For golfers, spring begins with the Masters Tournament at the Augusta National Course in Augusta Georgia. The course is already getting ready for the 2009 tournament, to be held April 6-12. To get you in the spirit of the Masters, here are a few facts about the event:
The first event was held in 1934, with Horton Smith winning the tournament.
The Masters was originally called the Augusta National Invitational Tournament.
Horton won $1500; last year’s winner, Zach Johnson took home $1.3 million.
No tournament was held during WWII (1943-1945). Chickens and turkeys were raised on the grounds to support the war effort.
Jack …read more

The AT&T National Golf Tournament, co-sponsored by the Tiger Woods Foundation, is looking to move the July 4th event to Philadelphia’s Aronimink Country Club. The club’s members will vote on October 15th whether to accept the proposal to host the tournament there in 2010 and 2011. The previous host course, Bethesda’s Congressional Country Club is undergoing renovations to ready it for the 2011 US Open. A July 4th tournament in Philadelphia sounds fitting, somehow.

Michael Phelps, winner of eight Gold Medals at the Beijing Games and the hottest sports story of the month, has been compared repeatedly to Tiger Woods in the past few days. Certainly there are similarities:

Both have risen to unprecedented acheivement in their sports
Both are unusally tough mentally
Both adher to a regimented, seemingly crazy, work-out routine.

Still, one major difference–at least to me–appears. Phelps has yet to pass the test of sustained greatness as Tiger Woods has. But that’s just my opinion. Seemingly, everyone on the Web has an opinion on this issue. Below are just a few:World Golf …read more

I came across this video about Tiger Woods while looking for something else on YouTube this morning. I’d seen clips of his golf skills as a child, but never all together like this. This video shows his development from age 2 to 20. It’s amazing that his golf swing at around age 4 looks very very similar to his swing today. Yes, the concentration is there, but it’s also good to see that he was just a kid, too. Take a look:

On his Web site this morning, Tiger Woods announced that he will have additional Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) surgery on his left knee and will miss the remainder of the 2008 PGA Tour season.
Woods also disclosed that he suffered a double stress fracture in his left tibia, an injury that doctors attribute to his intense training and rehabilitation schedule in preparation for the US Open.
Said Woods about his knee injury, “I know much was made of my knee throughout the last week, and it was important to me that I disclose my condition publicly at an appropriate time. I …read more

Following his dramatic win yesterday in the 108th US Open, his 3rd Open win, Tiger Woods told reporters that he was “going to shut it down for a while,” meaning that he was going to give his knee a chance to heal properly following his surgery on April 15.
Woods also admitted that he had been advised by his doctors to skip the US Open. He declined to say whether he’ll be playing in the British Open, which begins July 17.
(photo © Newscom)

WOW! In what Tiger Woods called the “greatest tournament I’ve ever had,” the number one player in the world defeated the unlikely, but worthy challenger, Rocco Mediate to win the 108th US Open Championship. It is his 14th win in a major tournament and his third US Open title.
The win was not an easy one, however. Mediate stayed with Woods through 18 holes, sinking birdies at 13, 14, and 15, eventually watching Tiger sink a 10-foot putt at 18 to send the tournament into a sudden death playoff.
They returned to the 7th hole, a hole that has favored Woods …read more

Nike debuted its latest ad featuring Tiger Woods this week at the US Open. The spot, titled “Never,” shows scenes of Woods as a boy, young man, and adult, with a voiceover by his father, Earl. It’s especially poignant that the spot played yesterday on Father’s Day since Earl Woods passed away two years ago of cancer. Take a look:

I hope you didn’t have anything to do this afternoon, because the US Open’s not over yet. Rocco Mediate, a 45-year old tour veteran from Greensburg, PA is facing the best player in the world, Tiger Woods, in an 18-hole one-to-one playoff match to determine the winner of the 2008 US Open. Tee-off is at 9am PDT (noon EDT). The coverage starts on ESPN and continues on NBC at 2pm.
Yesterday’s round was almost as compelling as Saturday’s. Woods started the day with a double-bogey at hole #1 (again), leaving viewers to wonder about the state of his injured knee. …read more

When his knee hurting so badly that he sometimes grimaced in pain and used his clubs as a crutch to make his way down the fairways, Tiger Woods gave a master class in guts, concentration, and skill at Torrey Pines yesterday during round three of the US Open.
Five strokes off of the lead coming into the 13th hole, Woods eagled 13 and began a rally that would turn that five-stroke deficit into a one-stroke lead before the round was finished. In addition to the eagle at 13, he lucked into a birdey at 17th when his chip shot one-hopped into …read more