Sports

NBC still wondering what Rory learned at Augusta

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Not since Woodstock have we been subjected to a more repetitive theme. But instead of “Three Days of Peace and Music,” this U.S. Open brought “Four Days of What Rory Learned at the Masters.”

Rory McIlroy, the latest greatest — but for cause — had the lead headed to the back nine of April’s Masters. Then, beginning with a tee shot sliced toward someone’s Weber grill, he fell apart like a $3 umbrella. He hit it into tree lines, he missed greens, he four-putted. It happens.

Starting with a four-shot lead in the final round, McIlroy shot 43 on the back for an 80. He tied for 15th.

So, even before McIlroy teed off in Thursday’s first round of the Open, the same question he was asked after he putted out in the Masters was back, and bigger than ever: “What did he learn from that terribly disappointing experience?”

And the 22-year-old patiently, politely and dutifully repeated that he hoped he learned a lot; it’s the kind of thing you learn from.

And that was that.

To my knowledge there were no follow-ups, such as, “Specifically, what did you learn?” and/or any version of, “What would you do now that you didn’t do then?”

That’s probably a good thing because the answers could only be as goofy as the question.

What could McIlroy have answered beyond, “Play better,” “Stop hitting bad shots,” “Hit my drives straighter,” “Hit greens,” “Don’t three- or four-putt,” and, “Above all, don’t screw up”?

What was there to learn? Not to three- and four-putt? Not to slice drives? Don’t gag? Neither life nor golf is as complicated as the media, especially TV’s analysts/time-fill ers, try to make it.

I have a close friend, Bob Corbo, a teaching pro, who has long threatened to produce an instructional video entitled, “Don’t Do Dat No More.”

What else was there for McIlroy to learn, to “take away from the experience”?

Yet, for four consecutive days the philosophizing and sermonizing about what McIlroy might have or might not have learned from his Masters collapse was more repetitive than Ravi Shankar’s Woodstock gig.

Late Friday afternoon, with McIlroy finished and leading by six, NBC’s Gary Koch, in ESPN’s tower at the time, made cumulative pushes come to one big shove.

Of McIlroy he said: “Sunday will be the really big day. That’ll be the day we see if he learned from the experience he had at Augusta, where he struggled so much.”

Aaaaghhh!

He has to learn not to shoot 43 on the back nine when he has the lead in a major!

So here’s a golf tip for ya, kid: Don’t do dat no more. Got it?

Jeter’s 3,000th hit causes ‘Classic’ conundrum

Reader Bobby Da Hat Man has a question: “If Derek Jeter gets his 3,000th hit in a game the Yankees lose, will it ever be shown on YES’ ‘Yankee Classics’?”

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With Dick Ebersol out, this would be the time for NBC to restore some long-lost goodwill. It can start by fixing those comically transparent, self-serving, credibility-killing weekend “Sports News” studio reports to include information that actually serves viewers instead of NBC.

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Lifelong pals Steven Blutig and Adam Radosti flew to Chicago for Friday’s Yankees-Cubs game. Around the seventh inning, it dawned on them. What was so different than anything they’d experienced at Yankee Stadium? It was their easy ability, between half-innings, to have a conversation without shouting, no blaring music to holler through.

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Ed Randall‘s guest yesterday on his WFAN “Talking Baseball” show was New York’s Archbishop and baseball fan, Timothy Dolan. Sure, the Angels were in town.

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ESPN’s College World Series coverage of Vanderbilt-UNC Saturday included Vandy outfielder Mike Yastrzemski, grandson of someone whose name escapes me.

Self-lovin’ ‘Boomer’ returns

Shoulda known better. For a second time, I was too quick to praise ESPN’s Chris Berman for resisting the on-air temptation to make the U.S. Open all about him.

By Friday’s second round, Berman had relapsed into his “I” and “me” mode. Having named a fictitious golf trophy “The Boomer Cup,” he enthusiastically pursued that self-absorbed angle at least three times. Typical, was that rather than simply tell a golf story about Woodrow Wilson, he prefaced it by telling us that he, Berman, majored in history.

Berman soaked his Friday Open sessions in weary, self-promoting shtick, which surely angered golf fans — again — but just as surely pleased the hundreds of thousands who tuned in only to hear him.

Also, credit Berman with the silliest golf-on-TV cliché of the Open. With Chad Campbell hitting from a fairway divot, Berman was unable to simply say that, thus he went with: “Chad Campbell has a divot to negotiate.”

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We know how Roger Goodell and NFL team owners stand on the issues, but what about NFLPA boss DeMaurice Smith? How does he and the NFLPA feel about PSLs and must-buy preseason games? As long as the NFLPA has been recruiting the public’s support, consider this a question put in writing.

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Harold Lederman, HBO’s unofficial ringside judge the past 25 years, got his first shot to analyze a bout. It lasted two minutes, 55 seconds, the time it took junior lightweight Adrien Broner to KO Jason Litzau.

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Nice Fathers Day thought from NBC’s Johnny Miller: “That’s the highest calling in life, being a father.” . . . NBC’s Dan Hicks, yesterday, must have been auditioning for ESPN. He admired McIlroy as “having the look, the swagger, of a major champion.” At the time, McIlroy was walking the ninth fairway. He didn’t appear to be swaggering. Regardless, why would Hicks want a modest kid to “swagger”?