Sixty-Six

The more things change, the more they change the same.

It's late-March, so that can only mean one thing: It's time for Tiger Woods' annual victory at Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill tournament.

Last year, Woods won in dramatic fashion, sinking a clutch putt on the 18th hole to knock off Bart Bryant.

This year, in his third PGA Tour event after a lengthy layoff rehabbing from surgery following last June's U.S. Open to repair a major knee injury, it was deja-vu all over again.

Woods started the day five shots back of Sean O'Hair, but methodically tracked down the youngster and finished it off with a 15-foot putt that clinched his sixth win at Palmer's tournament and his 66th PGA Tour victory.

Next up: The Masters, in two weeks.

"Forget it, Jake."

Full slate of weekend activities on tap:

* Attend a double-dip of Polanski -- "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown" -- with a buddy and his wife at the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian on Saturday night. Beers to follow.

* At some point, attempt to catch one or all of these: French film "A Girl Cut in Two," Ricky Gervais-starrer "Ghost Town," or Neal LaBute's latest provocation, "Lakeview Terrace," toplined by Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington.

* Golf's Ryder Cup will take up 16 hours of daytime programming on NBC ... although the absence of Tiger Woods take a bit of the bloom off that rose.

* Keep Fox Soccer Channel tuned for much of the weekend: Chelsea host Manchester United in a clash of English Premier League soccer titans, and matches involving three of the four major Italian Serie A squads -- AC Milan, Roma and Inter Milan -- are also telecast.

* Pittsburgh Steelers bid to open the season 3-0 in an intra-state matchup versus the Philadelphia Eagles.

* New episodes of "True Blood" and "Entourage" on HBO.

* Clean the condo, get the car washed, go grocery shopping and do laundry, somewhere in there.

* Finish it all off by watching the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards and rooting heartily for "Mad Men," "Damages" and -- on behalf of the company -- "Two and a Half Men," "Pushing Daisies," Kyra Sedgwick and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Ready. Set. Go.

Best. Movie. Super. Villain. Ever.

Weekend report...

* Saw "The Dark Knight" and enjoyed it a great deal. Apparently, so did a few other people, as the picture seems to have shattered box-office records for an opening frame. I don't have much to add to the generally rapturous reviews, except to say that comparisons to "The Godfather" or "Heat" might just be stretching it a bit, or to the discussion of Heath Ledger's performance, which I found vivid and haunting.

It was fascinating to see director/cowriter Christopher Nolan take on critically relevant political and social issues -- like democracy, free will and how an allegedly enlightened and free society reacts to terrorism in its midst, etc. -- within the dramatic construct of a summer super hero movie.

I'd love to see Nolan really sink his teeth into that subject matter in direct fashion, in a film along the lines of Paul Greengrass' upcoming "Green Zone" or -- to a lesser extent -- Ridley Scott's forthcoming "Body of Lies," as opposed to via allegory in the live action comic genre.

Every one of Nolan's films have been confident, assured works of a budding master. He's definitely hit his stride as a mature artist with "The Dark Knight," and I can't wait to see what he does next.

* Saw a Shark swallowed up by a Paddy. Fifty-three-year-old Greg Norman inexplicably was leading The Open Championship when he woke up this morning, having slept on a third-round lead in golf's oldest major tournament ... after not having played in the last 11 majors and entering this one simply as a warmup to next week's Senior Open Championship while basking in the afterglow of his recent marriage to tennis legend Chris Evert.

Sadly, Father Time caught up with the Great White Shark today at Royal Birkdale, as Norman couldn't keep the clocked turned back completely. Defending champion Padraig Harrington turned in a wondrous one-under-par round of 69 in brutal conditions on Sunday for a four-round total of three over par, enabling the Irishman to be crowned "champion golfer of the year" in back-to-back years. Tiger Woods -- injured and unable to compete this week -- had previously held the title in 2006 and 2005.

* Musical musings. Listened a lot to the new John Mellencamp record -- a contemporary folk offering produced by T. Bone Burnett -- and found it to be excellent.

Spent some more time with The Hold Steady's new one, "Stay Positive," and still like it, although its flaws are becoming more evident upon repeated exposure. But the good stuff -- namely the two leadoff tracks ("Constructive Summer" and "Sequestered in Memphis"), the title track and the two closing tracks ("Joke About Jamaica" and "Slapped Actress") are all first-rate musically. I read somewhere (maybe Esquire?) that The Hold Steady's last record -- the sublime "Boys and Girls in America" from 2006 -- sold fewer than 80,000 copies. I realize that musicians now basically make their entire living from touring -- and thankfully The Hold Steady draw a decent crowd on the road -- but that number seemed shockingly low to me. Never underestimate the lack of musical taste in this country.

Found the new Beck to be underwhelming.

Have high hopes for the new Okkervil River advance and have heard good things about -- believe it or not -- a Glen Campbell covers collection coming next month that finds the country impresario interpreting U2, the Velvet Underground, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Replacements, Green Day and Travis, among others.

Best. Tournament. Ever.

Three months ago, I tapped out a post in which I declared Tiger Woods to be the most amazing sports figure I've ever witnessed.

This week's events at the U.S. Open, golf's second major of the year, did nothing to change that opinion.

Dragging a surgically repaired knee around Torrey Pines for five days, Woods produced a half-dozen "are you kidding me?-type moments and survived a 19-hole playoff today to defeat hearty journeyman Rocco Mediate on the tournament's 91st hole.

The win gives Woods 14 professional majors, just four behind the legendary Jack Nicklaus.

UPDATE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18: Not only was Tiger Woods recovering from April surgery to remove cartilage in his left knee, he was also playing with (1) a ruptured left anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) that he injured in summer 2007 and (2) a double stress fracture of the tibia, which he incurred in May, while rehabbing from the knee surgery.

What's amazing about the ACL situation is that Woods says today on his website that he injured it while running at home following the British Open last summer.

He decided to forego surgegy, and then managed to win five of his next six tournaments in 2007 -- tying for second in the one that he didn't win -- and led the U.S. to victory in the President's Cup.

He won his first four tournaments of 2008, finished fifth at the WGC-CA Championship and second at the Masters before having the cartilage surgery in April.

He then suffers the double-stress fracture of the tibia during his rehab, which is discovered in May, causing him to drop out of the Memorial.

He returns to golf at the U.S. Open, wins, and then is finally forced to shut it down for the year to have reconstructive surgery on the left knee's ACL.

Amazing. Anyway, here's hoping he comes back healthier than ever.

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.

El Tigre

I'm 38 years old, so I'm too young to have witnessed Muhammad Ali in his prime, but I was front and center -- generationally speaking -- to watch Michael Jordan throughout his remarkable college and professional basketball career.

That said, the most impressive sports figure I've seen is Tiger Woods.

At age 32, Woods has 13 professional major championship titles to his name, only five behind the immortal Jack Nicklaus. Yesterday, he won Arnold Palmer's annual tournament at Bay Hill Club & Lodge in Orlando, Fla. for the fifth time, sinking an incredible 24-foot putt on the 18th hole to beat Bart Bryant by a stroke.

The win was Tiger's 64th on the PGA Tour, tying him with the legendary Ben Hogan on the all-time victory list.

Oh yeah, this was his fifth consecutive Tour victory and seventh tournament in a row, counting Dubai and his Target World Challenge during the PGA off-season in December.

Amazing.