A little rant and golf

I have to start out today with a rant about sports coverage in the media. I'll start with CBS and the NCAA Tourney. I think it's crazy that on a day where there are only four games, that they schedule 2 at a time. Yes, I know they want them in prime time, but what's the point if you can only see one of the games anyway? Are they afraid the stands won't fill up? Most of the fans travel to see their teams play, so it's not like they're coming after work to the game, they had to take time off just to get there. If you have one venue start the games at 3, and the other venue start the games at 7:30, all the games get to be on tv all over the country. Of course not everyone will get to see their team play, but they don't get to when two games are on at once either.

OK, now I'll move to ESPN. When I was growing up and I would wake up to ESPN, I would see at least the scores, if not highlights, of every game played the previous night. Now I realize it's hard to fit everything in, but when you give Mel Kiper Jr and Todd McShay 10 minutes of every Sportscenter hour to say their draft board hasn't changed and to yell at each other over a draft that is a month away instead of showing scores, I think that's crazy. I'm not talking about wanting to see spring training scores either, but NBA games, some with playoff implications seem to get looked over. If there is a big change or something happens or when the draft is a week out, give them the face time, but until then, give them once or twice a week, max. And to the guys at PTI, I love your show, but Tony K, you gotta stop seeming like American Idol is paying you to be there spokesperson every week. It's nice when you guys drift away from sports occasionally, but give up pushing American Idol as what to watch over the NCAA tourney, COME ON!

Ok, now I can move on to some actual sports talk. Tiger Woods is playing the PGA event at Bay Hill this week. It's a course he has performed well at his entire career and probably a smart place for him to make his third start since knee surgery just 2 weeks before Augusta. In his last start he looked good, except for barely missing a dozen or so putts. If he makes some of those lipped out puts, he's in the hunt for the event and it's a whole other story. Tiger had a good opening round today at Bay Hill and looks poised to stay in the running for this tournament. I, for one, am glad to see Tiger back on the course. I have to admit, that I didn't really watch golf for last half of last year. The sport is just more fun with him playing. I apologize to all the die hard fans that watch every week no matter who's playing and to Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and Vijay Singh. They're all great golfers and I like seeing them hit those amazing shots, but they're not Tiger. I think everyone should be happy he's back, especially the way the economy is going. Golf needs ratings to be as high as ever if companies are going to continue making deals for sponsorship and ads during these times, and that means Tiger. I'm betting the Masters will have one of it's highest ratings ever if Tiger is on the leaderboard going into Saturday and Sunday, because the world will want to know if he's made his full comeback and we can all start talking about him winning all 4 majors in one year and stop talking about his knee and a comeback. Welcome back Tiger, we missed you.