HOLD THE BACK PAGE:YOU'VE GOT TO wonder what Vuong Dang Phong, the original "Tiger," would make of it all. He was the Vietnamese soldier who was such an influence on Earl Woods he called his own son in his honour. Didn't name him, mind, for the concoction of Eldrick – his given name – was created by the golfer's mother so that it started and ended with his parents' name: E for Earl, K for Kultida!
Tiger I died in a POW camp after the fall of Saigon, but his friendship, fortitude and loyalty in the throes of battle left such an indelible mark on Lieut Colonel Woods on his call of duty that his third son would live on in his memory.
In a little over a fortnight’s time, Tiger Woods – the greatest player of his generation and most probably of all time – will return to golf after a five-months absence with some scar tissue of his own. Ironically enough, the Ringling Bros and Barnum Bailey Circus have been entertaining the good citizens of Augusta these past few days and are due to haul up stakes tomorrow; but you’ve got to figure the circus that will arrive in town with Woods Co for the US Masters will the greatest show, not just in this town, but any town, of the year.
After days and weeks and months of getting it wrong in terms of handling his public image, finally those associated with Woods would appear to have got it right in deciding his return to competition should occur in a place where the tournament’s history and the controls which Augusta National places on its patrons – spectators – would mean the player will at least have the opportunity to get back on tour with some grace.
Will we ever get to know the real Tiger? Well, that’s another question entirely. For sure, in his near decade and a half of dominating golf’s majors and becoming the highest profile sportsman on the planet, nobody really got to know him. What chance do we have now? The protectionist policies he is likely to be cloaked in will make those around the Cold War seem like a leaking sieve.
Questions need to be answered. Like, what really happened in his Isleworth home that night where he felt compelled to plough his SUV into a fire hydrant (admittedly not the first time he drove into water, as anyone who remembers his opening tee-shot at the 2006 Ryder Cup at The K Club will recall)? Like, what was his connection with the controversial Canadian doctor Tony Galea, and what role did the medic play in Woods’ recuperation from knee surgery?
Like, how many showgirls and waitresses and whatever was he involved with during his marriage? The answers are unlikely to be divulged, though. I’ve been to enough Tiger Woods press conferences and got up close in mini-huddles post-round outside of recorders’ huts to know nobody really gets to know who he really is. And all the cloak-and-dagger secrecy and drip-drip revelations of his off-course shenanigans that played out like some cheap Hollywood movie in recent months have only served to reaffirm that belief.
Even in the good times, there was no getting to really know Woods; definitely not from his press conferences. Sure, he was eloquent. Sure, he talked and talked. Occasionally he would personalise it by throwing in a “well, Doug” or “Steve” but, in the main, they were sanitised affairs that lasted maybe half-an-hour and left you in no doubt he was the one in control.
Can he hold such control upon his return? Woods will attempt, as he has always done, to let his clubs do the real talking. It’ll be a tough ask to come out of five months hibernation with all the brouhaha associated with his return to the sport and win straight out. In fact, only one man, Ben Hogan, winner of the Masters in 1951 and 1953, has won the green jacket when making the tournament his season’s opening event.
If Woods can shake off the rust accumulated over the past few months and get into contention over the back nine on the Sunday, it would prove to be the sporting event of the year – even in a World Cup year! Thankfully, for those armchair viewers, it is on terrestrial television. I, for one, am looking forward to being there in the flesh.
But do spare a thought for the two players who will be paired with Woods in the first two rounds, whenever the draw is made. Whoever gets to share the stage with him could just well be handed the worse deal in the history of the game. This is not the time to get up-close-and-personal with Tiger.
Hoping St Gall’s spur on Antrim
ST GALL’S, MORE than any team given the turbulent times the club have lived through and yet still thrived in, should enjoy their success in the All-Ireland football club championship. It would be especially sweet if the west Belfast club could now act as a springboard to aiding Antrim become a true force when the time comes to deciding Ulster titles and even the destination of the Sam Maguire.
History, though, tells us there is little or no correlation between a team winning the All-Ireland club title and its home county going on to win Sam in the same year. In fact, you have to go all the way back to 1998 – when Corofin won the club and Galway the All-Ireland senior crown – for the last double-whammy.
Even in the heady years of that great Crossmaglen Rangers team which won four All-Ireland club titles in five years – including three-in-a-row from 1999 to 2001 – there was an inability to bring that winning club feeling on to national county stage.
Ironically, Armagh did win the Sam Maguire in 2002, a year when the demands on the club were not as great as Derry’s Ballinderry took the Ulster club.
If the winning feeling inherent in St Gall’s can somehow be brought on board by the county team – even down the line – then Gaelic football will be the real winner.
McCririck takes wrong tack on O’Connell
ESTIMATES MAY vary about how much Dunguib, the Irish “banker” of the festival cost, punters. Wild figures of between €30 and €40 million were bandied about with as much scrutiny, we suspect, as Irish bankers were put under by the financial regulator in the days of the Celtic Tiger.
But I have to say fair play to jockey Davy Russell, who made no secret of his displeasure – and I suspect the majority of those in the weigh room – about John McCririck’s televised remarks vis-a-vis Dunguib’s young jockey Brian O’Connell.
It would have been easy for Russell to wallow in the glory of the moment of his own victory aboard Weapons Amnesty in the RSA Chase on Wednesday but he had other things on his mind. Instead, when Derek Thompson pushed the microphone into his face within seconds of his win with Weapons Amnesty, Russell took the opportunity to have a real go at what he termed McCririck’s “cowardly” verbal assault on O’Connell.
McCririck was also described as “an oaf” by Ted Walsh when talking to Des Cahill on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland on Thursday, which would seem to indicate the vast majority of those who really matter in the racing world have lost all respect for the man.
Roman in the gloaming
CHELSEA COULD yet go on and win the English Premier League. But I doubt it. The proof that this team is running on old legs was provided in the Champions League on Tuesday night and the manner of their complete and utter deconstruction by Inter Milan.
The fact that former boss Jose Mourinho was in charge of the Italian club – and, in fairness to one who doesn’t normally shy away from the camera, he made a discreet exit down the tunnel at the full-time whistle – inevitably had many misty-eyed Chelsea supporters wondering why he was ever allowed to leave in the first place.
In most clubs, though, there is usually only room for one ego; and, in the case of Chelsea, the multi-billionaire owner Roman Abramovich is not only the man who holds the purse-strings, he also possesses a self-image that will always make it difficult in the long run for managers with similar personalities to work alongside him.
Mourinho, Avram Grant and Big Phil Scholari have all learnt this the hard way. When he parted ways, Mourinho more than anyone knew the once so-sweet relationship had become irreparable.
But you’ve got to hand it to Mourinho for the way he put his money into the transfer market to pluck the likes of Samuel Eto’o, Wesley Sneijder, Lucio and Diego Milito for his Inter team. They are top-class players.
Abramovich, for all of the millions he has pumped into Chelsea and the swinging-door policy of hiring manager after manager to achieve that end, must now face up to the fact he may never get his paws on the Champions League trophy. And for those of us who are sick to the teeth with the amount of money and greed involved in soccer, there may be a small taste of justice if that scenario holds true.
Oz give youth its head - not like us
THERE SEEMS to be a real and alarming contrast between the Australian and Irish attitudes to emerging young talent in sport.
A couple of weeks ago we had the quite head-scratching situation where a 14-year-old athlete – Siofra Clerigh-Buttner – was disqualified for being too young after literally running away with the national women’s junior cross country championship.
Down Under, they seem to adopt the quite different philosophy of “if you’re good enough, you’re young enough”. During the week, 14-year-old swimmer Yolande Kukla beat the world championship winner Marieke Guehrer in the finals of the Australian 50 metres butterfly final. Her reward? A trip to the Commonwealth Games in India later in the year.
Kukla’s acclamation for her sporting endeavours made for quite a contrast to the fate that befell Clerigh-Buttner for her sporting excellence, where her gold medal was unceremoniously taken from her.
