Shock Value

The big sports month continued today, with professional golf's second major of the year -- the U.S. Open -- commencing in San Diego, the Lakers squaring off against the Celtics in game four of the NBA Finals, and day two of the second round of soccer's Europe 2008 championship kicking off in Austria and Switzerland.

And, of course, nothing went according to plan.

Tiger Woods -- returning from a lengthy layoff following knee surgery -- made double-bogey six on the first hole at Torrey Pines but rallied to finish just four shots off the lead at one-over par, recovering from a second double-bogey on the back nine.

International soccer powerhouse Germany was upended by fiery Croatia, whose 2-1 victory propelled them into the quarterfinals of the tournament. Germany can still advance by beating Poland on Monday.

Finally, the Lakers jumped out to a 24-point first-half lead, withstood a strong Celtics run to maintain an 18-point advantage at halftime ... only to flop completely in the second half and lose the pivotal game four in a collapse of historic proportions.

The only good part about the Lakers loss was meeting up with an old friend to watch the game over dinner. So I had that going for me. Which is nice.