Garden Variety

Sports weekends like this one are why people garden. Let's recap:

*Tiger Woods, in his first appearance since that epic Masters title, flopped at the Wachovia Championship. Tiger tied for 11th but never contended, his weekend lowlighted by an approach to the 14th Friday which landed just past the hole...and promptly spun left, off the green, and into the water. The winner was Vijay Singh, second to Tiger in the world rankings and about as popular with golf fans as a rash in one's nether regions. Of course, Vijay, himself, arose to stardom from golf's nether regions, namely Fiji, which helps explain why he's not especially interested in yukking it up with galleries or kissing babies...though he did extend that now-famous invitation following his 2000 Masters victory, "Kiss my (nether regions), everybody." He just keeps laughing all the way to the bank, which in this case was sponsoring the tournament. Saved him a trip.

*Meanwhile, on the tour distaff, Annika Sorenstam could've set a new LPGA record for consecutive victories had she won in Williamsburg. But instead of making history, she was history after an opening 76 (her first over par round since the Clinton administration). She never got closer than 7 shots all weekend to eventual winner, Cristie Kerr, whose Extreme Makeover 5 years ago included the elimination of 60 L.B.s and the addition of a bunch of "oh, boys!" When Kerr contended at the '01 U.S. Women's Open, NBC analyst Johnny Miller could hardly contain himself and kept drooling, "Cristie Kerr is so fffffff...it." It was like he wanted to say, "FFFFine!" or "FFFFFFFun to look at!" or "FFFFreaking hot!"

Still, Kerr's visage was merely a consolation prize. We wanted to see history, and the best Williamsburg could give us was the dudes with muskets in the colonial costumes.

*At the track, Giacomo (pronounced "giacomo") won the 131st running of the Kentucky Derby in an upset of epic and (to the bluebloods in Louisville) dyspeptic proportions. A 100-to-1 shot, as highly esteemed as Mr. Ed among the horse racing cognoscenti, Giacomo's victory ranked right up there with the great party crashers of all-time. This was Billy Carter as America's First Brother. John Daly winning the PGA. Fonzie at the country club with new love interest, Adriana, and her friends. (Snob to Fonzie: "A leather jacket. How gauche." Fonzie to Snob: "Yeah, well how gauche it with you, too"). The caddies storming the pool at Bushwood. After Giacomo crossed the finish line first, you could actually hear Churchill Downs denizens screaming, "Doody in the pool!" It's always good fun to see a little mud splatter on the rich and famous.

*And finally, the suits at TNT must've been thrilled to see both of their NBA first round Game 7s decided by roughly 426 points. The Pacers and Mavs both won blowouts, then were routed themselves in the opening games of their respective second round series Monday night.

TNT says, "We know drama!" So do we, and this weekend we didn't get it. Of course, you may have loved what you saw on the sports tube. And if that's the case, I'll gladly retract all of this and admit, like The Fonz, "I was wrrrrrr...I was wrrrrr..."