Grip on Sports: Sympathy not a word previously used in association with Tiger Woods

Friday:  I’m not the biggest Tiger Woods fan. Arrogance turns me off.

Woods was as arrogant as one could get – up until that night in Florida about seven years ago. The night his wife found out about his infidelities. Since then, the golf gods seem to have knocked the arrogance out of him. As well as the ability to compete at the majors.

It’s a Greek tragedy in 18 acts. Though the opening round at Chambers Bay was more of, to use Ian Poulter’s term, a farce. At least as far as Woods was concerned.

He hit his opening drive nearly perfectly, splitting the fairway and setting up an easy approach on a tough hole. Then he buried his 6-iron in the ground and pushed his shot into the junk. The stage was set. Woods bungled his way around the course, following double-bogeys with hard-to-believe pars. He made spectacular shots and some of the worst-looking ones seen this side of Downriver. He got mad, he got frustrated and, finally, he just started laughing. A par putt would go in and he would shake his head, then share a joke with also struggling partners Rickie Fowler and Louis Oosthuizen.

The smiles seemed out of place for a guy who famously declared his intention to win more majors than anyone. And had the laser-like focus to, seemingly, get it done. The only thing laser-like yesterday was the 3-wood he hit on 18. You know the one I’m referring to, the one that looked like you or I hit it, a topped ball that never got more than a foot off the ground and found its way into the deep bunker in the middle of the fairway, a bunker that seems more for show than anything else. Yet there he was, descending a series of steps and disappearing from view in a hole no one ever thought he would be in.

A fitting metaphor, no?

Woods’ troubles are basically self-inflicted, from his well-documented philandering to his seemingly endless tinkering with his once-best-in-the-world swing.

As he struggled his way around Chambers Bay, an unforgiving course with a few features only Hades could love. Appropriate, in a way, because Woods, once a seeming lock to pass Jack Nicklaus as the most prolific major champion ever, is now in his own hell. His body isn’t strong enough to hold up to the rigors of a game that is in disarray. His mind isn’t strong enough to overcome the problems with his game.

In his last 15 rounds, he’s shot in the 80s three times. Golf is better when its highest-profile players are playing their best. No one has a higher profile than Tiger.

But right now watching him play is painful. He doesn’t walk, he trudges. He doesn’t lash at the ball, he hacks at it. And he doesn’t elicit jealousy or admiration, only sympathy.

Who could have seen that coming just a few years ago?

Wednesday: If you are ever asked why soccer isn’t accepted in the mainstream of American sports society, all you have to do to explain your answer is show the video of (Tuesday) night’s Sounders’ U.S. Open Cup match with Portland.

First off, two MLS teams less than a 180 miles apart playing this early in U.S. Soccer’s premier tournament is a joke. Then the Sounders, as home team, pick their uniform. They go with black. U.S. Soccer lets Portland wear dark green. The two are almost indistinguishable. So does U.S. Soccer, the governing body of the sport in this country, enforce its rules and tell the Timbers to change? Nope. So Seattle switches to white at halftime.

That just scratches the surface of the problems.

The refereeing is so poor the game gets out of hand. Brad Evans, a member of the U.S. National Team, is given two yellow cards – the second on a play that was completely mis-called by the referee – and ejected.

Then one of the MLS’ best players, Obafemi Martins, is injured in a particularly rough stretch. That left the Sounders down two men – it’s 11 on 9 – but only for a while.

Another red card ejects another Sounder and Clint Dempsey, the nation’s best player, is ejected for arguing. (Well, more than arguing. He grabbed the notebook out of the referee’s pocket, threw it on the ground, then picked it up and ripped it apart.) Nice.

The match ends with Portland playing 11 and Seattle seven. What a joke.

Last year, when the Sounders got past Portland in the Cup, Timbers coach Caleb Porter called the officiating the worst he had ever seen. So I guess the folks at U.S. Soccer wanted him to know he was wrong. It could get worse. And it did.

Tuesday: I had noticed last night the Blackhawks and the Los Angeles Kings had traded the NHL title back-and-forth the past four years. And the San Francisco Giants had won three of the last five baseball titles. Plus the Spurs were last year’s NBA champs (and Golden State won this year’s title).

What do all those teams have in common?

They play in the western conferences of their respective leagues. And, in theory, it should be harder to win playing your home games on the wide side of the country. After all, the travel for western teams is always, no matter the sport, tougher than for their eastern counterparts.

There is only one problem with a West-is-dominant-for-some-unknown- reason theory: the NFL. Of the last few champs, only the Seahawks play in the West. So while the western teams dominate recent hockey, have won 12 of the last 16 NBA titles, and three of the past five World Series, the overarching theme crumbles thanks to the NFL.

So just forget it. Geography doesn’t matter. The West isn’t best. (Well, it is, but not in this sense, thanks to Tom Brady.)