Cheap Seats

He really is Tiger Woods

And he’s not even in the Nike commercial. Robert Aldred can hit a golf ball 140 yards and make par on 345-yard holes - and he’s only 4 years old.

He just turned 4 three weeks ago, but he’s become an honorary member of the municipal course in Warley, England, after stunning the club pro with his drives, accurate chips and putting ability.

“At first I thought it was luck, but he does it far too often for it to be luck,” said his father, Bob Aldred. “He started off when he was 18 months old. We bought him a metal driver with a plastic head and some plastic balls. Unfortunately, he found one of my real golf balls and disintegrated the clubhead.

“After seeing what he could do as an 18-month-old, I decided to cut some of my clubs down to size for him. As soon as he got hold of them he was whacking balls all over the place.”

And letting his playing partners yell, “Four!”

Blown save

Mitch Williams, the “Wild Thing,” has been called up by the Kansas City Royals and waits for work in their bullpen. He hadn’t worn a major league uniform since the Angels released him on June 19, 1995.

He did have an excellent off-season, though - on the cattle-roping circuit.

Williams, who tends horses and cattle on his farm in Hico, Texas, said he “won a couple of belt buckles and a saddle” at local competitions.

“But I gagged at the big one, the U.S. Team Roping Finals (last October) in Oklahoma,” said Williams, whose baseball career blew up in the 1993 World Series. “I got the first three (head) but missed the last one completely.”

It must have been shaped like home plate.

Pattern baldness loves company

Indians shortstop Omar Vizquel notes that, “Last year, when I took my hat off during the national anthem, a couple of my friends saw my bald spot and asked if I was growing a golf course up there because they saw some sand traps. Now I stand next to Matt Williams and they don’t notice it.”

Skunked

Hard to believe there’s a beer you can’t sell to the hockey crowd - though maybe it’s because this hockey crowd is in Sweden.

It’s Borje Salming’s import - Upper Canada Lager - and it’s selling so poorly in Sweden that the state-owned liquor stores are taking the former Maple Leafs defenseman’s brew off the shelves for good.

The beer was a success when the Hall of Famer started importing it to his native Sweden in 1992. But the market has been flooded with imports and domestic micro brews recently, hurting sales.

Something tells us it hasn’t hurt sales in Upper Canada.

Ah, the pomp and pageantry

Bob Baffert’s Cavonnier lost by a nose in the trainer’s first trip to the Kentucky Derby last year. When he sends Silver Charm to Kentucky this weekend, he will have learned from the experience.

“You have to stay focused on your own horse,” he said, “keep him happy and sharp, don’t second-guess yourself, and, on Derby Day, try not to throw up.”

The last word …

“When are you media gonna realize that people are going to look up to us no matter what? So you might as well build us up.”

- Deion Sanders

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo