2008 Masters Preview

Everywhere you look, people are previewing the Masters. Granted, my sports world is currently dominated by my excitement for the Frozen four. So, I won't get into too many of the regular issues about the tournament, the players, or the course. I'll keep it short and sweet with what I think will happen at the Masters.

What Will Happen at the 2008 Masters

1) Tiger Woods will post a top five, but he'll come up short because of cold putting late.

2) The winner will either be a repeat champion or a big surprise (maybe a foreigner).

3) People will continue to complain (and rightly so) about the abundance of trees down the right side of the 11th fairway.

4) Someone will make a back-nine charge to win on Sunday.

5) People will complain (and wrongly so) about why old guys like Gary Player, Ray Floyd, Sandy Lyle, etc. should stay home like Nick Faldo because they have no chance of winning.

6) The winning score will be -8 or better. The weather forecast looks pretty good, so there will be plenty of fireworks, but not too many to make the Masters committee go back to planting more trees

Tiger vs. the Field

People always wanna talk about Tiger vs. the field so I suppose I better for a bit.

In all my years of watching golf I have never seen a golfer look more motivated, poised and outright determined to win than Tiger has this season. Expect that determination to increase for Masters week. Even though I think it's a little hokey and people talk about it a lot I think that you can expect it to truly be Tiger vs. the field. Vegas has Tiger at 6/5 with the next closest Phil Mickelson at 10/1. As a poor college student I'm not overly concerned with the betting scene (although I'd love to put down a few thousand on Ben Curtis at 250/1.

The Nitty Gritty
Here's what I actually see as far as players in the tournament

Won’t Win: Ernie Els
Could Win: Tiger Woods, Geoff Ogilvy, Phil Mickelson
Sleepers: Vaughn Taylor, Justin Rose, Mike Weir

If anyone is going to play spoiler to Tiger this week it would have to be Geoff Ogilvy. Geoff is coming off a win (ending Tiger’s streak at the WGC-CA) and T2 finish in his last two starts and already has a major title to his name (the 2006 U.S. Open). His two shot victory over Tiger three weeks ago will no doubt serve as additional motivation for Tiger, but Ogilvy will not back down from the challenge. Look for him to be in the hunt come Sunday.

Who's Hot, Who's Not

HOT
Seattle Mariners
They continue to surprise a lot of people and make a nice push in both the AL Wildcard and in the AL West. The Angels better not get too comfortable!

Tiger Woods

In the final event before the final major of the year, Woods buried Rory Sabbatini and the rest of the field Sunday at the Bridgestone Invitational for an eight-shot victory, sending his confidence soaring Sunday as he left for Southern Hills and the PGA Championship.

Matt Murphy

Interesting story....So he's delayed in SF trying to travel from NY to Australia with some friends and he throws on his Mets jersey and heads out to AT&T Park and basically wins the lottery. Got his face scraped up a bit but I'm guessing it was totally worth it. Kind of interesting that of all the Giant fans at the game dreaming of the ball a kid in a Mets jersey catches the ball and will split the profits with his friend (who was at the game in an Arod jersey!). I'm interested to see what he ends up doing with the ball.

Arizona Cardinals

With Matt Leinert learning and improving everyday, the Edge in the best shape of his life, and the superstar Fitzgerald continuing to improve his route running the Cardinals look like they could make a serious run at making the playoffs this season. And with the great young core of superstar talent they have they should be around for a while....especially once the defense improves.

NOT
Milwaukee Brewers

Tough pill for me to swallow here but things have not been good. A four game losing streak puts the beermakers in first by a mere half game. On the bright side there is the Soriano injury!

Rory Sabattini

Made the whole, "Tiger's more beatable than ever" comment and then went ahead and squandered a 1 shot lead to lose by 8 and at one point was shaken to the point that he ordered a fan removed from the course by security for some relatively funny/ironic, yet completely harmless interjection made at the turn. He basically made himself look retarded.

Bud Selig

Selig made himself look like an idiot in the last week or so. He trudged around behind Bonds for 9 games and then what Bonds tied the record the commish stood with his hands deep in his pockets and looked very disgruntled. He then declined to be present when Bonds broke the record. Hate to break it to you Bud, but all eyes are on you right now and you're making yourself look like a fool!

Obafemi Ayanbadejo

He has a cool name but the NFL suspended him for the first four regular-season games without pay for violating the league's policy on anabolic steroids and related substances on Thursday. He claims to not have knowingly infringed upon the rules and will pursue civil action against the makers of the product Max LMG.

Easter Weekend Roundup

I would first like to start off by saying Happy belated-Easter to everyone and I hope all you students out there had a good break. With no more college basketball to talk daily it's time to get ready to hit the NFL Draft and Major League Baseball (Sigh, I love summer). However, I'm feeling less than creative right now and a lot went down in the sports world over the last few days....I'll break it down for you

- I would like to welcome The Big Lead back to the blogosphere. I'm sure most of you readers already know what this is all about but incase you don't: Here it is. Even though Mr. Colin Cowherd apologized on-air (barely) I want to make sure everybody knows that he still sucks, and that was still a dick move.

- Arod officially won the hearts of Yankee fans everywhere for the next week and a half. He has started the year on a tear: .381 BA, 4HR, 11RBIs, .458 OBP. Thus making my fantasy baseball team, the BALCO busters, a one man show. The walk-off Slam against the O's was great (hint of sarcasm) but it is only the first week of the season. I think 2 curtain calls in opening week is enough and people are being a little too over-exuberant with this. Let's see how long this side of the love-hate relationship lasts.

- Zach Johnson out-Tigered Tiger to win the green jacket this weekend. The Masters is the only golf even that I really pay close attention too. I've been to the PGA Championship once before and it was a lot of fun to watch in-person, but on TV The Masters is all I really watch. I never really at any point that Tiger wouldn't win until he bogeyed number 17 on Easter Sunday. I'm always the kinda golf fan to take Tiger vs. the field almost always, but this just really wasn't Tiger's weekend. Without a round under par he was less than spectacular. For a change we saw a guy wearing blue (not red) pumping his fists on a Sunday of a major event.

-D-Wade came back to game action dropping 12 off the bench last night...I think that this restores the Heat's chances of going deepish into the playoffs even if he isn't 100%, but I don't see them getting by the Pistons.

- The Mariners and Indians series was postponed as Cleveland was pummeled with snow, also collectively taking a toll on my fantasy team (I need Ichiro to get the ABs). This makes things like say, oh I don't know, the retractable roof seem like quite the novel idea. And obviously MLB thought it was too as the Angels vs. Indians series has been moved from Cleveland to beloved Miller Park. Tickets will be 10 bucks and parking will be 8...so any displaced Angels or Indians fans may want to look in to that.

- Don Imus made a huge lapse in judgement when he called the Rutgers University Women's Basketball team something to the effect of "a bunch of nappy-headed ho's." Now I'm not black, nor a woman, but even I can see how terrible and unwarranted that was for him to say that. This may even make him a bigger retard than Mr. Cowherd.

- I'm told the NHL playoffs are starting...I don't plan to really write about it until the finals so if you are looking for some analysis or breakdown or whatever....look elsewhere.



*Chime in on any thoughts or comments in regards to these tidbits or any others you would like to add.*

The Glorious Guest Post: One Day Left in Augusta

Hello, friends. My name is Ted, and most of you know me as the author of this sub-par site, although I do blog other places. The good guys at Sports Flow invited me aboard as a contributor down the road; my first piece, right here and right now, will be about The Masters. The tradition unlike any other has a mere 18 hours until its resolution - until the green jacket is gracefully slid onto someone's trembling shoulders (that is, unless Nick Faldo goes commando style and throws the thing on himself, then runs off the course waving a shotgun at anyone who dares to stop him).




I'll be the first to admit: I don't know much about golf. One of my good friends can list every single Masters winner since 1951 from memory, and was listening to The Masters on the radio at 9am this past Thursday. I'm not him; I was more inclined to write this post about "Masters of their Domain," because I know far more about George Costanza and Darren McFadden (the truest master of his domain in the sports world) than I do about any of these guys. Still, here's my thoughts:

At work this morning - uh, yea, I work on weekends - one of my friends inquired, "Who the hell is Brett Wetterich?" Another, more knowledgable on golf, began to answer. When the first then re-upped the question ante with, "Does he have any chance here?" the latter came back with a simple, yet elegant, statement: "He's going to need a lot of diapers by the end of the day, he'll be pissing his pants so much."

Indeed, Wetterich is not high atop the leader board as Masters Sunday looms. Rather, a familiar face - who shouldn't necessarily be - is. Tiger Woods bogied the last two holes on Saturday, yet still finds himself in the final pairing with Stuart Appleby, who is really good at winning championships named after luxury cars, yet would probably validate his professional resume with this one. Nantz made a big deal on Saturday about how every Masters winner since 1991 has emerged from the final pairing to walk, and Woods - at the time Nantz was harmoniously poeticizing onward in the clubhouse - was not slated to be in that group. It seemed to be headed for Rose and Appleby, and then Rose gagged on expectations and various other pollutants, and Woods found his way to a familiar place.

My question for Masters Sunday, then, is: Can anyone stop Tiger? If he's walking in the final group, is he at all beatable? Knowing how he approaches things, and taking into account the fact that he cannot be happy about his two bogies at the end Saturday, do you really think he'd be walking the course in a remotely tight game on Sunday and bogy those holes again? Don't you think he'd probably birdie at least one of them, knowing him and his "there are no rainy days" devotion to excellence?

I do. Then again, I get all my golf information via Wikipedia - I was just saddened to learn that Stuart Appleby's wife died in a freak accident back in 1998, surprised to discover that Justin Rose is from South Africa, and humorously aghast that Nick Faldo changes wives with the regularity some people wash their hands - so I wouldn't necessarily trust my pearls of wisdom here. Harrington is 1 off Woods, Phil and Retief and D. Toms (he was on The Simpsons! Oh crap, that was Tom Kite) are 3 off his pace, and Ernie Els is hovering way back farther than he should be, ready to make an unprecedented Sunday drive.

The simple fact of the matter is, it's Tiger's to lose. He'll walk that back nine with the fierce determination and competitive fire you've come to expect from him, the same fire that single-handedly allows you to respect Stanford basketball more at the games he attends. There are no rainy days in Tiger's world, you see, and there are no April Sundays in Augusta that don't end with a little green.

Tiger on the Prowl

Tiger Woods is just coming off a nice comeback victory in the Buick Invitational. That gives him five wins for the Buick Invitational, tied for his personal best. Followed by that is his 4 times winning the Masters. His win at the Buick Invitational was his 7th consecutive PGA Tour Victory. Tiger is more interested in a fifth green jacket at the Masters than 11 straight victories on the PGA Tour, but at this rate, he might have a chance to get both.

All that matters to Woods is his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus' record 18 professional majors. Woods has won two majors during his PGA Tour streak, taking him to 12 for his career. Woods recently left for the Dubai Desert Classic (an 18-hour flight) and said he wasn't sure if his next PGA Tour event would be the Nissan Open at Riviera that starts Feb. 15, or the Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona a week later. He no doubt wants his game to be at its climax as he rolls into Augusta.

All this talk is great and I could hit you readers with almost all the stats on Tiger that you want, but I want to address some other questions that Tiger brings upon himself. As a sports fan, having even the slightest knowledge of statistics, one can deduce that Tiger (barring some golf-inhibiting injury) will break Nicklaus' record for Major titles. And also that Tiger will likely go down as the most prolific player in the history of golf (if he isn't already considered so).

One could argue that Tiger dominates his field of opponents like no one else in sports does; period. You just can't compare even what Peyton Manning does in the NFL as to what Tiger does to the PGA Tour. Not only will he go down as the most prolific golfer in history, but possibly the most prolific athlete in the last decade. What about when things are all said and done? Tiger retires to his luxurious abode in Orlando and spends everyday sitting between his beautiful blond wife and neighbor Roger Federer while watching Jr. hit it around the backyard. When we get to this point is it possible that we will be calling Tiger the best ATHLETE ever?