Tom Talks

Confiscate the phones and make the world a better place

   The media is allowed to bring a cell phone to the Masters, but we have to bring it straight to the Media Center and we have to register it. We are not allowed to bring the phone onto the golf course, and we shouldn't be.

   One TV reporter left his phone in his shirt pocket, however, and walked onto the course. A security guard saw it. Even though the phone was turned off, the security guard escorted the man back to the Media Center and threatened to take his badge. Lose that badge, that credential, and neither you nor the company for which you work will get it back.

   A meeting was scheduled with a Masters' official. Had the phone been turned on, the credential would have been seized. But the reporter was given a warning, a lecture and a second chance.

   I wish the rule applied elsewhere.

   Bring a telephone into a movie theater and, if it's turned on, you get kicked out. Talk loudly on a cell phone in a restaurant and, oops, see you. Speak into a phone at the gym and, unless you're in the lobby or in a hallway, your membership is revoked.

   I hear people in my gym, often on ellipitcal machines, get on the phone and say a variety of things, among them, "I'm working out."

   Not really.

Traffic, takedowns and tradition

   If Daytona Beach handled race traffic the way Augusta handles golf traffic, I would still be in Florida.

   Here's how you know a sport hooks you. I wanted to watch the broadcast of UFC 112 in Abu Dhabi. I had no interest in the Ultimate Fighting Championship until it came to Charlotte. But the pace of the show, the talents of the fighters and the class of the people who put it on make me curious. That's how you do it, right? One fan at a time.

   Who are you pulling for in the Masters today?  

   Yeah. Me, too.

Michael Jordan says he did not influence Tiger Woods

    A former advisor to Tiger Woods contends in the May issue of Vanity Fair that Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley helped turn Woods bad.

   The three would gather in Las Vegas, Woods would see the life that Jordan and Barkley led, and he would try to keep up.

   Jordan talked to Rick Bonnell, who covers the Charlotte Bobcats for the Charlotte Observer, and me by telephone Saturday morning. 

  

    Jordan said he had not read the Vanity Fair story, but had heard about it..

 

      I asked him if the story was true, if he had led Woods astray.

 

     "No," he said.

 

   

Jordan said that Woods, who is a good friend, made his own decisions.

 

He said he last talked to Woods Tuesday.

  

   Jordan, the majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, says that with the NBA playoffs looming, he won't have time to come to Augusta for the Masters. But he is watching on television, and is impressed with the work Woods has done on and off the golf course.

 

   "He's done well," Jordan said.

 

   He said Freddie Couples shouldn't have changed shoes after the first round. Couples shot a 66 Thursday and a 75 Friday. Along with a bad round, Couples struggled with a bad back.

 

   Asked who he picks to win, Jordan said, "It's hard not to pick Tiger. And another  guy I wouldn't count out is (Lee) Westwood. Those are my two picks right now."

No rush

    How many men does it take to post numbers on a scoreboard?

   Four work the massive scoreboard near the entrance of Augusta National Golf Club. Two are on ladders. On the bottom of the ladders are rollers attached to a track; a man pushes the ladders where they need to go. Another man stands on the ground and says things. He appears to be the director.

   None of the scoreboards at the golf course are electric. So all the numbers are placed by hand. Fans curious about the Masters' leaders, or about how their golfers are doing, must wait. And they do. As they do, they take pictures of the scoreboard or of each other in front of the scoreboard.

    Hundreds of fans gather. In a quick, quick, Internet world, the wait feels intermidable. But nobody complains.

   It would be interesting if we all got our news this way. Stand near the scoreboard long enough and you expect to see: Saints beat Colts, win Super Bowl; Edwards goes to Iowa in seach of Democratic nomination; Panthers awarded NFL expansion franchise.

   Instead we see an 8 next to Ian Poulter after he bogeys 18. Wonder how long ago the bogey was.

Old guy update with two non-old guys thrown in

   Tom Watson, who is 60, bogeyed the first hole, birdied the second, bogeyed the third and birdied the fourth. Augusta National Golf Club is as hilly as a course as I've walked. Watson could wear down late, but the longer he stays in contention, the more interesting the Masters becomes.

   Fred Couples, who is 50, birdied No. 1 but bogeyed No. 9 and No. 15.

   Lee Westwood, a youth who won't turn 37 until the end of the month, is eight under par and leads by two strokes.

   Tiger Woods, who is four strokes back, is even through 10 holes.

Walking with Tiger and occasionally looking up in the air

   Tiger Woods is three under after finishing the first nine holes at the Masters. To put that in perspective, Sandy Lyle also is three under.

   Some people say they heard boos from Tiger's Gallery. I didn't. He nailed his drive off No. 1, the most anticipated tee shot since -- ever?

   Thousands followed him around Augusta Natonal Golf Club. They called his name, shouted his name, quietly implored the ball to go where Tiger wanted it to, gave him 14 seconds of sustained applause as he approached the tee at No. 7.

    As Tiger began the round, a plane flew above the course pulling a banner that said, "Tiger, did you mean Bootyism?"

   More than two hours later a plane, presumably the same one, again encircled the course, this time pulling a banner that said, in black letters, Sex addict. In red letters it added, "Yeah. Right. Sure. Me, too."  

The Tiger and Earl Woods advertisement works

   
Tiger will return to golf in 2 1/2 hours. He returned to product endorsement Wednesday night when ESPN and the Golf Channel ran his new Nike advertisement.

   Most of the reporters I've talked to in Augusta couldn't stand it.

    I liked it.

   Look, most commercials are variations on the same theme. After watching enough of them, you get the impression originality does not sell products.

   Nike has always been willing to gamble and, obviously, still does. In the commercial, a silent Tiger, wearing a cap with a trademark Swoosh, stares impassively into the camera as he listens to the voice of his late father, Earl.

   It's Tiger's face and Earl's voice. Earl says: "I want to find out what your thinking was. I want to find out what your feelings are, and did you learn anything?"

   I don't know Earl, never met him. What I know about him I know from what people have told me and what I've read.

   Was the commercial a cheap attempt to use his memory to evoke sympathy?

   Maybe. But I thought there was power to the ad. It offered one man's face, one man's voice and the lingering impression that Tiger wasn't thinking at all.

  

Bobcats are playoff bound

   Congratulations to the Charlotte Bobcats for making the playoffs. Their success is a testament to the men who acquired the players, the men who coach the players and to the players themselves. There's nobody in the NBA who plays the way Gerald Wallace does. His style is his; nobody else uses it. And Stephen Jackson is the best player the Bobcats have ever had and one of the best Charlotte has had.

  Those of us who were in the gym when the Charlotte Hornets first made the playoffs will never forget the experience. I remember Larry Johnson talking about Kevin McHale of the Boston Celtics, saying that he and his friends would watch McHale on TV and promise each other that those long-armed moves would never work against them. They worked against the Hornets, Johnson admitted, laughing.

   I wont compare the experience that awaits the Bobcats with the experience of the Hornets. Before the Carolina Panthers, there were the Hornets, and a thing is new only once.

   But the NBA playoffs are new for the Bobcats, and I think Charlotte will respond.

John Daly, don't leave yet, I promise I'll be there

   John Daly is in Augusta. I'm in Augusta. But I have yet to talk to him or write about him. This is the most time I have spent at a golf tournament without talking to or writing about Daly.

   Last year I left Augusta National Golf Club five minutes after hearing that he was peddling his wares along Washington Rd. I made a mistake and overshot his trailer and went to Hooter's. They told me where he was and I crossed the street and found him.

   Reporters who had talked to him earlier were rejected or dispatched with a few one-sentence answers.So I walked to the long table in front of his trailer and bought a John Daly autographed cap for $20. Then I identified myself. Then we were friends. I hung out for about 30 minutes, talking to him and to his girlfriend, and  and watching fans react.

   And, no, I wasn't paying for the interview. I don't practice that kind of journalism. Nothing that applies to Daly constitutes journalism.

   Daly seemed to have shrunk since I had seen him last. He was smaller than you would expect. I'm 5-9, and I could post him up. But I don't see him playing hoops because he never stopped smoking. He would take a long final drag, fling the butt to the ground and reach for another. He would be easy to track.

   I doubt Daly has changed dramatically since last year, but who has? I'll make my way to his table this week. I could use a cap. The dog chewed the old one.

What rhymes with deadline? Whine.

   The media can drive you nuts.

   Early Monday morning, before daylight, we park inthe new press parking lot at Augusta National Golf Club. We walk past the waiting fans, who can't get inside until 8 a.m., climb onto a golf cart and are driven to the press center.

   The woman behind me in the golf cart, who works for a golf TV network, complains incessantly. How dare Augusta National make us use a new entrance and force us to ride a golf cart to our destination. This won't do. We won't have enough time. What are people thinking?

   They're thinking that you like to complain. When we get to the press center, grab a free sandwich and you'll be fine.

   Before we are admitted into the press center, however, a security guard checks our bags. Imagine. The golf writer in front of me is infuriated.

   "Here?" he asks indignantly.

   He turns to me since I'm directly behind him and says something like, "This is a terrible place to do this."

   I'm supposed to say that I agree with him.

   I don't.

   Where do people acquire such a sense of entitlement? Is it the job? I don't think so. I think it simmers, and if it didn't manifest itself here, it would show up some other place.

   I wish the golf TV woman and the golf writer would do something else for a living. Work, for example.