Tiger to his young challengers: ‘Alright, here we go’

By Art Spander

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — The hero who became the outcast again has become the hero, raising his sport as he raised his game, and turning back the clock as he turned away the skeptics.

Once more golf has been distilled to two words and one name, Tiger Woods, who was nearly lost in a crowd of enthralled fans as, for the first time in five years, he won a tournament, giving a new generation an idea of what he was like in the old days.

Now after a singular and — from the response in the TV ratings — wildly popular victory in the Tour Championship at Atlanta, Woods, along with some of the people he subdued, has crossed the ocean to play in the Ryder Cup, the biennial team competition between the U.S. and Europe.

That for the first time the Cup, Friday through Sunday, is being held in France, at Le Golf National, a course some 20 miles from Paris and maybe five miles from the glorious royal chateau of Versailles, seems appropriate.

One of golf’s more recent kings has been restored to his throne, and those involved in the game, even peripherally, are ecstatic. Why, during interviews on Tuesday, an American broadcaster, ignoring the dictum of no cheering in the press box, even figurative, thanked Woods “for all of us who earn our living in the golf business.”

Some journalists cringed. Tiger merely smiled in appreciation.

It all gets down to personalities in golf and tennis, to ladies such as Serena Williams, men such as Woods, whose simple presence — or absence — becomes a story.

Tiger, winning majors repeatedly, was an idol, if a distant one given the way he walked fairways without a wave or sideways glance. Then came the revelations about his womanizing, which alienated a percentage of his fans and the media. That was followed by surgery on his back, and who knew if he would play — or if he could play well?

The answer is in. U.S. Ryder Cup captain Jim Furyk’s decision in early August to add Woods to the 12-member squad was more than justified with Tiger’s victory, one achieved against players such as Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas, who were not on Tour when Woods was in his prime.

When asked why one of Woods’ friends, Phil Gordon, said that Tiger just wanted the new kids on the block to feel the heat of facing him down the stretch of a back nine, Tiger had a ready explanation.

“Well. a lot of these guys were — well, the younger guys were on their way in when I was on my way out,” said the 43-year-old Woods, who of course, still very much is in. He was alluding to Thomas, Koepka and Jordan Spieth, in particular.

“You know, they never had played against me when I was playing well. It’s been, what, five years since I won a tournament?”

Now it hasn’t even been five days.

“I think that when my game is there,” said Woods, trying to temper his self-belief, “I’ve always been a tough person to beat. They have jokingly been saying, ‘We want to go against you.’

“Alright, here we go. And we had a run at it. And it was a blast, because I had beat Rory (McIlroy) head-up in the final group. Rosy (Justin Rose) was tied with Rory ... Those guys had both ascended to No. 1 in the world. They both have won major championships, and I have not played a whole lot of golf the last few years.”

He played a lot the last few months, taking leads in the British Open and PGA Championship, and then winning the Tour Championship. That put him face-to-face with an unfortunate aspect of a career with few unfortunate aspects, his record in the Ryder Cup. Only once in his seven appearances has Woods been part of a winning team.

“Yeah,” agreed Woods, “looking back on my entire Ryder Cup career, that’s one thing I’ve not really enjoyed or liked seeing. I’ve sat out one session. That was the last (team play) session at Medinah (2012). Otherwise I’ve played every match. We haven’t done very well.”

Not at all, but this 2019 team is one with Koepka, Spieth, Thomas, Phil Mickelson and Woods — who, for better or worse, is the guy who the game is all about.

Gruden after the 0-2 start: ‘No regrets’

  ALAMEDA, Calif.—This is what Jon Gruden wanted. Well, not exactly. He didn’t want to lose the first two games on his return to coaching. He didn’t want to feel forced to trade away probably his best player, Khalil Mack. He wanted to be in charge of an NFL team once more, and so he is, with all the problems that brings.

  Even Monday, another day after, another day to get peppered with the questions he used to ask—or at least hint at—Gruden indicated there were no regrets.

  Coaches coach. Maybe John Madden secure in his well-earned reputation, not to mention the East Bay real estate holdings, was able to resist the call. But Dick Vermeil, Joe Gibbs and one of Gruden’s recent ESPN colleagues, Herman Edwards, stepped away from microphones and back into the line of fire.

   Gruden was not naïve. He knew the drill. He knew the misfortunes. He knew he was a star on Monday nights with a salary equal to his status. But deep down he was and is a football coach, and that can bring as much pain as satisfaction.

   A game the Oakland Raiders never trailed. Until the final 10 seconds. Until the only time that mattered. A game the Raiders lost on field goal, 20-19, because the Denver Broncos were able to move the ball from their own 20 to the Oakland 18 in a minute 48 seconds, allowing that 36-yard kick in the gut—uh, over the crossbar by Brandon McManus.

  A game that perfectly set up questions about the defensive line and the lack of Mack, who might have made a difference on that drive. Might. Gruden knew that was coming. He understands the game and the business.

   “I think we said after the game,” Gruden said to a packed media room at Raiders HQ, “we got to make improvements there. Across the board we got to make improvements.”

  But he doesn’t have to second-guess himself, at least in a public forum, with cameras and microphones and oh so many digital recorders and note pads.

  “No,” he answered about sending Mack away. “It doesn’t make me regret. We made the trade. We made the trade.”

  Not so nice had had to say it twice, but he did.

  “There has got to be hindsight. 50-50, all that stuff.”

  To be sure without Mack, the pass rusher, the All-Pro, there was no stuff, the type that stops an offense where he tried to start.

  “I would have loved to have had him,” said Gruden, quite forthright. “And I’m not going to keep rehashing this. I would have loved to have coached him, loved to have had him here. But he’s not here. Somebody’s got to step up.

  “We got to keep building our football team, and that’s what we’re going to do. Hopefully, we see more from Arden Key, we see more from P.J. Hall when he gets healthy. Hopefully we prove that in the long term we did the right thing.” 

  Players win games. Derek Carr, criticized obliquely the previous game, against the Rams, for not being decisive, nearly won this one, setting a team completion percentage record. Amari Cooper, 10 receptions for 116 yards, nearly won this one. Marshawn Lynch, 65 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries, nearly won this one.

  It’s hard to know whether Mack could have won this one, but the future draft picks the Raiders acquired didn’t do a thing. Indeed, that’s a gratuitous comment. The Raiders are what they are, which is an NFL team on the verge—of what no one can say, including the head coach.

  Gruden was asked what he saw from the first two games--two losing games, one of them well played, that made him think the Raiders still could be a contender—although truth tell he never even implied that, much less said it directly.

   “I’m not going to sit here and make predictions here today,” he said, sitting there. “I’m not going to do it. We’re going to keep building our football team. Whether that translates into one win or four wins or any wins . . . I’m not going to make any predictions about anything other than we’re going to play hard and provide the best effort we can.”

 As he departed, Gruden walked through the door and into one more question. Did he wish he hadn’t left ESPN for what surrounded him?

  “Not at all,” Gruden said. You sensed he very much meant it, and the heck with Khalil Mack.

For 49ers, a win is a win

  SANTA CLARA, Calif.—The result is what matters, the final score. It’s wonderful to perform flawlessly, to play to a level worthy of coaching texts and highlight videos. But however you do get there, at the end what matters in the NFL is who has the most points.

   On a warm Sunday in September, with the 75,000 seats at Levi’s Stadium maybe three-quarters full , at most, and with imperfection all too evident in the passing game—are six sacks enough evidence?—the San Francisco 49ers were able to beat the Detroit Lions, 30-27.

  Which means they now have a 1-1 record and unlike his rookie season as head coach, 2017, Kyle Shanahan will not continuously be asked when he’ll get his first win of the year. After two games, he has it and has a measure of satisfaction.

   “The win feels good,” said Shanahan. “It took me a while last year to get that win”

 Ten games to be exact. But this time only two games, which in Shanahan’s mind was one game too many.

 “I wish it was last week,” he said, “but I’m very happy. It was tough last year. I’m happy for our guys. I thought our defense played its butts off.  Our special teams made some huge plays, especially D.J. Read.

 “I thought we ran the heck out of the ball. There was a little struggle in the passing game, with the receivers, tight end and quarterback, but we found a way to win.”

  Or the 0-2 Lions, who botched up an interception that brought the ball to the Niners seven with 2:24 to play, with a penalty that nullified the pick, found a way to lose.

  Why the Niners, leading by three with the ball on their own 43, were throwing is beyond comprehension—or coaching.

  They got away with it, and maybe that once outdated slogan about the fans, the faithful, should be revised to “Faithful then, fortunate now.”

 Nothing goes perfect, said Shanahan, the offensive coordinator for Atlanta’s Super Bowl team before he took over the 49ers.”But we’ve got to do a better job with our passing. It’s not all on the blocking. We’ve got to get men open, and the quarterback shouldn’t hold the ball that long. We’ll look at it and correct it.”

  No correction is needed for Matt Breida, who along with Alfred Morris is sharing the position of starting running back, fill-ins for Jerrick McKinnon, who is on injured reserve. In the third quarter, gliding effortlessly following his blocking intelligently—including a juke near the goal line—Breida raced 66 yards for a touchdown.

   To echo the head coach, yes, they ran the heck out of the ball.

   “It was just a great job y the O-line,” said Breida. “They opened up a big hole on the play, and I found Pierre (wide receiver Pierre Garcon. He became my fullback down th4e field essentially . . . He’s a monster. He’s fearless, and he’s not afraid to block.”

  So running worked well. Passing worked less well.

 Jimmy Garoppolo held the ball too long at times. Often the quarterback takes six sacks, the team takes a loss, but as Shanahan said the running game was effective, 190 yards of the Niners 346 total. The Lions’ total was 427, including 329 passing on 34 of 53 by Matthew Stafford (Garoppolo was 18 of 26 for 206 yards and two touchdowns), but Detroit was stymied near the goal line.

  “Too many penalties,” said first-year Lions coach Matt Patricia. Detroit had 10 for105 yards, the Niners 9 for 66. “Too many mistakes. Too many plays there that obviously cost us the game. We had a game-changing play there that got called back”

The interception negated by defensive holding.

   “That was a good thing,” said Garoppolo.

Getting pummeled while waiting to throw was not

   “Got to get the ball out quicker,” said Garoppolo, “The offensive line played great today. We had a chance to blow them out. I think that comes with mental toughness. You can’t let human nature take over.”

  What he meant was the tendency to ease up.

  .Cornerback Richard Sherman emphasized that.

  “A win’s a win,” Sherman agreed, “but it feels like a loss because we played like crap.”

Gruden and Raiders: Can he go home again?

ALAMEDA Calif.—You’re a Raiders fan—an Oakland Raiders fan—and you wonder what they’re going to do to you next? Your loyalty goes unrewarded. Your frustration is ignored.

  The new coach, who used to be the old coach, said he came back because he had something to prove. Where’s he going to prove it, in Las Vegas?

  The team isn’t very good, which can’t be blamed on the coach—except he was involved in trading the team’s best player, Khalil Mack, for draft picks,  some of whom, it the timetable holds, will not be on team until it’s no longer in Oakland,.

  The coach ought to know about giving up people who matter for potential. draftees. Nearly 20 years ago he was the guy who mattered, the coach of a Raiders team that was in the playoffs, that in a couple seasons would win a Super Bowl. But Jon Gruden had been swapped for draft picks who never did very much.

  When Gruden arrived the first time, 1998, he was 35 and loving it. He cracked jokes, taunted the writers. He worked for Al Davis, yes, nerve-wracking. Still it was his first NFL head coaching assignment. This was what he always wanted, so how could he not handle everything with a smile?

  Now he is 55. And famous, more so as commentator for ESPN—hey aren’t you the guy we saw on TV?—than for his coaching background. The Raiders were pounded by the Rams, 33-13, Monday, Gruden’s return game, and Tuesday Gruden was confronted by the media, for a second time in maybe 14 hours. There weren’t a lot of laughs.

  Mack wouldn’t have made the Raiders a winner, although he would have made them more competitive. Defense wins. Everyone in football knows that. You don’t get rid of a once-in-a-decade pass rusher.

  You know the line. It was given to Thomas Wolfe by an English writer, Ella Winter, and he was so enamored Wolfe used it as the title of his last novel,”You Can’t Go Home Again.”  You can walk in the door of the old house years later, but nothing is quite same. Different viewpoints, different situations.

  After he left as head coach of the 49ers, winning three Super Bowls, Bill Walsh returned to Stanford, where he had earned his reputation. But it didn’t quite work. He didn’t have the same enthusiasm and the student-athletes, as the label goes, were not the way he remembered. Society changes. Sports changes.

  Gruden knows the game.  He was less a commentator than an instructor and critic on those “John Gruden Quarterback Camp” segments, one of which dealt with a kid named Derek Carr, who the second half Monday night played less than favorably, throwing interceptions,

  Still, it you’re always behind because the other team (i.e., Rams) is sharp on offense and you’re less than sharp on defense—or offense—the quarterback, in this case, Carr, is going to be heaving balls in desperation.

‘There were a few plays when unchacteristically (Carr) wasn’t at his best,” said Gruden. No quips. No double-entendre. No TV commentary. Just a cold, hard serious observation.

  “Sometimes,” Gruden pointed out correctly, “you have to credit (Rams defensive coordinator) Wade Phillips.” As if Phillips didn’t receive all the credit possible as defensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos when they stiffed Carolina in Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium.

  “They gave us multiple looks out there,” said Gruden of the Rams defense. “They have some talented people out there. It’s just disappointing. But I think knowing how good Derek is it can all be solved.”

  Is that coach talking or the TV announcer?

  Gruden knows his stuff. He also knows what his team lacks—a top pass rusher, like Khalil Mack. Funny you should mention that.

  One thing that hasn’t changed in the 10 years since he left coaching and the 20 years or so since he first game with the Raiders is that defeat remains painful.

  “It stinks,” he said candidly, “Losses all feel painful. Especially Monday night losses when you have to get up and get ready for a team like Denver.”

   What do you think it is for Raider fans who have to get ready for losing their team in Oakland?

For Serena the day after: A $17,000 fine and plenty of support

  NEW YORK—And now it’s not merely sport. Now it’s sexism and racism and people who are quick to try to get control by getting into someone’s wallet, or purse—but isn’t the distinction between those two sexist?

 Tennis is back to its schizophrenic stages of lunacy, which perhaps is the way to get noticed at the start of the NFL season.

   What happened to Serena Williams? Virtually everybody except Trump and Obama had an opinion. I mean, it wasn’t surprising that Billie Jean King would weigh in on the chaos. It’s her tennis center where the U.S. Open is held. At least it’s named for Billie Jean.

 Naturally John McEnroe, Mr. Controversy his ownself when he played in the 1980s, currently announcing the tournament on ESPN, along with younger brother Patrick, would give an “I’ve been there” comment—because he has been there.

  Maybe the chair umpire, Carlos Ramos, was a trifle impatient with Williams on Saturday night, snatching a game from her in the second set of her, 6-2, 6-4, finals loss Saturday night to Naomi Osaka. All right, more than a trifle.

   Still, the emotion, arguments, confusion, distress, heresy and general lack of civility didn’t seem to have as much of an impact as does the eternal war between female and male

    Everybody appeared to be wrong at the women’s final, except poor Ms. Osaka, 20, the first Japanese to win a Grand Slam tournament who with the booing (of Ramos) and irritation of Ms. Williams, was almost made to feel like a victim not a champion.

  A percentage of the media should also be included, the ones who applauded after Serena closed out her post-match interview saying, “I just feel I have to go through this for the next persons who want to express themselves and want to be strong women”  No cheering in the press box?

 Sunday, the U.S. Tennis Association, which runs the Open, fined Serena $17.000, a pittance compared to the $82.500 she was fined for telling a line judge who called a rare foot fault in a ’09 semi against Kim Clijsters, “I’m going to stick this bleeping racquet down your throat.”

What set off the figurative fireworks Saturday night was when Ramos warned Williams for being directed from the stands by her coach Patrick Mouratoglou, She disagreed, and when she broke a racquet the warning became violation and a penalty point. Outraged, Williams yelled at Ramos, who then gave Osaka the game and 5-3 lead. Boooooo. That was the reaction of 23,000 fans.

  This was the consensus the day after. All coaches give signals from the stands, which is against the rules but rarely called, except apparently against female players, although Rafa Nadal got nailed a while back.

   And there are different tolerances, unspoken certainly, for men and for women.

. “Several things went very wrong during the U.S. Open women’s finals,” Billie Jean King, a multiple winner from years past, Tweeted after the Osaka-Williams match. “Coaching on every point should be allowed in tennis. It isn’t and, as a result, a player was penalized for the actions of her coach. This should not happen.

“When a woman is emotional, she’s ‘hysterical’ and she’s penalized for it,” the Tweet continued. Williams said male players never are penalized for outbursts, even profanity “When a man does the same, he’s ‘outspoken’ and there are no repercussions. Thank you, Serena Williams, for calling out this double standard. More voices are needed to do the same.”

  John McEnroe said of Serena’s observations, “She’s right. The guys are held to different standards. It’s like, ‘How dare she do that?’” Why the hell did (Ramos) go by the book? Do it like an NBA ref, telling a player to back off or he’ll be called. She needed some leeway. I said far worse”

   One reason Ramos and other chair umpires have so much power is because of a situation at the1979 Open, naturally involving John McEnroe and another hothead of the era, Ilie Nastase.

  The umpire, Frank Hammond, did what Ramos would this time do to Serena, giving Nastase a game for a 3-1 lead. Fans hurled empty beer cans at Hammond, who walked away before the match would end with McEnroe the winner.

  The other McEnroe, Patrick, reminded the television audience nobody understands Serena.  “None of us has walked in her shoes,” he said. “She’s an African-American woman who’s had to struggle. That’s where her response came from. But at the same time she has to be responsible.”

  Since when did responsibility become important in tennis?