Tiger Woods Answers McIlroy's Challenge

 I'd sort of like to see this young upstart get his comeuppance, myself. According to the following article,
Rory McIlroy told the BBC he would love to face Tiger one-on-one in the Ryder Cup. 'Unless his game rapidly improves,' McIlroy said, 'I think anyone in the European team would fancy their chances against him.' Apparently, Tiger heard his challenge and offered a terse reply:  "Me too." I'd like to see that too, McIlroy!
    . . . June


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Careful what you wish for: Tiger Woods responds to McIlroy's challenge
Devil Ball Golf - Golf- Yahoo! Sports:

After all that's happened to Tiger Woods in the last year, after the Escalade and the fire hydrant and the 'transgressions' and the apologies and the tantrums and the divorce and the godawful play, we may have lost sight of an important fact: It's not that long ago that Woods was the best golfer on the planet, bar none. And thus, it may not be the wisest move, tactically speaking, for his competitors to get him riled up again.

Later this week, Woods and the 11 other best golfers of the United States will challenge their European counterparts in the Ryder Cup, a biennial tournament that's far closer in atmosphere to an SEC football game than, say, the Masters. The competition is cutthroat, the galleries are raucous, and there's actually trash-talking. No kidding. In golf.

Rory McIlroy, the Irish wunderkind, kicked off the verbal sparring a few weeks ago when he told the BBC he 'would love to face' Tiger one-on-one in the Ryder Cup. 'Unless his game rapidly improves,' McIlroy said, 'I think anyone in the European team would fancy their chances against him.'

Fancy this, Mr. McIlroy: Woods heard your challenge. When asked at a press conference about McIlroy's comment that he'd love to face Woods one-on-one, Tiger leaned forward and offered a terse reply:
"Me too."

Not bad. Not quite an instant classic like Ivan Drago's "I must break you" from Rocky IV, but it'll do for golf's purposes.

Woods has obviously known about McIlroy's comments for several weeks -- there was a rumor going around a tournament a couple weeks back that Woods told McIlroy "careful what you wish for" -- but, as always, Woods only speaks publicly when he absolutely has to.

The U.S. and European teams will play two days of team golf for 36 holes on Friday and Saturday. The two teams only play head-to-head singles matches on Sunday. Even that's a blind draw, so McIlroy only has a one-in-12 chance of facing Woods.


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Saturday Ryder Cup Matches On NBC Will Be Tape Delayed

 According to the article below, live golf will not be available on NBC on the Saturday of the Ryder Cup. Instead it will show the entire Saturday matches in tape-delay. If you're like me, you'll be quite happy that they've done this. It means that here in North America we can watch it comfortably during the daytime instead of in the middle of the night. For the purists, I guess they'd prefer to stay up all night.


    . . . June


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NBC will show Saturday Ryder Cup matches tape delayed
Devil Ball Golf - Golf- Yahoo! Sports:

In a move that will make golf fans shrug their shoulders at Leno over Conan, the National Broadcasting Company, or NBC for short, announced that this Saturday, during the second day of the Ryder Cup, Americans will not be allowed to watch live golf.

Nope, the network that seems to make its decisions wearing a blindfold and tossing dull darts at a random decisions mat, won't give us live golf for 33.33 percent of the Ryder Cup this year, and that my friends, is ridiculous.

On Friday we get live golf. That's because ESPN has the rights to the opening day of play, and will show live golf from 2:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET. While the argument could be made that ESPN doesn't have anything else to show at that time on Friday, it still gives us live golf. This is 2010.

NBC won't do that on Saturday. Instead, it will show tape-delayed golf from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET. That will change on Sunday, when it decides to show live golf again, showing the singles matches from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET.

What does all this mean? Here's what it means: If you are a network that can't find it in your schedule to show a big sporting event live, you should forfeit the rights.

Put it on MSNBC. Or CNBC. Hell, put it on Telemundo or Bravo for all we care. You have the outlets and resources to do so, and a lot of Americans care about this golf event as much as any of the majors. If you aren't going to show this thing live, then at least let ESPN or some other network show it live in the early hours, and you can show the tape delay later in the day.

It's ludicrous, really. As my good friend Chris Chase over at Busted Racquet has had to endure countless times with this network, NBC just doesn't get sports anymore. It bumps things to make room for Notre Dame, which is now 1-3 for the season, and continues to be the NBC of the college-football season (stubborn, confusing and downright putrid).

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'Tiger Woods got me to Ryder Cup' says Lee Westwood

 According to the article below, Tiger persuaded Lee Westwood to let his injury heal properly, thus making him healthy for the Ryder Cup. So Lee Westwood will be playing on Colin Montgomery's International Team and  Tigerwill be traveling to Celtic Manor this week as  part of the Corey Pavin's US Team
    . . . June


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Lee Westwood: Tiger Woods got me to Ryder Cup
Golf, Sport - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk:

Lee Westwood has said that it was Tiger Woods' advice that persuaded him to take a six-week break and get himself in what he calls “100 percent shape for the Ryder Cup”.

“I played with Tiger in the first two rounds of the Bridgestone [Invitational] back at the start of the August and I was struggling with my ruptured calf muscle,” the Europe star said.

“Tiger saw me battling on and said to me, ‘God you're stubborn. What are you doing?'

“What he said resonated with me and I thought maybe I should look at this a bit more sensibly, withdraw from that event and the following week's USPGA and do the rehab properly.

“Tiger's right, I am stubborn and if I'd carried on playing I probably wouldn't be at Celtic Manor.”
That he will be is a huge relief to his captain Colin Montgomerie in the run-up to the big showdown, which starts on Friday.

“It was dodgy for a while and that was why I was so pleased when I had the text off Lee two weeks ago saying, ‘don't worry, I'm ready'. He brings a consistency to the team that the others can rely on,” said Montgomerie. “From a captain's point of view to have that sort of player you can rely on is absolutely vital.”
Nevertheless, Montgomerie is prepared to let down Westwood, who has stated his desire to play in every session.

“I think Lee possibly won't play five matches,” he said.

In fact, Montgomerie is considering taking the unprecedented step of resting all his players in at least one of the sessions. Yesterday, Thomas Bjorn, his vice-captain, explained the rationale.

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