Xtra, Xtra, read all about it, Tiger turns to Christianity for salvation

TV VIEW:WE ONLY discovered by accident yesterday that golf still exists in America when we were trying to locate the whereabouts of Sky Sports Xtra, the channel having done a bit of a Tiger Woods, disappearing entirely from view.

We deemed it unlikely it had checked in to a sex addiction clinic in Mississippi, Cape Town or Arizona, so there appeared to be no reasonable explanation for this vanishing act.

It was during our search we solved the mystery, stumbling upon a channel, Sky Sports 4, that we didn’t know existed. It was, we assumed, something Sky had giveth us to make up for taketh awaying Xtra, until we learnt they are, in fact, one and the same.

Unkindly, perhaps, with the odd exception, we always looked upon Xtra as the channel that showed sporting events only one man and a dog really wanted to see, so when we found it showing the Sony Open in Hawaii yesterday we wondered if this summed up the state of telly golf in the absence of himself. Were Fido and his owner the only ones tuned in?

If that’s the case, then the sport needs Tiger to return to action, pronto. To golf, that is, not the other. But when will this be possible? Well, we heard Brit Hume suggesting a fast-track back for Tiger when we switched on Fox “fair and balanced” News during the week, a channel we only ever watch when we’re in the mood for annoying ourselves. You know, yourself.

“So, you’re still telling Tiger Woods that he might consider Christianity as a path to redemption?” asked Bill O’Reilly.

“Boy, I really hope he does,” said Brit.

We had no clue what was going on here, but we learnt that Brit had used some of his air-time to urge Tiger to convert to Christianity, and suggested that only then would his soul be sufficiently cleansed for him to earn the right to swing his clubs again.

In other words, he needed to put God in his golf bag, and not just his four-iron.

“Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer,” said Brit, “but whether he can recover as a person I think is a very open question, and it’s a tragic situation for him. I think he’s lost his family, it’s not clear to me if he’ll be able to have a relationship with his children.”

Quite how familiar Brit is with Tiger’s relationship with his children he didn’t say, you just had to take him at his word that he knew more about the issue than possibly Tiger himself.

“The extent to which he can recover seems to me to depend on his faith,” Brit continued. “He’s said to be a Buddhist – I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world’.”

Brit, you should know, is Fox News’ senior political analyst, so this struck us as being a bit like, say, David Davin-Power using a moment on the Six o’clock news to urge, say, Thierry Henry to repent and turn to Jesus.

Or Sky News’ Adam Boulton, in the middle of a chat about Prime Minister’s Question Time, advising the English cricket team to allow God in to its collective heart.

Poor old Brit, though, got a right pasting for bringing God in to golf, although, to be honest, judging by the profiles of most American professional golfers, he’s already there – He is generally rated third only to hunting and the Republican Party as the love of Tom Lehman and Co’s lives.

So, Brit turned up on the O’Reilly Factor to defend himself. “I’m still glad I said it, I’d say it again, I’ll reiterate it here,” he insisted, telling us he had benefited enormously since committing his life to Jesus Christ “in a way that was very meaningful”.

Bill nodded solemnly, and agreed Tiger was driving down a spiritual cul-de-sac with Buddhism because it “has no concept of sin”.

“So, within that religion there isn’t the redemption that you have in Christianity,” he said. “No,” agreed Brit.

Whatever about “fair”, all of this left us guessing Tiger is probably more balanced than most of those offering him advice. He should do a deal with them, promise to be a good lad from here on in if they promise to keep their hooters out of his religion.

When Brian O’Driscoll tires of media intrusion he should probably just be grateful he hasn’t Brit getting a hold of his soul. Mind you, after Saturday, Leinster fans might be tempted to commit their lives to the Irish captain in a way that is very meaningful.

“Were you born under a fairy thorn tree or were you sprinkled with gold dust at birth,” Sky’s Mark Robson asked him after his late bonus-point-clinching try against Brive. “Ah, it was just a case of right place, right time,” he said. Amen.