What: Shell Houston Open

When: Houston I suppose

Can I play there: Blah, blah blah. Who cares, it’s almost Masters Week!

So starting a bit early, what is your favorite Masters memory? For me, it was having the misfortune of shopping for a home on the Sunday of the 2005 Masters. We were inside some old woman’s house and I asked if I could turn on her TV to check the scores. This was the first thing I saw…..

Luckily we made it back to Tricia’s apartment in time for me to see the 18th hole, and the playoff hole. So what’s your favorite Augusta memory?

Of course not. If he did, he wouldn’t be taking a year off to rehab his surgically repaired knee. He would have just said “Knee, be healed” at the end of June and went out and won the British Open in sandals and a beard.

Talk of a Jesus complex aside, you’ve got to love this bit of fun that Tiger and EA Sports had with one of the glitches a gamer found in Tiger Woods 08 last year (video of that is here).

Tiger’s response? Well, you can watch it for yourself.

By the way, you know how you can tell that video is a fake? It’s easy. Tiger would never hit his second shot into a green-side pond like that.

I mean, really…who do they think they’re fooling?

(h/t: Awful Announcing)

A few items to peruse while you realize that Christmas is 6 months away…

+ NYT Best-Selling author Michael Lewis doesn’t believe golf is a sport, and he thinks Tiger’s display at the U.S. Open only furthered the lie.

+ Joe Posnanski examines “The Meaning of Tiger”, claiming, “All I know about Tiger Woods can be summed up in about seven words: ‘I knew he would make that putt.’”

+ I’ve got an article up over at Suite101 about maximizing your fantasy football draft experience.

Since it looks like Tiger won’t be winning anymore majors this year, I thought I’d go back and rank the 14 he’s already won.

14. 2006 PGA – I don’t remember anything about this tournament. Apparently he beat Shaun Micheel by 5 strokes.

13. 2007 PGA – Same as 2006, except I vaguely remember some of it. I think Tiger wore red on Sunday.

12. 2002 Masters – Tiger’s 3rd green jacket, and the one I remember the least about

11. 2005 Open – Tiger’s 2nd British Open win at St. Andrews, he beat Scotland’s Colin Montgomery by 5 strokes

10. 2002 U.S. Open – A 2nd U.S. Open title for Woods. This was the tournament where New Yorkers kept yelling at Sergio to hit the ball.

9. 1999 PGA - The one where Sergio, then El Nino, closed his eyes and hit a miracle shot around a tree. Then lost to Tiger.

8. 2005 Masters – Tiger turns the 16th green into a Nike commercial. My wife and I were house shopping, and I saw it on a black and white television owned by the little old lady whose house we would soon buy.

7. 2000 PGA - Bob May forced a playoff, then Tiger chases his putt across the green and into the hole on the first playoff hole. Of all the Tiger celebrations, this is the hardest to practice in the mirror.

6. 2006 Open - Tiger’s 3rd British Open, and his first major after the death of his father Earl. I think he hit 5-iron off every tee that week.

5. 2001 Master – Woods win his 4th consecutive major and completes the “Tiger Slam”.

4. 2000 Open – Tiger’s first trip to St. Andrews as a professional, he dominates the Old Course and laps the field by 8 strokes.

3. 2000 U.S. Open – Second place was 3 over par, Tiger was 12 under. Unreal.

2. 2008 U.S. Open – Tiger, playing on one leg, goes 4 rounds, then an 18 hole play-off, then one hole of sudden-death to win his 3rd U.S. Open title.

1. 1997 Masters – The one that changed everything. Tiger shatters records, beats the field by 12 strokes, and wins his first Green Jacket.

The sun set fifteen minutes ago. Your mother is waiting patiently in the parking lot. And you are on the 18^th green, finishing your 54^th hole of the day.

And as you stand over your double-bogey putt, the only question is this: Is it to win the Masters, or the U.S. Open?

For me it was always the Masters. Probably because I grew up on a course that was hilly and dotted with pine trees. Of course the similarities between Briarmeade and Augusta National ended there, considering Briarmeade is bordered by a trailer park. Even so, in my imagination azaleas were always blooming, and the 18^th green was surrounded by cheering patrons and Claudia Schiffer (This is 15-year old Chad we’re talking about), waiting to give me a green jacket, so long as my last putt found the bottom of the cup.

I was a Masters guy because as a kid the U.S. Open was painful to watch. Overweight men, panting like dogs in the summer heat. Impossibly narrow fairways with rough so high you could lose a car in it. And those greens, like trying to land a ball on the roof of a VW Bug. Over the years I’ve learned to appreciate the U.S. Open, I guess in the same way I’ve learned to appreciate vegetables. I’m going to eat them, but I’m not really looking forward to it.

I never understood those kids whose putts were to win the U.S. Open. Maybe their dad was in the army? Maybe their dad was Toby Keith? They always explained it in patriotic terms, citing it was our national championship, which I get, but it’s still boring. The only time the two groups agreed was on cloudy or rainy days, when the putts were to win the British Open. Putts were never to win the PGA Championship.

I say all of this because the 108^th U.S. Open begins this Thursday, on the South Course at Torrey Pines, and Tiger Woods is set to tee it up for the first time since his second place finish at the Masters, and subsequent knee surgery.

This won’t be the first time Tiger begins a U.S. Open after a long break from tournament golf. In 2006 Woods skipped every event between Augusta and the Open after the death of his father Earl. Tiger shot 76-76 and missed the cut in a major for the first, and only time in his career. Perhaps he couldn’t overcome the rust from his 3-month layoff, or perhaps the emotional burden from the loss of his father was too much to bear, or perhaps he couldn’t stand to be seen in this shirt, which he was schedule to wear for Saturday’s round.

Regardless, in a year where everyone was talking Grand Slam, and a 3^rd U.S. Open title at one of Tiger’s favorite courses was a given, this week’s U.S. Open has enough drama and unanswered questions to keep us all interested.

And who knows, when I finish my round after work today, that last putt may just be to win our national championship. Not that I still do that sort of thing.

a few thoughts on golf on a gorgeous friday in the Northeastern part of the country…

+ Fred Funk spoke at a Christian Breakfast on Tuesday morning, covering topics from wearing a skirt during the skins game to how he avoided Sugar Ray Leonard in the boxing ring. He also spoke on his faith, saying that the time he spent with devout Christians as a young golf pro helped him stay committed to his faith. Jim Faber has a full write up at islandpacket.com.

+ My friend Chad Gibbs, who writes for Burnside, plays golf with a bunch of friends in an unofficial league they refer to as Two Majors. They’ve got a website set up for themselves and everything, it’s pretty amusing. Their first major is tomorrow at the Legislator Course in Prattville, AL. I think there’s a few tickets left if you want to head out to the course and heckle some amateur golfers.

+ last year i played about 6 rounds, an took 8-10 lessons. The pro we were learning from was great, and I learned some valuable things, but I don’t think I’m going to be taking any lessons this year. I just feel like Golf Teachers are trying to get you to have the perfect swing, which is nice I guess, but it doesn’t translate directly to lower scores. I’ve always had a decent swing, and yet I’ve never broken 90 (I’ve shot 90 twice). I’ve decided that what I want is a decent, repeatable swing. When I’m 155 yards from the green and I’m standing over the ball with my 7-iron, I don’t care if my swing is technically sound. I just want to get the ball on the green. So instead of putting in extra time honing the intricacies of my swing, I’m going to play more, and trust my swing a bit more. Will it work? Probably not. But if I break 90 this year, you can bet you’ll hear about it.

+ One last thought…I’ve noticed a bit of a generation gap when it comes to how golf fans feel about Tiger Woods. Seems that people my age (in their 20s and 30s) really like Tiger and root for him all the time. But the generation about 20 years older (folks in their late 40s and 50s) don’t like Tiger very much. They find him arrogant, cocky, and moody. It cracks me up though, because these people often act the same way that Tiger does on the golf course. For some reason, it’s okay for them to be disgusted with themselves for missing a put or hitting a bad shot, but when Tiger does it, he’s being a jerk. Has anyone else noticed this? How do you feel about Tiger and What age group are you in, I’m curious to know.

As Awful Announcing pointed out today, ESPN’s choice of Dana Jacobson as the person to interview Tiger Woods over his poor word choices over the weekend seemed a bit “pot-kettle-black-ish” to me as well.

As you probably remember, Jacobson got into some trouble back in January when at a celebrity roast she reportedly said “Jesus” and the the F-word, but not necessarily in that order.

If you hadn’t heard about Tiger’s slip-up, he allegedly used some salty language when a cameraman snapped a photo during his back swing at Doral over the weekend. The sound of the shutter caused Woods’ ball to miss the green on the par-3 9th, and Woods eventually bogeyed the hole. The LA Times’ Rick Morrissey wrote today that Tiger said “The next time a photographer shoots a [expletive] picture, I’m going to break his [expletive] neck,”

Does Dana Jacobson have a right to interview Woods? Of course. Her past sins shouldn’t be held against her for the rest of her career. But ESPN had to know they were opening themselves up to this by choosing her to conduct the interview.

As for Woods and his cussing, I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t gotten very angry on the golf course a time or two. And when you consider that Woods was trying to do his job, well, I suppose I’d also get angry if someone was distracting me as I tried to circulate a critical TPS report. Please don’t misunderstand, I’m neither encouraging or excusing Woods for his word choices, but I won’t rake him over the coals for it either.

I can say for the record, though, that I’ve never threatened to break anyone’s neck, so yeah, Tiger should probably relax a little on the ‘threatening physical harm’ front.

(h/t: Awful Announcing)