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Tiger Wins! Now How Long Will We Have To Hear About It?

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He won. And for real this time. This time it wasn’t just an over-abundance of highlights showing the third place finisher. This time it wasn’t the media basically handing him the win after the second round. He actually won this time! And I gotta tell ya, I’m not looking forward to hearing about it.

I can picture it already. ESPN will be dropping to their knees (as usual) for Tiger. They can’t wait to just ram it down our throats. As a matter of fact, I think I’m going to just avoid watching ESPN for the next couple of days. Well, outside of Monday Night Football of course.

But seriously, Friday night ESPN was already handing the tournament over to Tiger again! Do they understand there are four rounds to a golf tournament? Watching SportsCenter, I saw one of their sidebar stories state that Tiger had a “Big Lead” after the second round. So I stuck around to see how big it was. Three strokes. Really? Three strokes is considered a “Big Lead” halfway through a tournament?! Well, I guess when Tiger holds the lead it is. Even after the third round, when he lost the lead, it was still all Tiger high-lights. Zach Johnson was just an after thought.

Seriously, come on. When is that stuff gonna stop? People were growing tired of Tiger before his “transgressions.” More were sick of him afterward. And now, even more are just sick and tired of him and the media who continues to just shove him down our throats! I know it’s going to be all over ESPN, so the only saving grace I have is the NFL.

One place where ESPN has not lost any understanding is that the NFL comes before just about everything else. It comes before baseball. It comes before basketball. It comes before college sports (obviously this does not include World Series games or college championships and bowl games). And it certainly comes before golf. Of course, at the time of my writing, SportsCenter has yet to air. But if history is any indicator, Tiger’s victory will not lead after a day an NFL Sunday. But, I can only hope.

However, could you imagine if this victory came outside of football season? I think I would physically choke on the coverage. Add another reason to the list that football is my favorite sport.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

Fueling A Passion For Golf

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I’m a pretty big sports fan. Always have been. Although I was too young to remember, my mother tells me how my father would keep me up at night as a toddler to watch Monday Night Football. It probably dates back to those days, but ever since, I’ve been a huge football fan.

It was my father who really introduced me to sports. My first pro football game was with my dad and two of my friends. The first pro baseball game I attended was a Mets-Cardinals game, also with my dad, as well as my uncle and a neighbor of his. Even my first pro basketball experience, a Knicks playoff game, was with my dad and two of his work buddies.

I’ve tried to do the same with my boys. I’ve taken them to their first pro baseball game as well as their first pro basketball game. We’re still working on football and a PGA Tour event is also on the horizon. I’ve found that a father-son connection helps create a love, or passion, for sports in general. But along the way, I’ve also discovered something else that has fueled my passion for sports…memorabilia.

Sports memorabilia helps keep me connected with my youth. When I first started collecting memorabilia, I did it strictly for monetary reasons. All I could think of was how, years from now, I’d be able to cash in on my acquisitions. However, as time went on, I started to realize my collection meant more to me than dollar signs. I began to realize how the thousands of sports cards, hundreds of autographs and various pieces of sports history brought me back to a time when I didn’t see sports as a business. It brings me back to the days when I would come home from work at night to find my father in front of the TV watching a ball game, waiting for me to join him. It reminds me of those games I attended with my dad.

I wonder if this is a reason I don’t have this same passion for golf or golf memorabilia. My father played golf a few times…found he didn’t care for the game…and promptly retired his clubs. Therefore, I wasn’t introduced to the game until my fellow stinky golfers lured me in roughly twelve or thirteen years ago. Had I been introduced at a younger age, I may view the game differently than I do.

Now, years later, I’ve gotten my boys interested in football, basketball, baseball…and somewhat, golf. I’ve seen this done by having me pass along my passion for the sports. However, they have seen my collection of memorabilia and have begun to show interest just as I did, and right around the same age. Maybe that’s the secret.

So maybe it’s time I start looking into some golf memorabilia for the boys. Then again, maybe it’s time I start looking into it for myself as well. After all, I haven’t completely ruled out financial gain…

Swing ’til you’re happy!

From Greens To Gridirons

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This is my favorite time of year. The days are getting cooler and more comfortable. The nights are becoming, what I refer to as, “sleeping weather.” Soon, the leaves will be blazing with the foliage of another beautiful Connecticut autumn. It doesn’t get any better than spending a few hours out on the course on a Saturday morning in September or October. But not Sunday! Why not Sunday? Well, becaue of another reason this is my favorite time of year. It’s football season!

Since I began playing golf, I try not to let much get in the way of being on the course. Sometimes I can’t help it. Things happen. I can’t control the weather. And with my wife being a photographer, sometimes her appointments, sessions or weddings get in the way. But hey, it’s better for her to be making us money, than for me to be spending it, right? But the one thing that I will always allow to get in the way of golf is the NFL. I will put away my putter in favor of my Patriots.

I have long been a fan of football. Ever since I was just a little kid and my dad would keep me up at night to watch Monday Night Football. Nothing has changed since then. As a matter of fact, I find myself doing the same thing with my boys now. The minute the Super Bowl ends, I long for September to come around again. I want to spend my Sundays lounging in front of the TV with a beer, eating chips and wings. I’ll play golf on Sunday, but I have to be home by 1:00.

However, as much as I love football and look forward to the start of the season, I guess it is a bittersweet feeling as well. Because when the football season is just starting up, that means golf season is winding down. So I begin to reflect on another season of golf. I look back on another season in which I didn’t get to play nearly as much as I would have liked. I don’t really reflect on my performance all that much. For me, it’s more about quantity than quality. I think back on some of my favorite rounds. I look back and appreciate playing a course I’ve never played before, or one I haven’t visited in a few years. I try to remember the good rounds and forget the bad. There’s usually not a whole lot of good rounds for me to remember!

But along with the disappointing feeling of another golf season coming to an end, is the feeling of knowing I am also entering my favorite part of the golf season! Often times, we will try to save some of the best courses for last. Courses we know have the best views of the changing leaves. The prettiest courses in autumn. There’s nothing like standing at the top of an elevated par-3, hitting your ball into a sea of reds, oranges and yellows, followed up by searching for the ball in the woods while the fallen leaves crunch beneath your Foot-Joys. How about playing a course with a few holes that wind around an orchard right when the apples are in season. There’s nothing like eating an apple picked right off the tree. And it’s even better when I can simply drive my golf cart right up to the tree, and pick out the best one I can find. Now that’s great golf.

So let’s all enjoy these last few weeks of the season. Forget your score for a while. Don’t try so hard. Don’t take it so serious. Enjoy the beautiful weather and comfortable temperatures. And if we’re lucky enough to have that “golf weather” last deep into the year, then let’s just enjoy the fact that we’re out on the course at all! Just not on Sundays after 1:00.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

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