UPDATE: Tiger Saving Golf

This is an update to the blog I published after Tiger's heroics on 18 last night. In a paragraph down at the bottom and a subsequent blog last month, I made the case for Tiger Wood's return being the return of golf as one of the most viewed sports in the world.

Well after his breath-taking win yesterday, overcoming a 5 shot deficit and winning for the first time in nine months, all added up to major television ratings, according to this ESPN.com article. According to the article, the Bay Hills tournament provided the largest overnight television ratings for golf since the U.S. Open last year, coincidentally Tiger's last victory on the PGA Tour.

"NBC Sports said the final round drew a 4.9 overnight rating with a 10 share. According to Nielsen Media Research, that's the highest rating of any golf tournament since the U.S. Open in June. Woods won that tournament in a playoff."

What is even more amazing is that during that time period there were two more major golf tournaments. There are 4 major tournaments in golf every year, the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship.

"The Bay Hill rating was up 23 percent from last year and attracted more viewers than the British Open and PGA Championship last year when Woods did not play because of knee surgery."

This further proves that without Tiger, the PGA will suffer until it can find a comparable player. Woods has reinvented golf's popularity and can be credited for almost all of golf's success in the past decade, pulling in millions of viewers each tournament and encouraging many more to take up golf. Now I am clearly talking about golf within the United States, as many other countries have their own heroes where Tiger is still a large icon. The question is, how will the PGA market its tournaments once Tiger is gone? How will the PGA make up for the ratings and lost revenue once Tiger decides to hang up his golf spikes for sandals?

These are questions that PGA marketers should be thinking about now, looking for that next great talent that could one day take over as the PGA's main draw. That was the problem when Tiger took a leave of absence almost a year ago for knee surgery: the PGA didn't have a player that they could sell to get people to watch. They tried with young fireballer Anthony Kim and attempted to revive Phil Mickelson's popularity, but there wasn't a following like Tiger's.

Just look at the crowds following Woods all day long and tell me when on the tour last season that happened without him in that group. Never. The fact of the matter is is that golf needs Tiger here in the U.S. Without Woods, golf in the U.S. will falter and screech to a halt, without that player to idolize and fall in love with. I also believe that is the reason that soccer has never taken off in this country as it has in others and that is because we don't have a national hero to watch and follow as he takes on competitiors around the world.

So my question to you is, how will the PGA survive when Tiger Woods decides to call it a career? Where will those advertising dollars come from? With what we've seen in how much Tiger affects the ratings every single tournament and can single handedly be responsible for keeping the PGA afloat during these economic times, it's hard to imagine a replacement ever coming along who can have the impact he has had this sport. On any sport for that matter.

Hear me ROAR! Tiger's Baaaack!

What a putt. What a tournament. What a beginning to the 2009 PGA Tour season!

No more than 30 minutes ago, Tiger Woods drained a 20-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole at Bay Hills to defeat Sean O'Hair by 1 shot and cap off an incredible comeback, not only today but for the year. Woods came into the day five strokes back of O'Hair, (7-under compared to 2-under) and if Tiger were to win, it would tie his largest comeback ever in his career. As many of you may be aware of, Tiger had reconstructive surgery on his left knee, his plant knee, after winning the U.S. Open in 2008 and this was his third tournament since returning, just his second stroke play event.

I turned the golf tournament in time to watch Tiger tee off on hole number 1, part of the final group with the aforementioned O'Hair and Iowan Zach Johnson. The scene was being set by Tiger early on, after making birdies on 2 and 3 and a bogey by O'Hair cut the lead from 5 shots to 2 in just three holes. The lead would then fluctuate between one and two for the rest of the front nine and the beginning of the back nine, that was when Tiger turned on his magic.

It began on hole 14 where Tiger made an incredible up-and-down from the bunker, sinking a 15-foot putt that seemed to move both ways. Woods followed that up with a 25-foot birdie putt on 15, tying him with O'Hair at 5-under par with three holes remaining. The air was thick with tension, you could cut it with a butter knife. You knew once Tiger got it back to even with the leader that he had the ability and the prowess to put it into overdrive and run over those puny PGA players.

On hole 16, Tiger hit his drive into the thick rough and O'Hair hit a bomb down the middle, putting the advantage into O'Hair's hands due to the lake surrounding the front edge of the green. Before Tiger could lay up, O'Hair made the mistake of the tournament, misjudging the headwind blowing into his face, dropping his ball on the edge of the bank and watching what seemed like his tournament chances go kerplunk and sink to the bottom of the lake. Tiger had 101-yards to try to hit his third shot and save par and hit his approach to three feet - a shot you knew Tiger was going to hit, it's almost become surreal. He tapped in for par while O'Hair tapped in for bogey and Woods took a one shot advantage into the final two holes.

But, Tiger reopened the door for O'Hair by burying his tee shot on the par 3 hole into the front bunker, settling for a bogey while O'Hair two-putted for par. And so the story was set, Tiger Woods and Sean O'Hair were tied at 4-under going into 18. Here is how Tiger won this same tournament last year, tied on the final hole with a birdie putt to win (start at about 1:15):




So with the stage set, Tiger and Sean each hit drives down thw fairway and after O'Hair put his shot on the green about 35-feet away, Tiger stepped up and hit a high, cutting 8-iron that spun back on the green to about 20-feet. After O'Hair left his putt short, the pencil was on the paper, ready to write a conclusion to this storybook comeback. With the world watching as the sun disappeared behind the houses, Woods stepped up and hit a beautiful putt that rolled...and rolled...and...gone.

The crowd erupted, Tiger exploded, his caddy clenched his fists and with that putt golf is back. The PGA Tour struggled mightily last season after losing Tiger for the year with his knee surgery. It seemed to lose the excitement and thrill that Tiger Woods brought to the table. But now, just 3 weeks away from the Masters at Augusta, Tiger has single-handedly recaptured the flame that was lighting the path for golf's success. He has brought back in the crowd lost when he went away. Just look at the reaction Tiger Woods making the putt last year and the energy and enthusiam he brings to the table every single tournament. Him throwing the hat, the crowd rising up with cheers, it all adds up to an event that everyone has to watch.

Tiger is back and just in the nick of time. Congratulations Mr. Woods, you have been missed.

These videos give me goosebumps everytime.

Death By Hamburger

According to an article on Yahoo! News, the West Michigan Whitecaps, a minor league affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, is offering a colossal snack that could have you dead by the 7th inning stretch. The snack? A 4,800 calorie hamburger that measures in at 4 pounds in weight and will set back a Whitecaps fan $20, more than the cost of admission to get in.

The hamburger features:
- a sesame seed bun made from a pound of dough
- five (5) 1/3 pound beef patties
- five (5) slices of cheese
- one (1) cup of chili
- lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream and nacho cheese
- corn chips
- salsa

According to another article, "In addition to weighing in at more than double the US daily recommended caloric intake, the Fifth Third Burger contains nearly 300 grams of fat, 744 milligrams of cholesterol and more than 10,000 milligrams of sodium"

The benefit of eating such a behemoth sandwich? If you are daring enough to eat the burger in one sitting at the game, the Whitecaps are going to reward you with a free t-shirt. Maybe they should cover the emergency room fee and any impending artery replacement surgery that will need to take place after attempting to kill yourself with this treat. For those that want to split the bodacious burger, the concessions will cut it with a pizza cutter and serve it in portions.

When I first saw this, my jaw just dropped. My question is, is these economic times, who in the hell is going to spend $20 on a hamburger, let alone one that will put in a mini-coma if you attempt to eat it all. The burger weighs just a little less than that of a small newborn baby.

Secondly, how do you even approach this monster to eat it? From the picture, the hamburger looks to be the size of that intern's head and seems as though the normal human couldn't digest this thing even with a chainsaw and a pitchfork. It's no wonder these country has such a problem with obesity.

Well for one, this club has sure generated enough publicity with this hamburger story and maybe that was their plan in the first place. Needless to say, this whole article leaves me feeling bloated just looking at it.

Here is a look at how the Fifth Third burger is made...beware:

Fifth Third Ballpark Burger

Spring Break Rough Draft

This is a rough draft for my Spring Break column about my trip and experience to Omaha for the Creighton-Kentucky NIT game.


After driving two and a half hours through high winds and tornadic thunderstorms, arriving at the much hyped Creighton Bluejays-Kentucky Wildcats basketball game seemed like a fitting end to a perfect storm of events to cap off a rather boring Spring break.

While most students enjoy exotic trips to South Padre or anywhere outside of Nebraska for that matter, I was stuck in Kearney for the majority of Spring Break working for the Tri-City Storm hockey team. After learning that my favorite basketball team, the Creighton Bluejays, would be hosting the all-time winningest program in NCAA history, the Kentucky Wildcats, I knew that I had to make a pilgrimage to the Qwest Center in Omaha to view a match-up that would almost never happen again.

Now, using my credentials as a sports photographer for The Antelope, I was able to take advantage of a couple of connections I had at Creighton and obtained a press pass to grace the court with my camera. I’m used to taking snap-shots at Division II games, but this would be by far the toughest assignment I had to date. The pure athleticism at the Division I level was going to be very difficult for a newbie.

I made the trip with a close friend and a friend of his, both of whom had tickets in the upper bowl, with myself having a seat within feet of the players. The journey there was perhaps the most difficult trip I have ever made from Kearney to Omaha, traveling through two thunderstorms and fighting winds of up to 60 miles per hour on the interstate.

The second storm we passed through followed us along the interstate and actually ended up dropping two tornadoes, one in Lincoln and one just past Omaha in Iowa. While waiting in a traffic jam in downtown Omaha, the storm had caught up with us, prompting a tornado warning, which sent people that were walking to the game into a full out sprint. We got inside before anything happened and everyone was ushered into the center of the Qwest Center.

After a short while, everyone was allowed into the arena and the spectacle began.

I entered the arena through the southeast corner and upon walking in, I took a look around in pure amazement. For as far as the eye could see, all you could see was blue and the word “Creighton” or “Bluejays”. Everyone knew the importance of this playoff match-up and the magnitude of this team visiting Omaha.

Even the god’s wrath of hell and fury from the skies couldn’t keep the Bluejay faithful from creating one of the most exciting atmospheres I have ever been a part of as a sports fan. There were students with paint all over, covering their faces as a type of war symbol, prepared to go into battle and fight for their team.

The first basket of the game was a three-point bucket from Creighton guard P’Allen Stinnett and the entire gym erupted in a thunderous explosion that put the small rumbling from the skies to shame.

Combining the energy of the student section and the electricity of the rest of the crowd, I found myself down on the court getting just as pumped up as the rest of them. It didn’t matter that this was just a college basketball game, people of all ages came and showed the rest of the country on national television that Omaha can create an atmosphere worthy of recognition.

Despite losing the game, the experience for me was one I will never forget, ranging from giving a high five to a player after he made a shot to a 70-year-old woman “raising the roof” during a timeout, the entire journey was worth risking my life on the road.

Creighton-Kentucky Photoblog

I know in class we just discussed EB's photoblog she posted of Nebraska (sorry I don't have a link) and Dr. Hanson said this is something we shouldn't do on an everyday basis. But before we even mentioned this, I had the idea to take a bunch of pictures from the Creighton Bluejays - Kentucky Wildcats NIT game and post them in a special photoblog, for those who a) didn't see the game or b) didn't get to see the game from my perspective on the court.

This game was my first time photographing a Division I basketball game and I must say, the game moves at such a faster pace with players who havemore athleticism than DII players. The pace at which the players moved in their half-court offensive sets almost made it impossible to known where the ball was going. The game featured star SEC player Jodie Meeks, who is likely going to be drafted in the 1st round of the NBA draft this year. Meeks scored 54 points in a game earlier this year against Tennessee (a NCAA Tournament team) and that broke the school's all-time single game scoring record. At a program like Kentucky, that's a pretty big deal. So without further adu, I bring to you some pictures of my view from on the court.

The game began with the "Blue Crew" running out the flags before the game. This guy stood in the middle of the arena waving so much this giant flag as the crowd went wild. Shortly after, the Creighton Bluejays ran onto the court to begin their pre-game warm-ups.





After the conclusion of introducting the starting lineups, the Bluejays huddled together in a circle to get pumped for the battle they were preparing to fight with Kentucky. In the middle is guard P'Allen Stinnet, showing the pure emotion that had built up the week leading up to the game. In the background is center Kenny Lawson (25).




Center Patrick Patterson, one of the top centers in the SEC, threw down some monster dunks against a slighlty overpowered Creighton team. This was his first dunk of the game before sitting out the rest of the first half after collecting two fouls in the first five minutes of the game.





Junior forward Justin Carter (1) of the Creighton Bluejays drives the ball around No. 5 for Kentucky, Ramon Harris. Carter played huge for the Bluejays scoring only 8 points, but collecting a career-high 14 rebounds against a very tall Kentucky team. For most of the night Carter was flying all over the place grabbing rebounds from between the trees that the Wildcats have for players. However, it was Carter that missed two free throws with 36 seconds left that would have made the game 65-62, instead of keeping it 63-62 and having Kentucky win the game with a three-point play with 10 seconds left.





Another shot of Justin Carter (1) putting up a fairly uncontested shot, one of my better and clearer pictures of a Bluejay taking a shot. The lighting in this building was so much better than the Health and Sports Center here in Kearney.










Center Kenton Walker (41) of Creighton puts up a smooth low post hook shot that found nothing but the bottom of the net late in the second half against Kentucky. He fired the shot over Kentucky's Patrick Patterson (54), who Walker had the task of covering throughout the night, along with Bluejay Kenny Lawson.











We once again find the rowdy "Blue Crew" who pumped up the Qwest Center all night long. This was taken after a turnover and a media timeout late in the game with Creighton winning. You can sense the rush of pure energy going through these students as they cheer their team on. Take note UNK students...





This is one of my favorite pictures of the night. After Creighton guard Booker Woodfox missed a game-winning three point attempt and Kentucky star Jodie Meeks came up with rebound, the horn sounded and game over, 65-63 Kentucky. He ran down the court and was pointing to somebody, almost looks as though he is pointing to the next round of the NIT. Perfect picture for a future NBA player to autograph.



Freshman guard Antoine Young (30) shows the disappointment after losing the game to Kentucky 65-63, in a game that Creighton controlled most of the night. Young is just a freshman and played some big minutes for the Bluejays, but went 0-5 from the field after scoring 12 points in the Bluejays first round NIT victory.






Well there ya have it, some pictures I selected to show you all from my camera at the game. Below are some more images in smaller size, I believe you can click them and make them larger, but I hope you enjoyed the view from my eyes that I had on the court last night.

March Madness

So how is your bracket doing?

To anyone else outside of America, this would seem like a crazy question and would be followed with the response, "what the hell are you talking about?" But that question can only mean one thing here, it's that time of the year. It's that time of the year when hoards of people join office pools, slow down internet servers across the country and cuss more than they ever have at the television, all for college basketball. It's that time when the pencil (or pen) meets the paper and average people's lives are being put on the line in hopes that a 12-seed will take down that 5-seed.

There are so many combinations and possibilities in each bracket that it can cause someone's head to explode with statistics. What is it about "March Madness" that brings out the inner fan in every American, not just sports fans. College basketball during this month can cause rifts between families and believe it or not, it is the number one cause for divorce in America. Okay, I made that part up, but harmless pride competitions between family members involving brackets can cause the most heated disputes that are sometimes worth of being televised on Jerry Springer.

As the games are being played over the next couple of weeks, bracketologists (members of society who partake in the bracket filling festivities) will take off work and lock themselves in their basements, surrounded by 8 television screens, each one playing a different game. As the games play out, they have all 42 brackets they filled out lined up in front of them, using bunson burners and schematics to score each one, prediciting what will happen in each game, down to the number of sweat drops that will fall off of the center's nose in the 4th quarter.

Now...this has all been exaggerated to the fullest extent, but for those who take this March Madness seriously, they know I'm not that far-fetched with this example. The NCAA Tournament, as Kelly put in her blog, create maniacs out of the most docile people and can even "make grown men cry". I am guilty of this, sitting on a futon the past three days following NCAA action, not sure which team to root for since I have 20 brackets currently filled out. I get asked which team I want to win and i can't legitmately answer because I filled out half my brackets with one team and half with the other.

With games getting down the wire, I find myself rooting for the underdog, even though them winning would destroy every one of my brackets. But March Madness has a certain control on our lives that persuades us to fill out these brackets, even if we have never watched college basketball before. We are three days into the tournament and people are already hanging up their Syraucse basketball shorts from 1984 and calling it quits.

So how is your bracket doing?

Oh and by the way, since they keep adding teams to the tournament, recently expanding the field to 65 instead of 64 to include one extra "play-in" game, this video gave me a good laugh at what the NCAA Tournament could become.

Selection Committee = Garbage

Tomorrow will begin the week where office cubicles will become ground zero for what is known as March Madness. Today, the NCAA Major Conference Committee, I mean, Selection Committee, met and debated for hours as they figured out what teams would make it into the 65-team field for the Division 1 NCAA Basketball Championship. Louisville, Connecticut, North Carolina and Pittsburgh were determined as the four No. 1 seeds for the tournament, which was no big surprise. But I have a huge problem with one of the selections made by the Major Conference Committee and it deals with a school close to where I'm from, which may seem like a bit of bias, but I guarantee you that it is not.

The selection I had the biggest beef with is the committee's selection of Arizona over Creighton. Now let me defend it with a bit of research so it doesn't seem like this rant is coming from a diehard Bluejay fan, which I am. Let's take a look at the records of the two schools:

Arizona: Overall 19-13 (9-9 Pac 10), 6-10 against RPI Top 50, lost 5 of last 6 games, RPI 62

Creighton: Overall 26-7 (14-4 Missouri Valley), 3-2 against RPI Top 50, won 11 of 12, RPI 46

Now for those of you reading who don't know what RPI is, it stands for Ratings Percentage Index and it is a way to determine how teams should stack up against one another. The formula for calculating RPI is 1/4*(Winning Percentage) + 1/2*(Opponents' Average Winning Percentage) + 1/4*(Opponents' Opponents' Winning Percentage).

The NCAA Selection Committee selected Arizona as an at-large team to play in the NCAA Tournament, while Creighton was left out and became a No. 1 seed in the NIT, college basketball's "other" tournament.

It's like a tournament for the Island of Misfit Toys...teams that just didn't belong with the other schools in the bracket.

While watching College Gameday earlier this morning on ESPN, I had the opportunity to listen to analysts Jay Bilas and Digger Phelps attack Creighton as they compared them to Arizona. All that Digger could muster up was that Arizona had a better lineup, so that clearly made them the better team. Which Joe Lunardi, ESPN's Bracketologist, responded, "then why have they only won once in the past 3 weeks?" I got a good chuckle out of that one. On the other hand, Bilas was attacking Creighton, not so much against the Bluejays, but stating that due to the Pac-10 Conference being that much better than the Missouri Valley, that Arizona deserved the bid.

Well let's take a look at the conference's overall records:
Missouri Valley: overall record of 176-143
Pac-10: Overall record of 192-128

So with each conference having 10 teams, that leaves the average record in the Missouri Valley to be 17.6 wins and 14.3 losses, while in the Pac-10, the average season was 19.2 wins and 12.8 losses. A difference of only 2 wins and losses per team does not give enough credibility to say that that conference deserves a bid plainly on the status of their conference. The Pac-10 did have three ranked teams, but none of them ever really reached the top-10, nor did they have a consistant stay within the top-25.

And perhaps an even more telling sign of which team did better AWAY from their home court, Creighton was 9-4 on the road and Arizona was 2-9.

Arizona lost 5 of their last 6 games, including their first game in their conference tournament. Creighton was winners of 11 of their last 12, with their loss coming in the semifinals of their conference tournament. The facts are plain and simple, the selection committee gave only 2 of their at-large bids to "mid-major" conferences (Dayton and Butler), which Creighton defeated one of the two. Yes, Arizona played 16 games against the RPI Top-50, and that is the ultimate reason they were selected for the tournament. It's hard to compete against conferences that feature a couple of ranked teams, because when you play them twice in a season, that's automatically two games against the RPI Top-50.

Is the selection committee rewarding subpar performances over solid play over an entire season? Yes, finishing 9-9 in a "power" conference is somewhat solid, you have to look at the entire conference. So are you telling me that if Creighton had scheduled games against Duke and Kansas and Oklahoma, but lose, that they would have been selected with a worse record but a higher RPI for losing to teams ranked very high?

In the end, it all boils down to the money. The Pac-10 can generate more revenue than the Missouri Valley conference. When it comes to travel and merchandise, teams from a "major" conference will almost always win out over a school from a "mid-major". That is something that bracketologists forget to figure in when determining their projected bracket, and that is the almighty dollar, which team can generate the NCAA the most amount of money.

This is just my general opinion, but I feel it is pretty close to the truth. While both teams are worthy of being selected, when you can look at the overall body of work compiled by the teams, Arizona should have played their way out of the tournament, while Creighton couldn't have done much more other than winning their conference tournament.

I'm sure fans from Penn State, St. Mary's and San Diego State have the same arguments that I do for their respective teams and probably have a valid point, but I do feel Creighton was the biggest snub, based on the strength that they finished the season with and overall resume. Oh well, at least they can take down the NIT.