LARNED — The AP headline on the sports pages blared, WOODS LEAVES MASTERS EMPTY-HANDED AGAIN!
That headline was larger than the one telling us that Adam Scott had won the Masters in a playoff. Has any athlete ever commanded, ever caused the focus, the judgment, to be more on him than Tiger Woods?
Is it fair?
Hey, I’m no Tiger Woods fan. Far from it. Woods has been a potty-mouth on the course and frequently displays a condescending attitude to the crowd and other golfers and caddies.
In short, he’s at times been somewhat of a jerk. His messy personal life has nothing to do with how he should be treated on the golf course and in the press. How he acts on the golf course, however, is fair game.
That said, still I think the sports media has taken about three steps too many in reporting on the guy. This is akin to the headlines telling us that BABE RUTH GOES HOMERLESS in a game when the box score shows us he was three for five with two singles, a double and four runs batted in though he didn’t have a home run!
Besides, Tiger didn’t exactly come up “empty-handed.” He pocketed a tidy $352,000 for his fourth-place tie. Maybe not a huge sum to toss into the Woods corporate vaults, but not exactly “empty-handed,” either.
Tiger Woods is still the media’s biggest story on the golf course. Like it or not golf fans, we’ve still got a Tiger by the tail!

•GET SMART
Perhaps Keith Smart is beginning to live up to his name. Smart is the basketball coach of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. The Kings are stumbling along with a 28-53 record in the Pacific division. I’m reminded of that old adage, “The definition of insanity is when you keep doing the same thing but expect different results.”
This past week, Smart did something different. He inserted former KU great Cole Aldrich into the lineup, giving him meaningful minutes, and guess what? Aldrich made Smart look ... well, SMART!
In two games, though, both were close losses, Aldrich delivered his first NBA career double-doubles with 13 rebounds and 12 points against the Oklahoma City Thunder and 12 and 12 against the Houston Rockets.
Aldrich, in his second year as a pro, just might make an outstanding center in the NBA yet as he continues to show improvement. Coach Smart would be smart to continue playing the guy.


•CHALK TALK
The funniest cartoon in Sunday’s papers was of the two women talking to each other while their hubbies watched the Masters golf tournament and were saying: “... Basically it is a bunch of guys playing four rounds of golf to see who wins a sport jacket that’s only good to wear on St.Patricks Day!” ... By the way, if you want to attend Championship Sunday at the Masters in 2014, it will cost you $1,251 for a one-day pass. YIKES! ... The gals are gaining on us. It is still early in the season, but Emily Brigham of Mill Valley tops the Kansas list of female high school pole vaulters with an outstanding 13 feet, 6½-inch mark. That is better than all but four of the best vaults in the state for the boys! ... A word of caution for all of you aspiring coaches. Michigan State’s Tom Izzo says , “Every coaching job has problems. Even high school’s got problems. They’ve got parents!” I can hear high school coaches all over the Golden Belt area adding their “Amen” to that!. ... Not much is being said about it but I am sure that Kansas State’s Bruce Weber was very disappointed that forward Adrian Diaz is transferring. Though Diaz only averaged 3 points a game, the Wildcat coaches were still counting on him for a much bigger contribution next year. His loss creates a real recruiting need for the Cats for next year.

Charles Tabler is a contributing writer from Larned.