"The only place I'm interested in finishing is first. Obviously it's a very tough game and you can't always win but I'm a very confident front-runner. There were a lot of expectations today. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous. There's a lot that's been said this week. It's an incredible feeling to back it up. I always back myself. I'm a great front-runner. Great belief in myself."
Let's take the aforementioned quotes and imagine them uttered, say, by an Alabama equipment manager in the moments after the Crimson Tide won the BCS title. Or a NASCAR tire changer whose driver just won the Daytona 500.
I'm aware caddies can be helpful. I'm aware the Stevie Williams/Tiger Woods soap opera couldn't be completely ignored over the weekend, but goodness gracious. The narrative that focused on Williams all week at the Firestone was a bit unsettling at first, then it became downright nauseating when Williams ... how to put this ... serviced himself during media interviews in the immediate aftermath of Adam Scott's impressive win.
You read that right. Adam Scott won the golf tournament. Stevie Williams was just along for the walk, though you'd never know it by listening to Williams after it was over.
Gregg Doyel dusted off his flamethrower for this column and torched Williams more skillfully than I could hope to, but the whole drama was just way too much.
It started late last week when ESPN breathlessly covered the Woods/Williams breakup. I think it was Tom Rinaldi who said something to the effect of:
"It's going to be really interesting to monitor the body language between these two if and when they cross paths at this tournament."
Seriously?
Didn't watch one minute of this tournament Saturday and Sunday, and now I'm glad I didn't. Because the Woods/Williams thing was probably covered so thoroughly by CBS that my TV screen might not have survived impaling via a remote control hurled at 85 mph.
And how weird is it that the fans at this golf tournament all of a sudden consider Williams a lovable little teddy bear? So he was faking it all those years when he was a glowering thug who wouldn't think twice about ripping a camera from the hands of a 90-year-old woman and hurling it into a lake?
To be sure, some aspects of fandom are illogical. We yell at the TV. We live and die on the exploits of kids we probably wouldn't associate with otherwise. But there's a peculiar charm to a lot of it.
The exultation of Williams chronicled in this story wasn't charming at all:
Only in the incomprehensible scheme of the daily Tiger soap opera could a scintillating performance like Scott's become a secondary story.
"Way to call his bluff, Stevie," a man yelled, regarding Williams' firing last month by Woods.
He flashed a grinning thumbs-up. The fans began chanting Williams' name in the grandstands at the 18th, to the point to where Williams had to hush the crowd with the wave of a hand so that Scott and playing partner Ryo Ishikawa could finish.
The dialogue cascading down the bleachers wasn't exactly subtle, either. Another man bellowed, "How do you like him now, Tiger?" prompting a thousand fans in the grandstands to snicker at Woods' expense all over again.
There's just something gross to this whole story, and you don't have to be a vigorous supporter of Tiger Woods to believe that.
You'd think Williams was assured total consciousness on his deathbed or something...
OK, we've gotten away from the linking thing over the last year and there's some interest in veering back in that direction with football season approaching.
So here's some notable stuff going on in the worlds of some of Clemson's 2011 opponents:
-- The hits keep coming for Troy. Their receiving corps has been gutted, and now they lose a couple of defensive linemen.
The Trojans weren't even picked to win the Sun Belt this year. Their own coach, Larry Blakeney, picked them them to finish somewhere below second. They're dangerous, sure, but they don't appear as dangerous as usual.
-- So Chad Morris is using the kitchen-sink approach with his freshmen during August camp. Looks like his buddy Gus Malzahn is doing the same with QB Kiehl Frazier.
"We're throwing a lot at him. We need to figure out where he's at."
-- Our friend Evan Woodbery, who participated in the recent Auburn "Enemy Lines" segment, notes some fairly staggering roster facts for the Tigers without a lake:
72 scholarships.
Of 105 players on the roster, more than half are freshmen.
35 are walk-ons.
Only 22 scholarship players have been on campus for more than two years.
-- Gabe Wright isn't talking as big now that he has to back up some bold words.
Big-time high school defensive tackle Gabe Wright showed up on signing day with a good-natured salute to one of Auburn's most decorated players.
"Nick Who?"
All-American Nick Fairley was who, and Wright had those words sewn in his new Auburn cap for the world to see as he announced he was signing with Auburn.
"I talked to Nick about it. He knew there was no disrespect," Wright said.
Wright was working to impress his new coaches when Auburn staged its third fall practice Friday. He knows he has a long way to go to match Fairley's intensity, at least in games.
"Nick Fairley was a special guy," Wright says. "I can truly say if I don't have that off and on switch. I'm going to have to learn it. He had an off and on switch that was out of this world."
LW
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