Golf in the Olympics? No.

A post about the IOC deciding which sports to add to the 2016 Summer Olympics is off-topic ... it is also in the wheelhouse of a male feminist/Seamhead/golf hater.

"The buzz is that golf has an excellent chance, especially given its backing by the likes of Tiger Woods. But choosing golf and rejecting softball would be another slap in the face at women, since the Olympic Golf Committee also includes Augusta National Golf Club and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, both of which do not allow women as members."

Golf is completely antithetical to the Olympic movement, which explains why the IOC would love it so much. The the Olympics does not need it and it does need it the Olympics, save for replacing sponsorship dollars.

It is worth speaking up for the softballers now rather than in November. The Olympics is the one time for Danielle Lawrie to appear in Canadians' living rooms. Mike Weir is there every week.

To walk the walk about supporting women, IOC must pick softball for 2016 (Philip Hersh, Chicago Tribune)

Tuesday afternoon ...

What's not bothering you today, since it's all raisins off an Oldsmobile ... oh, and an Islanders beat writer says the team will take Matt Duchene No. 1 overall.

... Being the only person who ever saw a resemblance between Oren Koules and Michael Bluth from Arrested Development (it was the hair). The comparison is totally apt, considering what's happened to the Tampa Bay Lightning. At this rate, they'll soon be holding a Save Our Bolts fundraiser?

... CBC going ahead with a figure skating reality show. At least they showed a sense of humour by casting Glenn Anderson and Stéphane Richer as figure skaters. Talk about meta.

... Rosie DiManno getting into it with the entire city of Hamilton after she called it "a dump." Shame on her for violating the unwritten rule to never to point out the Hammer's failings in print. She missed the point that people love Hamilton, Ontario, the way you love a three-legged, half-blind, hard-of-hearing dog with a flatulence problem (so sayeth the guy whose sister and brother-in-law live in Stoney Creek, so hold the hate mail).

... ESPN.com failing to put Peyton Manning on its All-Decade NFL team.

... sports columnists who go on about the Tiger-and-Phil overkill during major golf tournaments. Please just explain to people that the way it works is the PGA's corporate sponsors expect the big names who move product to get more camera time, regardless of the leaderboard. Looking for serious storytelling on a golf broadcast is like looking for chastity in a cathouse.

... Peter C. Newman saying Heather Reisman "saved the publishing industry." Apparently saved is synonymous with running independent booksellers and small publishing houses out of business, but hey, Newman's books still sell at Chapters once they're marked down to $9.99.

... the MuchMusic Video Awards getting a worse ass-kicking than Perez Hilton. CBC got twice as many viewers by showing Happy Gilmore, a 13-year-old comedy.

Snark break ...

The small stuff you're not sweating on this Easter Sunday ...

... who wins the Masters. Golf's fine and dandy for those who are into it, as long as they admit they're "emotionally constipated," as The Guardian's Will Buckley puts it. That's a fair deal. Remember, this is the age where you only have to admit to your hangups, not actually try to fix them.

... Rogers Sportsnet's Nick Kypreos whinging on Friday about the next NHL Winter Classic not including a Canadian team, since "it started in Edmonton in 2003." Those cursed with memory recall the NHL borrowed the idea from college hockey (Michigan and Michigan State played an outdoor game in '01) and that fans might not mind seeing two traditional U.S. rivals meet in a game on Hockey Night in Canada, since it's a break from being subjected to the Leafs every Saturday night for six months.

... the journo who said, "At long last, Ali and Frasier will get it on" in reference to Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson being in the same group at the Masters. What, you didn't know Kelsey Grammar was a boxer?

... not knowing the Tampa Bay Lightning set a NHL record by using 22 defencemen this season. Most people thought they didn't have any defencemen.

... former NHLer Theoren Fleury playing in the Allan Cup this week for the Steinbach North Stars. He wants to play, God bless him. He's a folk hero.

Golf gone wild

Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you should.

Case in point. Two Vancouver golf clubs have now instituted English only policies. That means if you can't converse in English, go golf somewhere else. A similar policy is being implemented by the LPGA.

(Other case: Sen. John McCain choosing a VP candidate on a gut reaction without apparently vetting Gov. Sarah Palin for potential political problems such as a teen pregnancy or alleged state corruption, but let's let sleeping elephants lie.)

Legally, a private club can set restrictions on its members without discriminating against a race or creed. But this one seems to go against the spirit of what golf should be about —  whacking a white (or pink) ball down a fairway (or off of one), making pars and drinking beer.

Having spent eight days this month covering a fairly major amateur golf tournament (the Tamarack at Clear Lake in Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba), I witnessed this in spades even as golfers attempted — and made — 40 foot putts from the fairways. Rarely did I ever see any ill will against someone. Often, I saw people enjoying the spirit of the game in a manner that would have made Rodney Dangerfield proud (though there were very rare instances where sour faces prevailed).

As the Tamarack is both a medal (stroke) and match play tournament, it serves as a true test of a complete golfer. To even have a shot to win the event, golfers have to place in the top-16 in stroke play. Considering this year's winner caddies at the Old Course in St. Andrews and beat a man from Scotland, the competition in the top flight was as good or better than the Canadian Senior Open I covered in 1999. Except for Jack Nicklaus, but you get the point. These guys can play.

Some were never without a caesar the whole weekend (picture Julien walking around on the Trailer Park Boys, never spilling a drop.) Others never drank at all until the round was over. Yet all shared the most sportsmanlike attitudes the sport should embody. Bad shots were greeted with a "I'm sure it's still in good shape."

By excluding members based on an ability to speak English the golfers who are members at those clubs lose a chance to learn more about other cultures. I guess that's their right, but it doesn't make sense to me.

Could you imagine what would happen if Major League Baseball did the same thing? How many Latinos or Asian players would be cut off from the North American audience? What if a scout refused to call in a guy who threw a 100 MPH slider just because the player couldn't communicate in English?

Both the Vancouver clubs and the LPGA have driven their balls so far into the rough they'd need GPS just to be found by their caddies.

Language has little to do with the sport. It's how you hit the ball, stupid.

Snark break ...

• NBC's Olympic coverage had the best Saturday-night audience since, wait for it, a 1990 episode of the sitcom Empty Nest.
  
  Sadly, the guy who made that show, David Leisure, wasn't able to pop the champagne the way the 1972 Miami Dolphins do when the last unbeaten NFL team loses. He figured he shouldn't drink on the job until he's done his probationary period at Outback Steakhouse.
  
• Notre Dame fans probably aren't too upset that Forbes rated Charlie Weis as the third-most overpaid coach in college football. They know the Irish are always higher in the rankings than they should be -- especially in August.
  
• It was nice to see that Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi got out to Fenway Park on Saturday and Sunday to watch his favourite team play. It's just too bad the Red Sox lost both games.
  
• It's one thing for Asian women to dominate the LPGA, but who knew that there was a top golf official in Canada named On Too Long?
  
  The guy who presented the trophy at the Canadian Women's Open might still be talking.
  
• That guy who was killed at a firing range at the West Edmonton Mall? To rip off a line from late, great Bill Hicks, "I don't think we lost the cancer cure."
  
• It's understandable to not have any room for gray areas with Michael Vick, but after reading about how he's been ripped off, it's hard not to feel empathy.
  
• Last but not least, it's a bringdown to get an e-mail with " to in the out find and line subject Twins? Football SEC of Playboy pulchritude, but this still tickled the giggly.

(Wow, making fun of David Leisure's career arc and pointing out that there's the occasional stuffed shirt to be found in golf? As Bart Simpson once said of Mad magazine, "They don't care whose toes they step on." Seriously, NBC is KATN in the ratings.)

Snark break

While you were dreaming of visiting a palace that has your name on it -- spelled correctly, too!

Team USA won its Olympic men's basketball opener in walkover despite missing 11 of its first 12 threes. Is that a harbinger of disaster, or impressive?

Good news: You get to keep your voting privileges if there's more than five clips on SI.com's Twenty-Five Must-See YouTubes that you haven't actually seen.

Don't act so surprised that Canada is already out of the Olympic boxing. Do you know anyone who knows anyone who belongs to a boxing club? Do you know anyone who went to a bar or someone's house to watch UFC 87 on Saturday?

Did you read about how Adam Trupish's experience was the quintessential small-town cheap COC-up?

"With only one boxer qualified, the Canadian Olympic Committee opted to cut corners, not credentialing a second person for Trupish's corner. Without a corner man for support, Trupish and (coach Charlie) Stewart turned to Ireland coach Billy Walsh, who volunteered his services as Trupish's second.

"It appeared briefly Canada's decision to go for style over practicality would keep Trupish from the ring.

"His Canadian jersey was a collared T-shirt, not the tank top style preferred by the International Amateur Boxing Association.

"Two minutes before we get in the ring, we're arguing just to get them to let me in the ring, because my outfit doesn't meet the normal criteria," Trupish said.

" 'Canada has started a new style and they (IABA) really didn't like the change. They like the more customary tank top.

" 'I guess we're more about fashion sense.' "

The New York Islanders have their priorities in order -- they introduced their Ice Girls before introducing a head coach. (Link via Puck Daddy.)

The Syracuse University mascot, Otto, is up for election to the Mascot Hall of Fame. And here you thought the Orange had no shot of appearing in any poll during the college football season.

PGA Championship: It's so nice that someone named Harrington can win something in Detroit. Sergio Garcia takes that Best Player To Never Win a Major distinction very seriously.

Your Legends Reno-Tahoe Open preview

Beating up on Michelle Wie shouldn’t make anyone feel good about themselves. The 18-year-old is the definition of an easy target. But she—or more likely her parents—continue to set her up for failure and ridicule.

And so it goes, with Wie skipping the women’s British Open—a major on the women’s tour—to play some relatively minor men’s event in Reno, Nevada. The fact that Wie has never been a factor on the women’s tour and has often embarrassingly failed at the men’s events she attends doesn’t seem to have an impact on Wie Inc.

As stated, it’s easy to go off on Wie and her idiot parents for their continued stupidity. But, doing so exclusively ignores their complicit partners in this mess—the cynical, idiot organizers of men’s events that keep inviting her in a misguided attempt to see three more tickets sold to their B list tournament.

Any female athlete in any sport has every right to play against men. Period. Sensibly arguing otherwise is impossible. But, that doesn’t mean that it’s always or even occasionally a good idea. In case you missed grade 9 health, women’s bodies are different than men’s. That’s why they have their own classification. It only makes sense for a woman to step outside of that classification if she is so dominate against other women that she needs to play against men to be further challenged.

Wie is barely competitive on the women’s tour.

Yet the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open at Reno seems to think that she is worthy of a sponsor’s exception to play this week. They are likely making it worth her while too -- suggesting that maybe Wie and her parents aren’t so much idiots as they are good business people.

Good business people that are willing to use their daughter as a piece of meat to make a quick buck.

Ugly, ugly, ugly —- there ain’t no other way to spin the depressing tale of Michelle Wie.

Bitter old men and their stories about golf

As a soccer guy, I’m supposed to hate Dave Perkins. He epitomizes the grumpy if-I-didn’t-cover-it-in-1973-it-doesn’t-matter attitude that a lot of the old guard in the Canadian sports media seems to sport. But, I just can’t. He chronicles golf too damn good to be hated—-even if he’s dead wrong about the place of the world’s game in Canada.

Golf’s a funny one. It seems like it should be going the way of horse racing and boxing in the sports media world (something you let the 90-year-old columnist ramble on about every so often because that’s just what he does and besides the guy’s a legend. He covered Dimaggio). Yet, it holds onto relevancy. No one older than 40 will admit to watching golf on TV, but somehow papers like The Star keep sending guys like Perkins to Augusta and England to cover it. So, someone must be watching/reading.

And, when the British Open rolls around we are all the better for it. The one tournament that those less than 40 may admit to watching is the British Open (indeed, it’s on in the background as I type this now—Tom Watson-- TOM WATSON! --just missed a birdie putt). There is something about watching pros playing golf on land that looks like it’s located beside the #401 and earmarked for a future Wal-Mart. The chaos of it all somehow makes it cool—Xtream, even.

And, by extension, so does Perkins (as an aside, unlike Bob Elliot, who writes about baseball with a certain purity but sounds like the drunk sitting beside you in a seedy pub, Perkins sounds exactly like he writes—like your jaded, bitter uncle Pete-- back in my day we played the game the way it was supposed to be played. Then them liberals ruined everything).

So, keep an eye on the old grump this weekend as the most unpredictable golf tournament in the world unfolds. Uncle Pete doesn’t know a damn thing about what he doesn’t know, but the bastard can write.

And besides Weir’s in the hunt (for now).

Taking a Tiger by his, um, knee

Ok, so this is pretty big news...

It's interesting to note that this will be Wood's third surgery on his left leg. And, although he says doctors say that the outlook is "positive" you have to wonder. Ask Bobby Orr if the knee joint cares that you are a superhuman athlete.

Of course, it is golf--80-year-old men play the game (often better than me). But, the Rotarian Brigade doesn't drive the ball 300+ yards. It's unlikely a knee surgery or two impacts your swing on the back nine of the Flemington Park Golf Course on senior's Wednesday.

What's crazy is that Woods has only played seven events this year. I guess when you consider he's won five of them there isn't much need to play much more. Still, does anyone else get the feeling that Woods might just unexpectedly pack it in one day? It's almost like he's a little bored by golf.