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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2008
Tiger's victory sparks perfect season talk
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MARANA, Ariz. — The closest anyone came to a perfect season on the PGA Tour was Ben Hogan.
He won every major champion
He won every ship he played in 1953, and every official tournament he entered except for the Seminole Pro- Am Invitational, where he tied for second. Then again, Hogan only played six times that year because of battered legs from a bus accident.
"You can only own this game for a certain period of time. Even if your name is Tiger Woods, you don't own it forever."
Tiger Woods will play no more than 17 events on the PGA Tour this year, so a 2-0 start might be a little early for anyone to get excited.
Even so, expectations were as high as the desert sun at noon when Woods left Arizona with yet another victory. It was his fourth in a row on tour since early September, all done in record fashion.
nine times, including three straight majors, in 2000 and that he won six consecutive PGA Tour events at the end of 2006, a streak that reached seven until losing in the Match Play the following year.
HAL SUTTON
PGA Golfer
He set a 72-hole scoring record at Cog Hill outside Chicago and won by eight shots at the Tour Championship and the Buick Invitational, both record margins. On Sunday, he smoked Stewart Cink eight and seven in the Accenture Match Play Championship, the biggest blowout in the finals in 10 years of a tournament that Woods considers the toughest to win this side of a major.
"I think this certainly is the best stretch I've every played," Woods said.
Strong words — downright scary considering that Woods won
Woods, who also won in Dubai earlier this month, has never before started a season with three straight victories, and it is hard not to speculate how long he can keep winning given his history at some of the tournaments coming up.
Tiger Woods holds the Walter Hagen Cup as fans cheer in the background following his victory over Stewart Cink in the Accenture Match Play Championship golf tournament in Marana, Ariz., Sunday. The tournament brought Woods his 63rd career tour victory.
Next is the Arnold Palmer Invitational March 13-16 at Bay Hill, where Woods won four straight times from 2000 to 2003. The week after that is the CA Championship at Doral, where he has won the last three years
tory and his 15th title in the World Golf Championships. "If you don't believe you can win an event, don't show up."
Then the Masters April 10-13.
But it also is his intent to make every putt and hit every shot just how he wants. No one does that, of course. No one wins every tournament. Byron Nelson holds the record with 11 straight victories during a year in which he won 18 times in 30 events. That means he lost 12 times that year.
"He just morphs his game into the courses," Cink said. "So I don't think there's a course that's going to present him with a real obstacle as far as he not being
A perfect season in golf?
"I do find that laughable," Hal Sutton said Monday. "Anybody who knows golf knows that ain't going to happen. You can only own this game for a certain period of time. Even if your name is Tiger Woods, you don't own it forever."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sutton was among those who beat Woods during a time when the world's No.1 player looked unbeatable, going head-to-head with him at The Players Championship in 2000 and winning by one shot.
He watched part of the championship match Sunday "until I got
him not being a favorite."
Woods did little to squash the notion of a perfect season when someone asked him if winning them all was within reason.
"That's my intent. That's why you play. If you don't believe you can win an event, don't show up."
bored."
"That's my intent. That's why you play," Woods said after collecting his 63rd career tour vic-
TIGER WOODS Accenture Match Play Champion
ulation of a perfect season to be "a little over the top."
Curtis Strange is among those who played in the prime years of Woods and Jack Nicklaus, and he said it is pointless to compare generations. But he also found spec-
"He is by far and away the best player," Strange said. "We've never had a player this much better than the second-best player. He's unbelievable, really. But he's not unbelieveable. Let's not get ahead of ourselves
just because he beat Stewart Cink eight and seven."
As usual, the best comparisons are to Woods himself.
percent clip.
Most consider his best golf to be from late 1999 through the 2001 Masters, when he won 16 of 32 times on the PGA Tour and four consecutive majors. Dating to the 2006 British Open, Woods has won 15 of his las
"He just has this strong sense of belief in himself that he's just never
"He just morphs his game into the courses...I don't think there's a course that's going to present him with a real obstacle..."
won 15 of his last 24 events, a 63
STEWART CINK
PGA Golfer
out of it," Cink said. "He's never going to mess up."
The more he talked, the more Cink made Woods out to be a machine.
"Maybe nuts and bolts."
see what's inside there." Cink said.
"I think maybe we ought to slice him open to
Not many thought Woods could ever produce better results than 2000. Woods, however, has been saying all along his plan was to get better. With each victory, what seemed impossible is not unthinkable.
Woods was fortunate to win the Match Play. He rallied from 3 down with five holes to play against J.B. Holmes by winning four straight holes with three birdies and a 35-foot eagle. In the third round, Aaron Baddeley twice stood over putts inside 12 feet to win before Woods prevailed on the 20th hole.
》TABLE TENNIS
Politics bounces into contest
ASSOCIATED PRESS
manaization of relations between the Gueriau said in a telephone inter
BEIJING — Pingpong and politics meet once again.
In what is believed to be the first international appearance for a sporting team from Kosovo since it declared independence, the former Serbian province's paddlers took the floor Monday at the 2008 World Team Table Tennis Championships in southern China.
The team's participation conjured up reminders of 1971, when American table tennis players visited China and paved the way for normalization of reen-
nations, launching the phrase "p i g p o n g
diplomacy"
For the competition's organizers, however, it's just part of the game.
"We don't speak about politics, of course. It's not news for us. Maybe for you, but not for us." Tennis Federation
"We don't speak about politics, of course. It's not news for us. Maybe for you, but not for us."
HUBERT GUERIAU International Table Tennis Federation
but not for us, international Table
Tennis Federation media officer Hubert
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phone interview from the tournament in Guangzhou.
has said it was "gravely concerned" by the move.
"So for ITTF, for the other teams in table tennis, it's not an event that Kosovo is playing table tennis in Guangzhou," Gueriau said, pointing out that it was the fourth world championship appearance for the team.
Politics aside, Kosovo wasn't expected to make much of a splash: The men's team is ranked No. 114 in the world, behind Nepal, while the women are marginally better, ranked No. 112 behind Costa Rica.
Members of the Kosovo team could not be reached for comment. The delegation was small and did not include an official who could handle interview requests. Gueriau said the team rarely attracts much media attention.
But it was accepted as an International Table Tennis Federation member in 2003.
The Kosovo squad consisted of just six players — three men and three women — according to rosters posted on the tournament Web site. In Monday play, the men were shut out by Yemen while the women defeated Iceland 3-1.
The tournament also features a team from Serbia, which has refused to give up Kosovo. Serbs view Kosovo as the cradle of their culture and of their Orthodox Christian faith.
"Of course, everybody respects all the teams, but they are not one of the top teams," he said.
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Houston maintains winning streak
NBA
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tracy McGrady and his healthy left knee have made the Houston Rockets nearly unbeatable for nearly a month. McGrady had 24 points and eight assists as the Rockets extended their winning streak to 12 games with a 110-97 win over the Chicago Bulls Sunday night.
"With Tracy healthy and playing well, they are a tough team to stop," Bulls coach Jim Bovlan said.
They were ahead by seven early in the fourth quarter before Bobby Jackson scored five straight points for Houston, capped by a off-balance layup and a free throw followed to make it 84-74.
The Rockets were 7-4 when McGrady missed 11 games with a bone bruise, strained tendon and patellar tendinitis in his left knee between Dec. 28 and Jan. 15. Since his return, Houston is 16-1 and improved to 36-20 after a 20-19 start. Their only loss since McGrady's return was Jan. 27, when they fell 97-8 against Utah.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Houston Rockets' Tracy McGrady (1) goes for two points defended by Chicago Bulls' Joakim Noah (13) during the first half of the game Sunday in Houston. The Rockets defeated the Chicago Bulls 110-97.
》 OLYMPICS
Activists push for international boycott
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BANGKOK, Thailand — Prodemocracy activists in Myanmar called Monday for the world to boycott this year's Beijing Olympics over what they said was China's continuing support of Myanmar's military dictatorship.
The 88 Generation Students group, which was instrumental in last year's pro-democracy demonstrations in Myanmar, urged "citizens around the world ... to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics in response to China's bankrolling of the military junta that rules our country of Burma with guns and threats." Myanmar is also known as Burma.
The 88 Generation Students joined a growing group of critics urging an Olympic boycott over complaints ranging from Beijing's human rights record to its failure to more actively press Sudan — where China is a major oil buyer — to end
"Our constructive outreach to China has been met with silence and more weapons shipments," the group said in a statement.
A Myanmar government spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
violence in the Darfur region.
The 88 Generation Students accused China — one of Myanmar's key trading partners — of arming their country's junta and failing to facilitate a meaningful dialogue between it and detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party.
Hollywood director Steven Spielberg quit earlier this month as an artistic adviser for the Beijing Olympics, saying China was not doing enough about Darfur.
iunta took power.
Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962 and has not had a constitution since 1988, when the army violently suppressed pro-democracy protests and the current
Under intense international pressure, the junta announced plans this month for a referendum in May on a proposed new constitution written under military guidance, to be followed by general elections in 2010.
In September the junta crushed peaceful protests that were triggered by rising food prices but expanded to include demands for democratic reforms. The U.N. estimates the crackdown killed at least 31 people, and thousands more were detained.
The juntas domestic and international critics, however, say the plans are undemocratic because they do not involve open debate and bar Sun Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, from taking part in the elections.
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During a visit to Singapore on Monday, U.N. special envoy for Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari and Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo hailed the planned referendum and election.
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