Watchdog

HBO's "Real Sports" isn't the only show debuting at 10 p.m. Tuesday that is due for a free plug on the blog today.

And I actually did watch a lot of the preview DVD for "Highway 18," a Golf Channel reality series in which teams of players run around performing assorted tasks, some of them golf-related, over 10 episodes and 1,000 miles.

It's difficult to explain. It's sort of a golf road rally. But at times in the premiere episode, it seems like a parody of a reality series, complete with a duo of attractive, young, blonde females named Ashleigh and Ashley. No, really.

Come to think of it, all of the females on the show are young and attractive.

Whatever. I'm pretty sure it is not a parody. As everyone knows, it's difficult to parody reality shows, because they are parodies of themselves.

What makes this one unusual is that it attempts to bring together two demographics that rarely intersect: golf fans and reality show fans.

Arnold Palmer guests on the first episode. I'm going to take a wild guess that he is not a big reality show guy.

Holy Hogan!

I owe the game of golf a big apology for making fun of its presumed irrelevance this summer in Tiger's absence.

Greg Norman leads the British Open by two strokes after 54 holes, and now will be paired with defending champ Padraig Harrington in the final round.

Tiger's absence was supposed to open the door for others who have been denied titles because of his brilliance. Instead Norman decided to bypass the entire Woods era and drag us all back to 1993.

Amazing.

Chris Evert has been having an effect on men for nearly 40 years now. But this is her greatest achievement yet.

ESPN/ABC announced today that Tom Watson will be joining the broadcast team for the British Open as an analyst.

Of course, that's not the big news in the announcement. The shocking part is that they're still playing pro golf this Tiger-less summer. Who knew?

Sunday was all about tennis in the sports world, but evidently they still are playing golf without Tiger Woods.

Who knew?

CBS carried something called the AT&T National Sunday. I don't know what happened in it. But the network's Verne Lundquist and Nick Faldo interviewed the absent host about his troublesome knee.

Click below for a transcript.

Here is a news story I wrote for the Saturday newspaper:

NBC golf analyst Johnny Miller apologized Friday in the wake of complaints from some viewers that his comments about Rocco Mediate Sunday could be interpreted as anti-Italian slurs.

“I apologize to anyone who was offended by my remarks,’’ Miller said in a response sent by NBC to viewers who expressed concern.

“My intention was to convey my affection and admiration for Rocco’s everyman qualities and had absolutely nothing to do with his ethnicity. I chose my words poorly and in the future will be more careful.’’

During the fourth round of the U.S. Open, Miller said Mediate “looks like the guy who cleans Tiger’s swimming pool,’’ and later added, “Guys with the name Rocco don’t get on the trophy, do they?’’

The apology came a day after the anti-defamation arm of the Sons of Italy demanded an on-air apology as well as a suspension of Miller.

The Sons of Italy said in a news release, “If Johnny Miller had made a similar remark about Tiger Woods, he would have been fired.’’

Here is my official WatchDog the blogger take:

Yes, my bushy uni-brow rose when Miller said what he said, knowing he was walking a fine line of political incorrectness. But I thought it was obvious he evoked Rocco as an everyman type name, not as an Italian one. Look at it this way: If Boo Weekley had been in contention, Miller might have said exactly the same thing. If some guy named Giuseppe had been, he probably wouldn't have.

No offense whatsoever to the great Willis Reed, but what Tiger did last weekend was more impressive than what Willis did on May 8, 1970.

Woods won the U.S. Open on one leg. To match Reed, all he would have had to do is hit his first two shots on the first hole Thursday, then let Walt Frazier take over from there.

Discuss among yourselves.

Here is the main part of my Friday newspaper column. It's about golf and tennis, but doesn't mention Maria Sharapova.

I found it on our Web site before 9 p.m. Pretty soon my Friday columns are going to start showing up on Newsday.com on Wednesday.

It's a strange new world. The rest of the column will appear automatically on the site overnight via a computer feed of some sort. I will link to it in the morning.

I guess I'm just a lemming when it comes to sports fads. When tennis was big in my childhood and young adulthood I could not have imagined preferring to watch golf.

Now it's hard to imagine preferring tennis to golf, especially after last weekend.

Oh, my. Tiger is out for the year?

Keep the tournament organizers and TV executives away from sharp objects! For many millions of Americans, the golf season just ended.

Yikes. You won't be reading information like this for a while:

ESPN's U.S. Open coverage from 12 to 2 Monday was the most-viewed golf telecast in cable TV history, averaging 4.2 percent of homes that have ESPN and 4.76 million viewers - on a weekday afternoon!

NBC then attracted 7.6 percent of all homes in 56 major markets for the 2 to 4:45 p.m. slot, including the dramatic conclusion.

Promise to Jim Nantz: I won't make fun of you if the music and words accompanying Tiger's return, just in time for the Masters next April, veer a tad toward the sappy side.

CNBC's Darren Rovell, a loyal WatchDog reader and Roslyn native, reports that Tiger and Rocco pretty much caused the wheels of U.S. commerce to grind to a halt Monday.

Well, OK, that's an exaggeration. But still . . .

Those 19 holes at Torrey Pines Monday garnered some pretty good ratings for NBC. Duh!

From 2 to 4:45 p.m., the U.S. Open averaged 7.6 percent of homes in 56 major markets, including 20 percent of TVs actually in use, way better than the percentages the last time the Open finished on a Monday, in 2001 (4.0/12).

Many people watched on the Internet. One site that carried it, NBCSports.com, set a record for the site with 9.14 million page views and 2.03 million unique visitors.

West Palm Beach (14.0), Fort Myers (13.0) and Tampa (12.5) led the 56 major markets in Monday's ratings. Buffalo (9.9) was 10th!

New York? Tied for 43rd, at 6.4.

One more thing I meant to mention in my Tuesday newspaper column about NBC and Johnny Miller:

Another of Miller's first guesses came when Tiger Woods was on the 13th hole Saturday and in huge trouble after an awful drive. He said an eagle could turn around the tournament.

An eagle? From where an insurance salesman from Encinitas had just been standing?

Sure enough, he made the eagle and turned around the tournament.

On the negative side, my counterpart Richard Sandomir of The New York Times made a good point about the coverage, writing that Miller and his colleagues are heavy on the golf jargon for an event that attracts many casual fans of the sport.

OK, end of golf. Back to baseball.

Here is my Tuesday newspaper column.

I initially planned to include a variety of items in it, but as the drama unfolded Monday I ditched everything else and went all-Tiger, just like the TV networks do!

Two things I didn't have room to mention:

For all of the NBC announcers' meticulousness and knowledge, it's strange how often they fail to hazard a guess at the lengths of putts. That included on Tiger Woods' tying effort on No. 18 Sunday.

Also, New York-area viewers living and dying with every shot Monday were stunned when Ch. 4 broke into the show at 3:54 p.m., just as Tiger was lining up for his second shot on 18, to give us a tornado warning from some northern county.

Yo, dudes, unless the tornado was coming up my block at that moment, it was not time for an interruption!

Thankfully, it wasn't the fast-working Rocco Mediate who was about to hit, but rather the methodical Woods, and NBC did not miss a shot.

Sigh. Good night, all.

Remember how this morning I was complaining about the lack of drama in most U.S. Open 18-hole playoffs?

Never mind.

Speaking of Tiger's popularity (see post below), could it be that one factor is his biggest moments usually come at around 7 p.m. Eastern Time (or in this weekend's case, 9 p.m.) when the biggest moments in the NBA, MLB and NCAA come at around midnight?

My children have been watching Tiger since 1997.

They never have seen the end of an NBA Finals or World Series game, or the end of an NCAA basketball or BCS football championship game.

As every sane sports fan well knows . . . The USGA's insistence on playing a full playoff round on Monday for the U.S. Open was, is and always will be an awful idea, a profound anti-climax that is unnecessary - especially for a West Coast Open that left ample time for playoff holes after the 6 p.m. PDT finale Sunday.

Sigh.

The good news is that unlike every other Monday playoff in Open history, for this one many people have high-speed Internet connections at work, and thus will be able to watch on USOpen.com, NBCSports.com and ESPN360.com, assuming they have understanding bosses and co-workers on the sensitive issue of blatant goofing off.

By the way, why is ESPN showing the first half of the playoff and NBC the second? Because that's the way the TV contract is set up.

(P.S. I hope Tiger appreciates how respectful I have been toward his wife in my selection of images over the months. I'm leaving many page views on the table, sir!)

I know many other people feel this way, and like me, feel guilty about or at least confused by the emotion:

How is that I find myself rooting for Tiger Woods down the stretch of major championships when as an American sports fan I should be pulling for the underdog and as a journalist I should be pulling for the better story?

How can you not root for Rocco Mediate, a good-natured, nearly-as-old-as-me, grew-up-down-the-road-from-Arnold-Palmer, barely-made-the-field qualifier over a cyborg with a Swedish model wife - a guy known for robotic interviews and for throwing clubs and cursing without being criticized for it by TV announcers?

It's weird.

There's only one explanation: We are in awe, and are cheering not for the most amiable among us but for the most amazing.

I don't check out AOL Fanhouse often enough, because I have to draw the line in reading and writing blogs somewhere to leave time for eating, watching "The Daily Show" and watering my sunflowers.

But it does offer some interesting posts, such as this one about a writer being canned for plagiarizing Rick Reilly and this one about Mike Milbury colorfully calling out Tiger Woods - from the safety of Canadian TV.

Mad Mike called Tiger "Meat Head." Wow. Which would you rather take into a fight, a dress shoe or a 9-iron?

The USGA today will reopen its museum after a massive renovation.

It's conveniently located only two rivers away from most of my readers, so I will check it out for you sometime in the coming weeks and report back.

In the meantime, here is a story about it from my old Giants beat counterpart, Kevin Manahan of The Star-Ledger of Newark.

It's time for me to go now. Enjoy the rest of the day and the weekend.

This morning the Memorial leader board shown on SportsCenter included Matthew Goggin, Kenny Perry and Jerry Kelly, the guys with the three best scores, as well as . . . Tiger Woods, noting he is not participating because of knee surgery.

Now THAT is star power.

CBS will air a documentary at 2 p.m. Saturday about the history of the aerial camera shot and its effect on golf coverage.

It runs for . . . an hour.

And is sponsored by . . . MetLife.

Here's a graph from the release:

Whether it’s the rugged beauty of California’s Pebble Beach and Torrey Pines, or the low-lying resorts at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina and Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, The Best Shot in Golf presented by MetLife, takes the viewer behind the scenes to show how dramatic shots are captured each week, as well as the exceptional demands on those involved -- allowing sports fans an inside look at the moving pieces that make up the live golf coverage.

Golf people are weird.

Speaking of Trevor Immelman (see post below), he and David Wright both did a nice job on David Letterman's show Monday night.

But the most interesting thing about it was seeing Wright take b.p. on 53rd Street while Immelman played centerfield . . . wearing a lefty glove.

Was it the only one available, or does Trevor swing right, throw left? That is an unusual combo. Rickey Henderson did that.

(UPDATE: WatchDog has learned Immelman is, in fact, a lefty, and even signs autographs that way. Weird.)

A source close to Immelman told WatchDog last night that the Masters champ never had been to New York before his media whirlwind Monday.

It continues today with appearances with Regis and Kelly and a visit to the top of the Empire State Building for a photo op.

I was invited to an event next week that involves schmoozing with Kelly, who produced a film about wrestling. But I'm playing softball that night if my back feels better. Sigh.

Trevor Immelman will present the Top 10 list on "Late Show with David Letterman" tonight, an episode on which David Wright of Our Mets is scheduled to appear as a guest.

(Isn't Wright tired of talking from being the unofficial locker room spokesman for the squad?)

Immelman's Masters victory drew 8.9 percent of homes in major markets for Sunday's final round, down a tad from last year's 9.1.

That's still a lot of people watching golf.

In fairness, it's certainly not just TV people who get overly sappy about The Masters (see post below).

Print reporters are guilty, too. In fact, there is no group of sportswriters more reverential when it comes to the sport it covers than golf writers.

And there is no group of sportswriters more likely to regularly play the sport it covers than golf writers.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, necessarily. Because people who read stories about golf also are much more likely to play the game than is true of fans of most other sports.

I have many good friends who are golf writers. So I'll leave them alone now.

And leave you alone. Enjoy Fairfield Prep vs. Greenwich lacrosse on MSG Plus at 6 p.m.

And enjoy the free food at the Knicks game.

Still waiting on CBS's ratings report from the "sacred sod" of some rich guys' golf club in Georgia Sunday.

ESPN already has weighed in, though, alerting the media that Friday's second round of The Masters was the "most-viewed cable golf telecast ever."

It averaged 3,014,394 households and 3.1 percent of homes that have ESPN. Pretty good.

“We're pleased to play a role in helping the Masters address its goal of reaching a younger audience and growing the game of golf," ESPN president George Bodenheimer said in a news release.

What did I think of CBS's coverage over the weekend? It is what it is. The sappy romanticizing of The Masters has become a parody of itself, but taking that too seriously is as annoying as the way ESPN and CBS take the tournament too seriously.

People have been making fun of this for decades now, and it's not going to change, so let's just move on to important stuff, like the blessed blue lines and godly goal creases of the NHL playoffs.

I was just watching Gary Player on "Amen Corner Live."

Still cool in its third year on line.

Aaaaand . . . we're off!

Four minutes into Masters week, Mike Tirico is gushing about the beauty of the Par 3 course and has used the word "patrons" twice to describe the fans/crowd/mob/gallery.

It's going to be a long, long week, golf non-believers.

Anyway, it appears Kelly Tilghman now has been fully rehabilitated since I inadvertently almost ended her career in January.

The Golf Channel sent word earlier that she is carrying Arnold Palmer's bag for the Par 3 Contest. (Not tournament or challenge or showdown or event. It's "contest," got it?)

Anyway, good for her.

Here is my Tuesday newspaper column, in which I . . . unfairly make fun of ESPN in wondering about its Masters credentials, give props to Isles analyst Billy Jaffe for his Emmy upset of Ron Darling, encourage Mike Milbury and Don Cherry to diss Jaromir Jagr and (sort of) congratulate Dickie V. for being elected to the Hall of Fame.

Here's a shocking piece of news:

Tiger Woods' dramatic victory helped the ratings Sunday for the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

The event's overnight rating in major markets was 4.2, up 68 percent from last year's 2.5, and the best in six years.

Said NBC's Johnny Miller: “The guy’s not even human.”

Miller added this on NBCSports.com: "I was crying, literally."

Usually the only crying in golf comes from tournament organizers when they hear Tiger is not going to participate.

The top four markets in the ratings for the final round were Orlando (9.8), Fort Myers (9.6), Buffalo (7.5) and Tampa (7.4).

Hmm. One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong.

Here is the Golf Channel's exclusive interview with perennially troubled John Daly.

Click below for the transcript of the Wednesday chat.

Is the novelty of this guy's saga going to expire soon?

Nick Faldo, as chatty as ever, has some issues with Nike . . . and vice versa.

Maybe I should start watching more golf on TV.

Tiger Woods' blowout match play victory surely supressed NBC's ratings Sunday, but the event still did 67 percent better than last year's Tiger-less final . . . and it comfortably beat Shaq and the Suns against the Pistons head-to-head from 2:30 to 5 p.m. - 4.0 percent of households to 2.4.

By the way, the Sun is scheduled to explode in five billion years or so and incinerate us.

So it's best not to get too stressed out about stuff in life.

But I digress.

A loyal reader just wondered why I haven't posted anything yet about Golfweek firing its editor.

I was researching a newspaper article about that and doing some Giants stuff for Sunday.

Here is the link to the AP story. Sorry for the delay, but in the future check Newsday.com's main sports page for breaking news as well as the blog.

Thanks for reading.

This blogging thing has my priorites so confused it's a wonder I still am employed.

On Thursday I did a post on the controversial Golfweek magazine cover about Kelly Tilghman. Done. Late in the day editors reading the blog pointed out that I perhaps should write an article for the newspaper on the topic. They were right, of course.

In October I broke the story on the blog in early afternoon that Don Imus was near a deal with Citadel to return to the air. At about 7 p.m. it struck me: I probably should write something for the newspaper about this also. Hello?!

Here is today's story about the Golfweek cover. And here is a Shaun Powell column on that subject.

If the Giants lose Sunday I'll take a couple of days off next week.

Just when you thought the Kelly Tilghman Affair was dying down, Golfweek magazine bizarrely fanned the flames with a shocking selection of cover art this week.

Here is a story in USA Today about it.

Hard to believe that when I "broke" this story, I did so in the final paragraph of an 800-word newspaper column last Tuesday.

Sigh.

For those of you who don't see the blog on weekends . . .

I wanted to direct you to a debate about the recent Kelly Tilghman Affair in which WatchDog commenters participated over the weekend.

Unlike many Internet discussions on the topic, this one mostly was conducted at a respectful, thoughtful level.

It even featured the Hofstra professor whose e-mail initially alerted both Newsday and the Golf Channel to Ms. Tilghman's unfortunate attempt at humor.

This is more like what Prof. William Mangino hoped would occur when he helped make the matter public: a constructive, frank dialogue rather than mindless name-calling from both sides.

I don't think I've ever had a "scoop" as strange as the one last week about Kelly Tilghman's notorious "lynch" comment on the Golf Channel.

It came in the form of a tiny item in a Tuesday newspaper column, and I didn't know until that evening that it hadn't been reported elsewhere before.

The eventual result was a two-week suspension for Tilghman, many tens of thousands of Internet hits for Newsday.com, e-mails from as far away as Taiwan and another opportunity to debate the state of race relations in assorted media outlets across America.

Friday I finally talked to the man who started it all, William Mangino, an assistant professor of sociology at Hofstra, who heard the comment live Friday night and alerted Newsday and the PGA Tour.

I wrote an article about him in the Saturday newspaper. He likes Tilghman's work, does not think she should be fired, appreciates the Golf Channel's willingness to put a woman in that job and believes Don Imus' remarks of last April (given his history of such humor) were "much more egregious" than the Tilghman incident.

Still, he was horrified by Tilghman's poor attempt at humor and equally so by the hurtful level of discourse from both sides in Internet discussions on the topic.

Click below to read Mangino's original e-mail to Newsday from last weekend as well as a followup he sent Thursday night.

The Golf Channel has suspended anchor Kelly Tilghman for two weeks. Here is my story for the Thursday newspaper.

What's next? I don't know, but I do know Imus initially was suspended before he was canned, and come to think of it I initially and naively shrugged off his comments, so don't ask me.

Ask Rev. Al.

This story started as a paragraph buried at the bottom of my Tuesday newspaper column and now has mushroomed in a way that is starting to give me flashbacks to last April.

I apparently am severely lacking in news judgment on stories such as this.

So rather than weigh in and be dragged into the racially-charged vortex, I'm going to pathetically cower in a politically neutral corner and let readers comment below the way they have been doing by the dozens on the Web site for each incarnation of this story.

Good luck. But please be civil.