Running Tiger Woods thread

The players or the announcers?

Just FYI (though no one likely cares): I used to play in Putt Putt tournaments from my teens all the way through college. Never turned pro -- the entry fees for the pro division at the local tournaments seemed ridiculous to the impoverished young me and I wasn't nearly good enough to have won anyway -- but I won my share of amateur events. I was also a coach for the Junior Putters of America -- Putt Putt's little league -- and one of the kids on one of the opposing teams grew up to be three-time PPA national champion Alan Quinnelly.

 

Even if he did make the cut, how's he going to play four days in a row at the Open? Backs don't get better after age 40. Nothing does, but especially backs don't.

 

Pharmaceuticals.

 

They won't help the back.

 

Heh, I was a Putt-Putt fiend in my youth. Won 20+ trophies at the local joint. My best round was a 24 (12-under). On Saturday nights in the summer they would have midnight tournaments. Here I am, a 14-year-old kid, playing in a Putt-Putt tournament that ended about 1:30 a.m. After that, the real fun started. A bunch of twosomes would play $5 a round (with the winning twosome getting the pot). I developed a permanent case of the yips during one of those events. One of my shots hit a metal thingamajig that no player of my caliber would ever hit. Confidence shattered, I lost $35 that night (about two weeks of paper route money). And I haven't been able to putt for shit since.

 

You were better than me -- I averaged around 31, with an occasional dip into the 20s. On the other hand, I can still putt.

 

Oh, and I never played in a midnight tournament, but the local PP was open all night during the summer, so sometimes I would go with my brother and/or sister and play til the wee hours and stop at Denny's for a milkshake on the way home.

 

Closing time for the public on those Sat. nights was about 11. Then us tournament players would have the run of the place for an hour to practice. There was always American march music playing on the speakers. Then, at midnight, the national anthem, complete with someone holding up a flag on the 18th hole.

I swear it seems like it was another lifetime.

 

It was.

 

Woods says he hopes to play in the Masters. I don't think there's any way it happens.

Also out promoting his book on his 1997 Masters win. I'll read that.

Tiger hopes to play Masters: 'I love that event'