KEY POINTS:
There are a host of superlatives that can already be applied to young golfer Danny Lee but the one to forget about is any comparison to Tiger Woods.
Lee-and-the-Tiger talk slipped into the pages of this newspaper again yesterday, like an oversized driver being used for a regulation
tap in.
Hands up here, because I played a part in this a few weeks ago when I wrote that the Rotorua prodigy showed a Tiger-like ability to redesign his game despite success.
Should have known better.
"Watch out Tiger," screamed the headline.
The only bloke Tiger watches out for is a golfer who hasn't swung a club in anger in years. Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 majors is within sight, which is more than the rest of the professional ranks can say about Tiger.
This latest comparison between a fabulous amateur from Rotorua and one of the two finest golfers who ever strode the planet claimed Lee "has been tipped to be as big as Tiger Woods, if not bigger".
Bigger than Tiger ... really?
For a start, Lee will have to beat Tiger, and a lot of experienced golfers out of high-class junior programmes have found it difficult to the point of impossible already.
That's the same Tiger Woods who won his last major title - the US Open - on one good leg and after an exhausting full-length playoff.
Exhibit one in this case for a dose of reality is the much-heralded Sergio Garcia, the man from Spain whose bids for majors keep going down the drain. Then there is grumpy Colin Montgomery, Europe's finest for umpteen years who couldn't win his own precious Open, let alone a tournament of any type in the United States.
The world of professional sport is incredibly demanding. Just ask Wayne Rooney, the darling of English soccer, the great new hope, the most instinctively skilful player of his generation, who now struggles to realise all the promise at wondrous Manchester United.
Who knows what lies around the corner for Lee, but Tiger Woods is a maze of twists and turns away right now.
It is fair to predict that Lee has a brilliant professional future ahead of him, that he can challenge for the biggest trophies in golf. If he manages to scoop a couple of majors then it will be very satisfying indeed. He may not even make it that far.
To suggest that Lee will get close to winning 14 majors is bizarre to the point of ludicrous, and despite Tiger's worrying knee problem you can bet your last golf ball that he is still vigorously counting.
* There's a new player in town ... insanely rich Arabs have bought Manchester City and the English Premier League won't be the same again. Manchester United have landed the big fish for now. Dimitar Berbatov has joined them from Spurs making United mild title favourites. But United's cross town rivals have landed a shark with the potential to gobble up Alex Ferguson's outfit. They say City's new owners make Roman Abramovich - the fully loaded Chelsea owner - look distinctly middle class in the money stakes.
Money doesn't just talk in the Premier League. It screams. And the Big Four has just become the Big Five.
* What to say about Wade McKinnon and his spitting-at-a-touch-judge charge.
For starters, you can count out the Warriors' opening defensive line about his injured jaw, a double mouth guard (whatever that is), and his constant need to spit. A lot of people need to use motorcars but that doesn't give them a licence to drive up the footpath. Even a serial spitter is duty bound to take care about where his projectiles are heading. What are the Warriors suggesting - that McKinnon is so spit reliant that the rest of the world has to get out of his way?
By the norms of many sports, he is free to spit as much as he likes. It's not the amount that is the problem here. It's the direction. The video clearly shows that McKinnon turns his head to spit, that he could have gobbed it straight up State Highway One but chose to nip down a backroad where he must have known the touch judge was.
And he has form in the official-hassling department. Serious form. The not-so-strange thing about these sorts of cases is that they often involve the usual suspects. You don't find the likes of Steve Price up on these sorts of charges, even though Price was almost obsessed with challenging the referee during Sunday's strong victory over the paper-tiger Panthers.
As for the Warriors, their protestation of McKinnon's innocence is worthless, because every club defends every player unless it is in their interests not to do so. Funny thing that - the only players who ever admit to anything are those who will get a lesser sentence if they do. And in many ways the clubs are forced into these positions because to do otherwise invites player dissatisfaction (not to mention the problem of losing players to suspension).
It would be nice to think that clubs and coaches were strong enough to be more honest, but that just isn't a good policy because players react badly when they are hung out to dry by their bosses. You can't really blame them. And as bizarre as some defence cases are, they are nothing compared to what you can hear in a real court of law.
As for McKinnon's case, the touch judge had no doubt at all that McKinnon intended an insult at him. And it was a fair old gob-full delivered with force.
I actually doubt whether the weight of proof would be strong enough in a real court, but McKinnon is in serious trouble by sports tribunal standards. And that means the Warriors are too.
My mind is made up, absolutely. It was a deliberate insult made by a hot-headed player who was upset at a decision. McKinnon needs to find a way to control the over-spill of his emotions.
(For the record, has anyone noticed McKinnon's supposed propensity for spitting prior to Sunday's incident, or heard it mentioned before?)
* Heart-warming news from the provinces. Bay of Plenty rugby says that Jamie Nutbrown has been given an early release to play overseas "in return for his commitment and loyalty". Nutbrown has played a whopping 28 games for BoP since arriving from Canterbury a mammoth 2 1/2 years ago. He will play his last game this weekend.
In other words, he is quitting mid-season, before the job is done, after relocating because he couldn't get a decent break in his home town. The Chiefs must be absolutely delighted with this show of undying dedication to their cause and we now await their press release praising the contribution of Nutbrown to civilisation in general.
No one can overly blame Nutbrown for quitting a semi-professional career for a more attractive one overseas, especially when his major employer - the NZRU - bestows lucrative sabbaticals on a favoured few while expecting the rank and file to grin and bear a different set of rules.
But please, please, please, spare us the "commitment and loyalty" rubbish. Did Bay of Plenty read this line somewhere else and think, oooh, that's a good one, that's the sort of thing to say in this day and age.
What do they take us for?
* The world has slipped back into normality despite the extravagant claims of pretentious IOC boss Jacques Rogge. All that unity and goodwill appears to be sadly lacking around the Russian/Georgian border. A bit of javelin throwing in Beijing hasn't exactly swayed Vladimir Putin and the other principals involved in what some believe is a re-emergence of Cold War tensions. The only Bolt that mob are interested in is the sort you find on a rifle.
Despite the dropping of trade barriers around the world, religious, ethnic and national passions - which can range from competitiveness to downright hatred - will survive and flourish. And the foolish words of an egomaniac IOC ain't going to change that. In fact, to be so dismissive of the real forces that rule and tragically ruin so many lives is insulting.
* A final word on tonight's rugby match in Taranaki ... it simply doesn't deserve test status. Why it has been accorded this is an absolute mystery. Maybe the NZRU was afraid Samoa would put up a team of no-names.
