It’s the 1st Tee at Royal Melbourne Golf Club at 2:05 p.m. on Thursday, November 17th, 2011. The cameras are rolling, the assembled crowd has ceased “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi”, long enough for the starter to announce Match 6 on Day 1 of the 9th edition of The President’s Cup: “On the tee, representing the U.S.A. – Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker and representing the International Team K.J. Choi and Adam Scott… and oh yeah, that jackhammer that can’t keep quiet and just keep the clubs clean, Stevie Williams.” Standing over to the side, Will Smith is doing double duty as director and lead actor here on “The Tiger Woods Saga” and is forced to yell “Cut… Who wrote this nonsense, gimme a break!? I haven’t seen anything this bad since that idiotic “I Am Legend.” Let’s break for lunch and rewrites.”

Photo: Contributed

Truth is, it had to happen – you knew it, I knew it, the entire golfing world and Sports Fans everywhere knew it. And if you think that Captains Freddy Couples and Greg Norman didn’t realize that they had a large part to play in the healing of the soap-opera rift between Williams and Woods and the subsequent hopeful regeneration of the floundering Woods’ career, then by all means please come to my inaugural Brooklyn Bridge auction this weekend. This would not be the time to remind me that the pairings are secret and neither Captain could have known. This mistake has been made across the blogosphere where the moral (and this word is a tad ironic when speaking of Tiger!) majority who neither respect conspiracy theories or see the value in resurrecting the Woods career, have once more, in true ‘Stevie-style’ failed to grasp the rules before opening their collective yaps. Unlike its older and more traditional cousin Ryder, the President’s Cup pairings are filled out, not by luck of the draw but by alternating Captain’s choices. When Norman decided on the Korean combo of K.T. Kim and Y.E. Yang in the penultimate 5th Match and Couples responded with David Toms and Hunter Mahan, only 4 were left. Awkward silence broken up by Jay Haas, “Who’s left?” More awkward silence as everyone waits for Stevie Williams to put his foot in his mouth. No? Ok, let’s adjourn to the press room and explain this to a waiting world.

“I think it’s great for the tournament, number one,” announces the Shark and I believe him – because he’s right. “I think it needed to be done, it played out the way it played out. There wasn’t any pre-meditation.” Um, not only does that little snippet make virtually no sense but the Great White is losing me a little on Ye Olde Believability Scale. And then this priceless nugget of opinion... wait for it… OK, here goes: “I think Stevie Williams is the consummate professional.” Whaaa? Uh Greg, you lost me there. Shall we put this in perspective, especially for the Tiger haters out there who eagerly check the Chapters shelves every day for Stevie’s tell-all book – Williams is to ‘consummate professional’ as John Daly is to ‘restraint’, as Norman is to ‘clutch’ and as Woods is to ‘fidelity’. I am sure that Adam Scott has finally put the hammer down on caddy press conferences starring his resident club-cleaner and about time too. Watching Williams with a microphone in his face is akin to watching Geraldo in front of the Capone vault back in the day – only the man on camera thought anything positive was going to come from that particular exercise!

Now, I am not in any way, shape or form a Tiger Woods apologist. I neither excuse his behavior nor understand it. In fact, I firmly believe it falls directly into the build ‘em up, knock ‘em down, hero-to-zero worship we reserve for our biggest stars of sport and screen. And yes, maybe Couples might have been better served installing PGA Champion Keegan Bradley on the team and avoided all this nonsense but contrary to all the bandwagon jumpers who no longer value Woods’ relevance to the game, this President’s Cup is essential to the continued growth of the sport globally. Even at #50 in the world, Woods’ presence at the spectacular Royal Melbourne course (also designed by Dr. Alistair McKenzie of Augusta National fame) provides many the Sports Fan with the necessary reason to brave the time difference and tune in to watch the event live. True, Woods’ swing a la Sean Foley at times seems to have Tiger more confused than a Republican Foreign Policy debate but at 35, he has 14 Majors and that is one more than the rest of the 24 man field put together – and 6 of those belong to Ernie and Phil!

Photo: Contributed

Regardless of the result of this President’s Cup, it seems for certain that this is going to be a turning point of sorts for the Woods career. The Tiger Slam is deep in the past, Elin has purchased an island and moved on, Butch Harmon and Hank Haney are Golf Channel regulars and Stevie Williams…well, we’ll see. If ’07 and ’09 are anything to go by, the International squad will need something other than the partisan crowds and erratic play by the former #1 to even keep it close. Although their one victory came at RMGC in 1998 in a rout, the Internationals don’t enjoy the same team chemistry as the Ryder-cuppers and the US Team are prohibitive favorites yet again despite 6 rookies teeing it up. All that’s left is the golf… and that Sports Fans is the best part. Enjoy.