Tiger’s back in town
June 11th, 2008, 10:38 am · Post a Comment · posted by Alex Kreitman
OK Tiger Woods isn’t literally back in town, but he’s back on the PGA circuit.
Woods and the rest of golf’s finest are at Torrey Pines this week for the second major of the season, the U.S. Open.
Woods has been away from golf the last few months after having knee surgery following a disappointing non-winning effort at The Masters. Woods says he’s ready to go despite some soreness in his knee.
Phil Mickelson will welcome his rival back on the course as the two play together in Thursday’s opening round. The gallery for this pair is guaranteed to be huge all day following the biggest fan favorites on tour.
Woods and Mickelson don’t exactly get along, but they seem too much more civil these days. I wish they were best friends because they are my two favorite guys to watch. I always pull for both of them to do well.
With an attempt at the grand slam already over for Woods, the U.S. Open won’t hold as much glamour, but it’s still a huge event. I’m looking forward to watching some competitive golf again because since Woods has been away from the game it hasn’t been all that appealing.
Woods is still the favorite but with a big question for that recovering knee.
After watching Game 3 of the NBA Finals I imprinted in my brain a topic to write about today. I’d been meaning to touch on how embarrassing the NBA officials have become, but I keep forgetting to write about it. But here goes.
The NBA has no sense for what the rules written for their game stand for. None whatsoever. The referees make calls based on whoever the home team is and it’s getting ridiculous. If you look across the entire postseason you’ll see that the home team wins almost all the time. It’s been difficult for road teams to scrape out victories in single games, let along a series. That’s the main reason the two teams left standing are No. 1 seeds.
The bogus calls go both ways. In Games 1 and 2 of the NBA Finals, especially Game 2, the Celtics got most of the calls while at home at TD Bank North Garden. Boston shot 38 free throws compared to just 10 for L.A. That’s a ridiculous difference. Part of that is a credit to Boston’s defense for forcing the Lakers to take jump shots, but that’s still not right.
Game 3 in L.A. was quite different. The Celtics got to the line 22 times as a team while Kobe Bryant got to the stripe 18 times on his own. That stat seems lopsided because it is.
Being at home seems to be a major advantage which isn’t a good image for a league that’s dealing with allegations that it fixed playoff games in the past.
Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who is facing charges for betting on the game, came out Tuesday and said the league told referees to call playoff games a certain way. Whether this is true or not we might never know, but now isn’t a good time to be favoring any teams like the refs are doing now with home teams.
