Woods Won and Done 'Till 2009

Following up from my post on Monday, Tiger Woods was apparently so badly injured during his remarkable U.S. Open run that he will undergo season-ending knee surgery that will force him to miss the remainder of this year's tournaments and majors.

Two weeks ago, Woods suffered a double stress fracture in his left tibia (knee) that caused him most of the pain he encountered at Torry Pines. He did not discover the fracture until before the Memorial Tournament at the end of May and barely had enough time to rehabilitate it before the U.S. Open. This was following an arthroscopic knee surgery on April 15, two days after Woods finished second in the Masters.

Now, in addition to rehabilitating the fracture, Woods will undergo surgery to repair his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the same knee. What is most interesting about the ACL injury is that it actually occurred in 2007 while Woods was running at his home in Orlando after the British Open. He said he decided not to have surgery at that point, and he went on to win five of the next six events he entered.

"While I am obviously disappointed to have to miss the remainder of the season, I have to do the right thing for my long-term health and look forward to returning to competitive golf when my doctors agree that my knee is sufficiently healthy," Woods wrote on his Web site. "My doctors assure me with the proper rehabilitation and training, the knee will be strong and there will be no long-term effects."

One can only hope his doctors are right in this case. Even though it came out of Woods' own mouth, many pundits did not agree that Monday's U.S. Open victory was his greatest major win to date. With a stress fracture and ACL injury hampering his drive strength, shot quality and walking ability...is there really any doubt?

Ham Sandwich?

Sorry for the late post today, was down in Miami at an interview and away from the computer. Let's hope it was all worth it!

Now, let us discuss Game 1 of the NBA Finals. After sitting through three quarters of glory, my Los Angeles Lakers pick fell apart during the fourth. That's OK. More importantly, I was dismayed to see how the Lakers and Kobe Bryant especially handled the Boston Celtics' defense and rebounding. Granted they are going into the game undersized, but the Lakers are certainly more talented from top to bottom.

Even more interesting, aside from predictions and results, was Paul Pierce and his "injured" knee. I put "injured" in quotes because, let's face it, that seemed to be a bit of a ham job. You cannot have it both ways. You either get carried out (which was funny enough on its own) , put into a wheelchair and sit out the game or come back much later after being worked on, or you hobble your way to the locker room, get a cortisone shot and go back on the court.

To see Boston rally behind either an overblown (maybe even fake) injury really turned my stomach. Sure there are die-hard Celtics fans, but where have these people been the last decade? First there were the New England Patriots fans that appeared out of nowhere, then "Red Sox Nation" which encompassed all true die-hard Sox fans and soon all New York Yankees haters and now the Celtics are the big ticket?

If I had my own dictionary, front-runner and Bostonian would be synonyms. As would ham and Paul Pierce.