Tiger Woods and Danica Patrick

By most measures, Tiger Woods and Danica Patrick couldn't be more different. After all, one's a man, and the other's a woman. One's black and one's white. Though they both technically fall under the vast umbrella of the "world of sports", one would be hard pressed to find much in common between golf and auto racing.

Not counting caddies, golf is pretty much an individual sport. Only one person swings the clubs. In a typical tournament, whoever completes 72 holes of golf in the fewest strokes -- wins. Pretty simple.

Auto racing's a lot different. Yes, only one person actually drives the car, but a lot of other people are involved in determining who will wind up taking the checkered flag. Most notable amongst them are the pit crews. When cars come into the pits for gas, tires, and adjustments -- as they usually have to do several times during the course of a race -- the guys flying around the car taking care of such things might not be able to win the race -- but they can certainly lose it. With rare exceptions -- even one blown pit stop, for whatever reasons, will doom their race car to far less than a victory. It happens all the time.

Yet despite all their differences, Eldrick and Danica definitely have one thing in common. They're both media darlings. How this came to be is very understandable in one case, but quite mystifying in the other.

Let's look at Tiger first. Years ago, without question, Woods was far and away the most dominant golfer in the world. He was winning seemingly everything, including racking up 14 "major" titles. It was a foregone conclusion that he would easily surpass Jack Nicklaus' record of 18. But then stuff happened. Woods got married, had a couple kids, and was eventually exposed as an adulterer. Enter a messy and costly high-profile divorce, and it might be fair to say Woods' personal reputation took a very big hit. Throw in a few physical injuries, parting ways with the long time caddy that had guided him around courses, and even trying to "reinvent" his swing -- and this was not a good combination for Tiger. He hasn't won another major since -- 5 years and counting.

Nevertheless, to his credit, Woods has regained his standing as the #1 player in the world, and recently was voted by his peers as golfer of the year. I suspect in golf, that award is similar to being voted MVP in other sports. Yes, Woods won several lesser tournaments in the past year, and topped the money list, so perhaps he was deserving of such an accolade.

Funny thing about that award is -- nobody seems to know how and when the voting actually takes place, and how many votes various players received. Unlike any other MVP voting process, or even your average beauty pageant, no results are ever made public as to who was runner-up, 3rd, 4th, 5th, place, etc. The golf gods just announce a winner. Done deal.

Yep, Tiger won a few tournaments and made a pile of dough, but perhaps something else should be taken into consideration.

Even pro golf has their version of the playoffs. It's called the FedEx Cup. This is a series of tournaments after the regular season is over, much like other sports, but with a twist. The initial field consists of those players that ranked highest in the world over the regular season. That makes sense. After the first tournament, the herd is culled. Only so many make it to the next one. And so on until the final tournament, which consists of the Top 30. Though Woods never came remotely close to winning any of these tournaments, through some sort of complicated points system that even Congress couldn't dream up -- it seemed Eldrick STILL had a chance to win.

But alas Tiger Nation. Like mighty Casey in Mudville, Eldrick finally struck out. Instead, a Swede named Henrik Stenson won the final tournament, AND the FedEx Cup.

An argument could be made that if Stenson won the playoffs, shouldn't he be #1?

After all, in any other sport, the "regular season" just serves as a vehicle to make the playoffs. If your record is good enough -- you get in. If not -- you don't. Look at college football and basketball as examples. All year long somebody is ranked #1. They may have even gone undefeated. But if they get knocked out in the tournament -- nobody considers them #1 anymore. So why should pro golf be any different?

Oops. This has run on a bit longer than I anticipated.

Finishing up with Tiger and taking a hard look at Danica..... next time.