Fore!

I'm not a "gamer" but I do want a Wii.

I realize that not everyone understands my need for, and occasional obsession with the Nintendo Wii (a video game system that I do not yet own). The interest gravitates around my belief that playing a sports video game by acting out the sport can only make the game about a billion times better.

The game that I've wanted to see on the Wii from the beginning was Tiger Woods golf.

Until recently I could only imagine what playing Tiger Woods on the Wii would look like, but now (thanks to the power of YouTube) you can see how to play.



EA Sports has even started running TV ads of the actual Tiger swinging the Wiimote, as if I needed anything else to stir up my excitement about this game and its March release date. In fact, I don't think I've been this excited about a video game since the original World Series Baseball game came out.

I Wii-ly want to play.

For Those of You Scoring At Home, That's 5

Tiger Woods continues to roll. In the past five tournaments he's entered, he's five-for-five.

NY Times:

[Tiger's mechanics are coming together] So much so that Woods carded his 20th round in the 60’s in his past 24, good for a tournament score of 16-under-par 268. Beginning with his triumph at the British Open on July 23, golfers at various points in their careers have stood in Woods’s midst, only to be humbled.

The five consecutive victories have run up Woods' victory tally to seven this year...and he's only entered 14 events.

Think about that for a second.

Nobody hits .500 for the season in baseball. In basketball Michael Jordan never shot better than .539 for the year (1990-91) -- and that counts layups.

What Tiger is doing is absolutely amazing. And he's not getting enough credit for how good he is.

Sure he's got the Nike endorsement, Buick deal and scores of other Tiger-powered advertisements, but even that is not enough.

Tiger is dominating the game in a manner that even his most ardent supporters never would have imagined. And we are all lucky to get to watch.

I remember being glued to the CBS telecast as Tiger marched his way to victory at Augusta in 1997. Inspired by someone I saw as a member of my generation, I headed out to the driving range after that first time since my junior golf days. That return to the golf course gave me a hobby after an inability to hit the curveball ended my baseball career, and has yielded countless rounds and cherished time with my father and grandfather. As far as I'm concerned that is another accomplishment -- another victory -- that doesn't end up anywhere in Tiger's career statisitcs and I know I'm not the only one who experienced this.

So for all the guys (and girls) who will run to the driving range to see if they can learn how to hit a "stinger," attempt to dribble a golf ball on the face of their wedge, and show up to their next tee time clad in a red polo shirt, thank you Tiger. We can't wait to see what you do next.

Analyzing the Tiger Effect at Medinah

Tiger Woods played so well today that he could have had the gallery rooting against him and still devoured the course. As it was, however, he had the Chicago crowd cheering for him like he was wearing North Carolina practice shorts underneath his trousers.

From the Washington Post:

"It was a special day out there," Woods said. "I just had one of those magic days on the greens. It's not often you get days like that. . . . I thought I could make everything."

..."When I had a four- or five-shot lead, I was just trying to make pars, that was my mind-set," he said. "Just keep hitting fairways and greens and lag putt it up there."

The three men nearest Tiger fell by the wayside as the now 12-time major winner cruised to victory.

And they fell by the wayside on a course that some pundits are saying is too easy for major championship golf. (Ed Sherman's ChicagoSports.com blog entry has this gem: "Arron Oberholser said Medinah wasn't worthy of a major. And he missed the cut. I'm still trying to figure out that one.")

Earlier I described my experience being in and around the "Tiger effect." I wrote that tour pros couldn't help but feel the Tiger effect if they were playing a group or two ahead of Tiger Woods because Tiger's crowd is completely different than the crowd following even golf's biggest other names. Let's see how the Tiger effect worked out Sunday:

-- Four groups ahead of Tiger --
Phil Mickelson: Shot a 2-over, 74. Fell eight places on the leaderboard into a tie for 16th (-6).
Ian Poulter: Shot a 1-under, 71. Fell one place on the leaderboard into a tie for ninth (-9).

-- Three groups ahead of Tiger --
K.J. Choi: Shot a 1-under, 71. Remained at seventh place (-10).
Chris DiMarco: Shot an even par, 72. Fell four places on the leaderboard into a tie for for 12th (-8).

-- Two groups ahead of Tiger --
Sergio Garcia: Shot a 2-under, 70. Rose two spots on the leaderboard into a tie for third (-12).
Shaun Micheel: Shot a 3-under, 69. Rose three spots on the leaderboard into second place (-13).

-- One group ahead of Tiger --
Mike Weir: Shot a 1-over, 73. Fell three spots on the leaderboard into sixth (-11).
Geoff Ogilvy: Shot a 2-over, 74. Fell five spots on the leaderboard into a tie for ninth (-9).

-- Tiger's group --
Luke Donald: Shot a 2-over, 74. Fell two spots on the leaderboard into a tie for third (-12).
Tiger Woods: Shot a 4-under, 68. Won the championship by five strokes.

Clearly the Tiger effect was out in full force today at Medinah, but its not like he needed it.

Putting the proper context on the athletic display that graced the Chicago suburbs Michael Wilbon in the Washington Post writes:

Watching Tiger now is as much theater as competition, which is what happens when sport is raised to art, when it commands not only respect but admiration.

Tiger was so brilliant today that even his bad shots seemed to just be setting us up for the golf clinic that was his recovery shots. It was another dominating performance that would have taken place no matter what the gallery, weather, or opponent. He's just that good.

More from the Post:

Said Micheel, who had missed the cut in his last seven majors: "Even if I'd hit every fairway, I'm not sure I'd have been able to catch Tiger. He's too good. . . . He's just such an intimidating force. Tiger has a unique ability to play well when he thinks he's not playing well. I'm not sure anything ever bothers him. I wish I had that feeling just once."

Tiger effect? The gallery? Nah. There's no demonstrable effect that would have made a difference today. The simple fact of the matter is that Tiger Woods is flat out better than any golfer on the PGA Tour by a wide margin when he is firing on all cylinders.

To beat Tiger Woods you have to hope you catch him on an off day, much like you need to do to beat a Cy Young pitcher. If you don't he'll own you. And that's when we all need to make sure we are sitting near our television sets to take in history. The only sad thing about Tiger's victory today in "golf's final major, glory's last shot" is that we now have to wait until April to see if he can do it all again. It is going to be a long winter.

Congratulations, Tiger Woods!

Champion
2006 PGA Championship
2006 British Open

Career Majors: 12

"I can sit here and watch him play and realize that what I do and how I play is not golf."

-- Gary McCord

(transcribed from CBS' live broadcast, exact quote may differ slightly)

The Tiger Effect

On Saturday I had the privilege of attending the 88th PGA Championship at Medinah, and like most people in the gallery I joined the mass of bodies following Tiger Woods.

Watching Tiger is like watching Michael Jordan in his prime -- it is to come face-to-face with the pinnacle of human athletic performance. His swing conjures an almost emotional, awe-inspired reaction completely different than the "standard" impressed feeling that you get from watching "ordinary" professional golfers (who are already better than 99.9 percent of us).

A statuesque figure, with the perfect blend of power and finesse, Tiger is intimidating enough on his own. But what you quickly come to understand when you see Tiger in person (better than you can understand it on television) is that beyond Tiger's sheer and unrivaled athletic ability, he wields the intangible of a large, energized gallery. And in my estimation (as well as the reports of others) this is a big part of the Tiger effect.

Few golfers generate galleries that line up four, five and six-deep around tee boxes. I saw Phil Mickelson tee off of the seventh, and he had a far larger crowd than the other groups ahead of him, but Phil's crowd didn't have the buzz and energy of Tiger's.

Tiger has herd following him around the golf course.

It is a mass of humanity that splits its time between watching his shots and running ahead of Tiger to get a good viewing angle a little bit further ahead on the course. It is respectful, but altogether different than the meandering galleries that line the other 15 or so holes that aren't experiencing the Tiger effect.

The Sports Network reports that Woods is 11-for-11 when he holds at least a share of the 54-hole lead, as he does in this tournament. So that means when Tiger wins he is in the final group. Therefore, if you are playing ahead of Tiger you are subjected to hundreds of people running along fairways, crowding tee boxes, and encircling greens to get a glimpse of their hero.

It is no wonder that golfers accustomed to still and silent spectators that get people sprinting from fairway to green feel out of place. Add to this the fact that they know they are chasing Tiger Woods, and you can see why the competition often withers.

From Michael Wilbon in the Washington Post:

You thought Jack Nicklaus could win, or might win, or in some cases, like at Augusta National, probably would win.

But it never seemed inevitable.

And since missing the cut at the U.S. Open, that's how it seems for Woods.

...The question now, after 54 holes, is who's going to stop him here?

...Mike Weir, who has won a major, also tied the course record with a 65 on Saturday. And while he has won seven tournaments since his meltdown in the final round on this same golf course in the 1999 PGA Championship, one has to wonder if Weir will suffer any effects from that final-round 80 he shot when paired with Woods that day. Weir, flashing back to that day, recalled: "I was uptight. I just wasn't calm about it. . . . No question it was painful." Weir recalled feeling "spacey . . . kind of spun out."

It's impossible to hear that and not wonder how much of that is directly attributable to being paired with Woods, whose galleries are uncommonly loud and mobile. Tiger, having won four times in Chicago in his career, is as beloved here as Mickelson is in New York. But there might be some divided loyalties Sunday because Donald has lived in Chicago since winning the NCAA championship as a Northwestern University student in 1999. He has two PGA Tour victories and two European victories. He played with Nicklaus during the Golden Bear's final British Open round last year, so he is hardly a neophyte.

But he knows Tiger rolls over people when he's even or ahead. He talked about Sunday being "a little bit different," though he must know it will be massively different. "I don't know whether the local support," he said, "will outweigh Tiger's kind of army following him."

It has been quite humid at Medinah -- play Friday was accompanied by a 70 percent chance of rain. One can't help but feel that the chance of the Tiger effect manifesting itself is at least that high today.