Bad day at the wrong time

That’s how Tiger Woods described his erratic play in the final round at Hazeltine to give away what could have been his 15th major golf title.

Tiger’s big time slip allowed Korean Yang Yung-eun to become the first Asian to win any major golf tournament in history.

From the first tee, he led the tournament prompting golf writers to predict a Tiger victory. Who wouldn’t? For the record Tiger was 14-of-14 when leading tournaments in his career. He has not lost in America if he was leading a tournament, by at least a stroke. In nine years he never lost a tournament when leading after 54 holes by at least two strokes.There is always a first time. While Tiger struggled Yang steadied himself for a comeback victory. Incredible feat for a farmer’s son, ranked 110 in the world with nothing but a previous minor tournament win to his name in the US.Yang acknowledged that he had butterflies in his stomach while playing with Tiger. He said he had seen a lot of Tiger highlights – those incredible shots that won him many titles. Thus, when Tiger was trying a chip shot on the 18th he was sort of praying that the ball wouldn’t find the hole. I didn’t!

Before that Yang said he felt he could play a good round of golf with Tiger because despite the fact that he’s a good player “he will have a bad day.” That bad day was Sunday.

Maybe Yang has Tiger’s number. In the 2007 European Tour’s Champions tournament in China, he held off Tiger to win the title.

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Yeng Guiao said the Philippines can still retain its lofty billing as Asia’s basketball power if it could send a team to international tournaments, like the just-concluded FIBA Asia Championships, with a “program and preparation attuned to international standards.”

He also said the current RP Gilas Team won’t peak in three years, implying it couldn’t win the gold in the 2010 Asian Games.

I suggest that Guiao shut his mouth after the failure in Tianjin. It’s time to let go and let others do the job.

The SBP would like to handle the national team so let them be. Let’s see if they could deliver. I don’t know what MVP or his people have in mind but he doesn’t have to look elsewhere for a model. They seem to be following the footsteps of Danding Conjuangco by enlisting a naturalized cager and hiring a foreigner for a coach.

Some years ago, Danding Cojuangco put together a team called Northern Consolidated Cement. That team won the country’s last ABC (now the FIBA Asia Championship) title in 1986 in Ipoh, Malaysia by whipping the Chinese in the final.

A few years later, I had the chance to work for Hugh Richardson, one of the neutral referees (the other was Allen Ray of Canada) who worked the championship game. In many of our conversations, he cautioned that the Koreans will improve. I’ve lost count of RP’s losses to Korea but these losses have proven Hugh right.

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To say that I enjoyed the shooting activity of SAC at Camp Lapu-Lapu last Saturday is an under statement. The more appropriate word would be OVERJOYED! So, I would like to thank our president John Pages, Nimrod Quiñones, Karlon Rama, city councilor Jack Jakosalem, Dino Cinco, Joel Concepcion and Rey Abad for making it happen! Guys, let’s do it again!

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