspended by the Golf Channel for two weeks for saying, jokingly, that Tiger Woods “should be lynched in a back alley.” I thought the action was more than sufficient (even a single week would have been fine), and I commend the network’s leaders for making the bold move and affirming that some language - no matter how inadvertent and unfortunate - simply cannot be uttered, not even in jest, by media professionals.

No, I do not believe she intended revive the kind of painful imagery the word “lynch” conjures for so many people in this nation. I do not believe she intended to use a word that struck the fear of God in the hearts of my parents’ generation and those before them.

Perhaps she had no idea what a lynching truly is. If not, yet another reason to feel for Tilghman.

No doubt, she knows now. She now knows, in truth, what she should have been taught in school, at least somewhere along the line. Or what she should have learned in life - from parents or friends. But our schools no longer dwell on such aspects of our history - maybe good, maybe not.

And like many words that I learned never to utter, perhaps “lynching” has been defused for her generation. Like many other words that young people utter without a thought of the pain of their past.

She didn’t mean anything by it. I must have read that sentiment a thousand times from the great people who weighed in on my blog post. And I’m sure she didn’t.

She just didn’t know. And that’s sad.

She knows now. Lesson learned, painfully.

Now, as Tiger said: Case closed.

If you’ve never visited the gossip site MediaTakeOut, you should. If celebrity gossip is your guilty pleasure, it’s should be part of your diet. Tonight, the site revealed that Venus Williams is engaged to her long-time man-toy, pro golfer Hank Kuehne.

Of course there’s always a risk to these sites. Most are often hit/miss/maybe with their “news.” But Kuehne has been seen volleying with Venus since Wimbledon, so this one seems pretty plausible.

Good for her. Good for them.

At least we know this: Their children will be real swingers.

It was Superstar Sunday - day of rare (or not so) feats by a veritable Hall of Fame for our era.

You could start almost anywhere.

Maybe with Alex Rodriquez’s 52st home run of the season in the Yankees’ win over Kansas City It was his fifth straight game with a homer, his ninth during that period.

Or with Roger Federer, who won his fourth straight U.S. Open with a willful 7-6, 7-6 6-4 victory over Novak Djokovic, tennis’ champion in the wings. Federer won his 12th grand slam, pitting him now only against Pete Sampras’ 14 as the most of all-time.

How about Tiger Woods? He rendered the inaugural FedEx Cup yet another TW Invitational by shooting 8-under on the final day of the BMW Championship to win the tournament and put himself to win the PGA’s new end-game tournament and its $10 million annuity. Now he can pretty much play the four rounds of the closing Tour Championship with a putter and win the big prize. Only four guys - - Steve Stricker, Phil Mickelson, Rory Sabbatini and K.J. Choi. - stand between TW and another phat check.

On the NFL’s Opening Sunday, Randy Moss reminded us, well of Randy Moss (is anyone else itching for the showdown between Moss and Marvin Harrison on November 4), LaDainian Tomlinson efficient spectacular (no big numbers, just two TDs) in San Diego’s win over the Bears; and Brett Favre continued his march towards being the NFL’s all-time, all-time QB by leading the Packers to victory over the Philadelphia Eagles.

But they were all overshadowing by a lesser name, a third-year backup tight end who was among pro football’s anonymous. Outside Buffalo, his Port Arthur, Texas hometown and the U of Miami Hurricane clan, the quiet giant wasn’t widely known. Not until Kevin Everett didn’t get up from the kind of pileup that happens a thousand times on weekends in the fall. Everett suffered a several spinal injury that, at best, will prevent him from walking again. At worse, he could die.

On Tuesday, some of Everett’s teammates visited him at the Millard Fillmore Gates hospital in Buffalo. Heavily sedated, Everett could not communicate with his teammates, but doctors said he could possibly hear them So many sat with him and talked, some for as long as 20 minutes.

Hundreds of NFL players hurt for Everett, but as one of his teammates said on Monday: “We have to move on.” That is the gladiatorial nature of the game, of all games. Another potential Superstar Sunday awaits. But as they do, know for certain, particularly in Buffalo, that a small piece of each man remains in Buffalo. A piece that offers solace and knows: There but for the grace of God …

Send a Message of Support

After dealing with Michael Vick, Tim Doneghy and Kia Vaugnn of late, I needed this: A blind golfer got a hole-in-one.

Shiela Drummond, who was blinded by diabetes 26 years ago, scored an ace last Sunday on No. 4, a 144-yard, par-3, at Mahoning Valley Country Club in Lehighton, PA. Of course she didn’t see it; the rest of her foursome did. “They were saying, ‘It’s a great shot,’ and then I heard it hit the pin,” Drummond told AP.

You gott ya love it, especially if you’re a golfer. I’ve been playing for 16 years and have one ace, gained so long ago, when I had absolutely no clue what I was doing (as opposed to simply no clue, as I often feel these days!), that I might as well have been blind. Scoring an ace is part skill (You have to at least get the ball heading in the general direction of the hole and a lot of luck.

In 1999, Golf Digest said the odds of an amateur getting a hole-in-one were 1 in 12,750. They did not re-jigger the odd if said amateur was blind.

That said, Drummond is no hack. In fact she’s on the board of directors of the United States Blind Golfers Association. With a 48 handicap, she says she plays about three rounds a week and participates in eight to nine tournaments a year. “I just try to do the best I can,” she says. “I get nervous.”

Like I said, after such a week, you simply gotta love it.

No sweat. Just kidding. My hometown was melting this week. Southern Hills CC hosted the hottest major golf tournament in history, and when the last towel had been wrung dry, Tiger Woods was marching on. He won his 13th major Sunday, surviving a game Ernie Els and a playing-out-of-my-shoes upstart named Woodie Austin to pull within five major tournaments of history.

Woods shot a steady one-under on Sunday, enough to survive a couple of challenges and win his FIRST major as a dad. When Daddy ultimately passes Nicklaus, Sam Alexis will no doubt be there to meet and hug him next to the 18th green. This time, wearing her own Sunday red, she had to be content to wait in the coolness of the PGA trailer, in mommy’s arms. Let’s make a prediction: It says here she’ll be about four years old when it happens.

As an aside, I watched the 89th PGA with mixed emotions. Southern Hills, like many country clubs, did not allow black members when I was growing up in Tulsa in the 1970s, and they were not shy about saying so. I attended a school nearby, where the parents of many of my classmates were members. But it was well known that not only did Southern Hills not accept black members but we were not even widely welcomed as a guest.

That has all changed, of course. Call it the Shoal Creek effect. In 1990, the president of the Alabama-based country club, which was hosting the PGA that year, said the club did not allow black members and never will. Oops. Under pressure from both the pubic and Madison Avenue, the PGA of America, PGA Tour and LPGA, to their credit, ordered that it would no longer hold tournaments at any club with discriminatory policies. Though a few clubs dropped their tournaments rather than change their precious membership rules, the edict unleashed a wave of opportunity, which allowed African Americans throughout the nation to pierce barriers at private clubs.

I was one of them.

Today, blacks who play golf have pretty much the same choices as other golfers when it comes to club membership - as long as they can write the check. I know: It’s not lunch counters, school or housing discrimination or redlining or discrimination in the workplace. It’s golf. Just one small, yet critical, segment of society where what was tolerated in the “good old days” (which were never never good for us) just won’t fly any more.

And this was as Tiger had even tacked a piece of paper to his wall in homage to Nicklaus, a piece of paper stating his goals - goals that once seemed beyond the reach of any man. Let alone a black man.

I didn’t know Zach Johnson from Bob, Magic or my brother Jimmy Johnson. No need. He was one of the faceless dozens comprising the everyone-other-than-Tiger Tour a.k.a. The PGA Tour. Not any more. Johnson, an Iowan (is anything more faceless than that?) steeled his way around Augusta National on Sunday afternoon and outlasted Tiger Woods to become perhaps the least accomplished Masters champions ever.

Get this: The victory was only Johnson’s second of his career.

Woods has won 12 majors.

But let’s face it: Tiger never showed up. At least not the Tiger we’ve come to know. Even after going bogey-bogey on 17 and 18 on Friday and Saturday, he looked as if he was one Tigeresque shot away from making everyone else on the course crawl into a hole and cry for mommy. It never happened. Woods pulled within two shots with four to play but on the par-5 15th Tiger’s second shot lingered on the embankment before tumbling into the creek. He held on for par but Tiger left a birdie - at minimum - in that creek.

Woods squandered another birdie op at 16, then misjudged his approach at 17. He landed well short of the green in a bunker, which prompted an angry outburst:

“What the hell just happened”" he asked. A moment later he added, “(Unintelligible) said downwind.”

At that moment you did not want to be Steve Williams, Woods’s caddie, who walked forward several paces ahead of his boss. Smart man.

Woods went par-par on 17 and 18 on Sunday, but needed birdie-birdie. Just after walking off the 18th green he admitted to CBS’s Bob Macatee that the duel bogey-bogies earlier in the week probably cost him a fifth green jacket.

But props to Johnson (and not just because of his last name!). He won the tournament, shooting 69 on Sunday, tying for the lowest score of the day. (Woods shot 72).

Because Tiger didn’t pull away from the field like he typically does - prompting players to swing out of their shoes and attempt shots tat just aren’t in their bags - Johnson was able to stick to his conservative strategy. He didn’t go for a single par 5 in two during the tournament, and yet often still made birdie. (He birdied 3 of Augusta’s four par 5s on Sunday.)

“He played beautifully,” Woods said. “Look at the round he shot out there, the score. He did what he needed to do. He went out there, grinded away, made shots he needed to make.”

Playing two groups ahead of Tiger, he finished well before the best player in the world and waited, like the rest of us, for the Tiger we knew to show up. In his own chat with Macatee just after walking off 18, introduced himself to America in a manner fitting of Ressurection Sunday:

“I had some people who were watching over me,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “My faith is every important to me, and Jesus was right there.”

He is risen, indeed.

Yet another talented Johnson

Zach Johnson’s scorecard here.