It's Just Not Fair

Written By Tom DeRiggi

Allow me to read to you guys a quote that was texted to me by my Uncle Kenny, an avid sports fan and golf fanatic on Sunday, after I told him what Tiger did on the 18th hole...

"I'm home. Just saw it. Relatively speaking the greatest sports figure/athlete in history of sports. Michael Jordan just went to 2."

Immediately I defended Jordan because he's my idol and still in my mind the greatest athlete to ever play a professional sport. But my uncle brings up a good question in reference to Tiger Woods... just how great is he really?

Well Sunday afternoon he proved it. I wasn't able to watch every hole as we were at my cousin's surprise party because he won this little competition in Atlantic City, I think it was the New Jersey State Wrestling Championships or something. Apparently it's a big deal, but he's won it twice though so it must not be that big. I Digress. Anyway, I tuned in for the last 4 holes once the party settled down to watch my man Tiger completely just prove that he may be the most ridiculous current athlete in professional sports. You can't even measure how talented he is because he keeps out-doing himself. This was only his 3rd tournament back from arthroscopic knee surgery, and I feel that people don't understand the severity of his injury in terms of the sport that he plays.

I had this conversation with my uncle yesterday about the recovery time and the amount of playing he missed. Golf is such a technical game and requires patience and the discipline of an Asian school boy. (Ok Bad example) But seriously the amount of time to get your complete game back is astronomical compared to other sports. So what did Tiger do after his injury?

Nothing that special, just over came a 5 SHOT deficit....in one round, and hit a 16 foot putt sloping down and to the right...on the 18th hole...ohhh no big deal. Every tournament that Tiger plays in ends up having some kind of suspense. People forget that before he got hurt he was on an absolute tear; I don't have the exact statistic but he had won like 7 tournaments in a row and then got hurt and then STILL won the US Open in 5 rounds.

Tiger makes us appreciate a sport that, If I'm being honest, no one would give a damn about otherwise. So I'm telling you now If you haven't watched Tiger on a Sunday, you should really consider it because its consistently the most exciting thing in sports, and Tiger, as much as it pains me to say, may be the best athlete in terms of recognition and accomplishments we have ever seen.

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A little round up of the weekend's NCAA Tournament.

Best game of the tournament happene Saturday night. Check me off the, "Officially on the Villanova Bandwagon" list. Scotty Reynolds made one of those Christian Laettner/Brice Drew type of game winners. Granted they're going to have a tough time against UNC, I'm pulling for them.

I can't even begin to express my frustrations with Louisville. For once I can't agree with what Rick Pitino did. Usually an up-tempo type of team like Louisville SETS the tempo. But Rick Pitino dropped back into a 2-3 zone allowing Michigan State to take 25 seconds off the shot clock every time, and you combine that with high shooting percentage from Michigan St and lower shooting percentage from Lousiville, you got one hell of a recipe for a garbage game. Louisville's inability to make shots didn't allow them to set up their press and therefore they dropped into a 2-3 zone which was exactly what Michigan State wanted. I don't know what you were thinking Rick but that was probably the worst game you ever coached. 52 POINTS???? Thats disgraceful. Can you tell I picked them to win the whole thing??

Back In a few days to give you the Final four and Championship predictions.