The glory of the miss

 Sometimes the best thing about sports is being wrong.

It's starting a sentence with "There's no way he/she ...", and then he/she finds a way.

It's declaring, from the depths of your depthless wisdom, that such-and-such is going to happen (or not happen), and then it doesn't (or does), and somehow you don't even feel like a fool because it's so incredibly wonderful.

Prognostication is and always will be a hit-or-miss proposition. But in sports, it's the miss part that makes it fun.

And so to Wednesday, and a conversation with a friend about the Masters.

"I don't see how he can possibly play four rounds in four days," I say.

"Nope. I don't either," my friend says.

"I think he'll probably play a round, and, if he makes the cut, maybe two," I say. "But ..."

We're talking about Tiger Woods, of course.

Who proceeded to go out there at Augusta the next day, on the hardware store masquerading as his right leg, and shoot 1-under 71 in his first competitive round in a year-and-a-half.

Then he went out the next day, struggled early and righted the ship to shoot 74 and make the Masters cut at 1-over for the tournament.

By the end, he wasn't even limping, at least noticeably.

Somewhere Steve Austin, the Six-Million Dollar Man, is saying "What the hell? But I thought he was like me, a man barely alive!" 

Somewhere else, I'm saying the same thing, and also "When am I ever gonna learn?", and also "I thought the whole Ben-Hogan-after-the-bus-crash thing was a one-off."

Apparently not. Because there's Tiger out there channeling Hogan at the 1950 U.S. Open, and this morning he'll report to the first tee for the third round, and unless something devastating happens I think his leg will have to fall off for him not to complete the weekend. And, hell, maybe even win, although he's nine strokes off the lead and it seems unlikely.

Of course, the whole thing is unlikely. Which, again, is what's great about sports. 

You can be wrong -- you can be a big stupid, like me -- and be OK with it. Or as the immortal Denis Lemieux put it in "Slapshot": You feel shame, you know. And then you get free.

Exactly.