Sports' Babe Ruth of Billionaires

It was reported by Forbes Magazine last week that Tiger Woods is a billionaire.
I'll wait...
Hmmm, nothing.

OK, let me type that again...It was reported by Forbes Magazine last week that Tiger Woods is a billionaire...

Hmmm, still nothing. Guess I didn't think there would be. I'm betting your reaction is somewhere in the ballpark of, 'Yeah, so what, pally?'
Am I right?

Vanilla ice cream is white. Yao Ming is tall. Peyton Manning's good. Politicians are corrupt.
Tiger Woods is a billionaire.
Well, of course they are, for crying out loud!

With endorsements, it's reported that Alex Rodriguez will clear $33 million on his corner of the diamond this year; Roger Federer $31 million for holding court; rapper Shaquille O'Neal $35 million for also taking up space in the lane; Dale Earnhardt Jr. $27 million for making nothing but left-hand turns!

Welcome to the world of professional sports in the years 2000, where we no longer blink when absurd numbers like these are tossed at us.
Ho-hum.

And Tiger seems even less startled by the whole thing than we are.

According to golf.com, when asked by a reporter at a President's Cup news conference Tuesday what it was like to learn that he had become a billionaire, Tiger laughed and said, "Well, one, I haven't (heard the news), so I don't know where that number came from."

While Forbes admits only Woods' accountant knows for sure how many millions he's worth, they are fairly confident that if he hasn't reached the billion-dollar threshold yet, it's bound to happen soon. And anyway, what's $100 million or two between friends when you are forced to factor in all the riches Woods has, like endorsements, and winnings, and appearance fees, and houses, and boats, and etc., etc., etc.

So now we simply shrug when we hear an athlete might be worth a billion dollars.

It really wasn't that long ago when Babe Ruth was taken to task for asking for a salary that exceeded President Herbert Hoover's. Ruth famously shot back, "Why not, I had a better year than he did."

Not sure Woods could make the same argument this year, but given the silly money in sports these days, he won't have to.

Tiger Woods is a billionaire. Why, of course he is. Yeesh...

Presidents Cup an easy Ryder

Because you can never have too much of a mediocre thing, the PGA Tour is rolling out the eighth edition of the Presidents Cup beginning Thursday at San Francisco's Harding Park Golf Course.

OK, maybe that teaser's a bit harsh. Anytime you can get Tiger, Phil, Ernie, Vijay and a cast of other sweet-swinging notables on the same course in October, you've pulled off quite a coup. Heck, who knows, a great show might even break out.

Most likely, though, this match-play extravaganza will offer up sweet spoonfuls of aw-shucks camaraderie, expert shot-making and, if we're lucky, maybe even a little suspense on Sunday.

For the average golf fan, this is hardly an event you'd rearrange your plans to watch.
However, if you are fortunate enough to ditch a few chores and find yourself with a little extra time on your hands, it's probably worth grabbing the remote and a hunk of the couch to see if the gang of Internationals can start turning the tables on our homeboys from the States in this upstart event.

The Presidents Cup is the Ryder Cup off steroids. It is not the contentious, dog-eat-dog, spit-in-your-eye event the Ryder Cup has become -- and most likely never will be.

It's hard to say why the event was even created exactly -- I mean, besides the fact somebody at PGA headquarters saw it as an opportunity to rake in bunkerfuls of cash.
I suppose it's as easy as the International players wanting their crack at the Yanks, like the Euros get every other year in the Ryder Cup.

So far, the U.S. leads the bi-annual series 5-1-1, which is about how the Ryder Cup went for so many years.
The U.S. would regularly roll the team from Great Britain, and it would grab about 10 inches of ho-hum copy inside the sports section somewhere. Two years later, they'd do it all over again.

On and on it went, until, I guess, the Brits got tired of being drummed and recruited the lads from continental Europe to even things up a bit.

When Seve and his gang of rabble-rousers started regularly whacking the Americans, golf suddenly had an unexpected show-stopper on its hands.

Next thing you know, these big, bad golfers were donning their earth-tone golf sweaters, strapping on their gloves and preparing for "The War by the Shore" and "The Battle of Brookline."
Yeah, really, it got way out of hand. But it was a marketer's dream, and generated loads of cash and interest.

So when International soldier Geoff Ogilvy said this week, "It's going to take the International team winning a few times to annoy the U.S., to get them geared up like they are in the Ryder Cup," he was probably on to something.

Then again, when you think about it, do we really need another Ryder Cup?
Nothing wrong with grabbing a pillow, relaxing on the couch, turning down the volume a bit, and watching a host of the world's best play a game we are familiar with only in our dreams...

(Associated Press photo)