Calhoun Times

Do you read the newspaper?

- By Mike Bianchi

Anewspaper is sometimes called a Chronicle. A newspaper is a record of what is happening in and around town.

Many events are covered. There are birth notices, and death notices which are called the obituaries. There are records of land sales, licenses issued, and arrest records.

There are television listings, and upcoming events. There are sports reports, like the school activities.

There is a community calendar with the events planned. And there are lots of advertisem­ents. Some papers carry sections with recipes, and some human interest stories.

But the main purpose of the paper is to keep track of what has happened. If you want to know what happened ten years ago, you can look back at the old issues of the paper.

The archives tell you the details of a particular event.

These records are of the facts of each story. Things like who was there and what took place.

Other sections of the paper will be editorial sections. These sections give one person’s opinions. And there may be letters to the editor for a response from a reader.

These stories may involve a local person or a national figure. Someone that is considered important.

The Bible can be considered like a newspaper. There are many stories about people in the past. As you read the story of a person that is considered great, you will get the facts.

The important difference about the Bible is that God is willing to tell all the facts.

They tell the good and the bad. God wants to praise the good things, at the same time let you know that each great person, also did some wrong things.

You can do some special things, even though you have made some mistakes. You may not get your name in the paper, but God has a record for you.

ACROSS 1 Each

6 Den

11 Rodeo rope 13 Dreadful 14 New York

cagers 15 Chemical

compounds 16 Strive for 17 Stroke

19 — down roots 20 Drained of

color 22 Fictional

orphan 26 Pussyfoots 30 Not over 31 Looks

happy

33 Place for

shadow 35 Gloomy 36 Slumbering 38 Untrusting 39 Damp 41 Apprehend

a suspect 44 Corporate

exec

45 Con 49 Spanish

dance

51 Stay

53 King

Arthur’s island 54 Marbles 55 Caribbean

nation 56 Scrooge’s

visitor

DOWN Antlered animals

Barn topper Pennsylvan­ia port

Ilsa’s love

Idle chatter Beantown team

Game show prize

Pakistan’s language 9 Low-cal 10 Fabric meas. 12 Recipe amts. 13 Suite providers

1

2 3

4 5 6

7

8 18 Codgers’

queries 20 More open 21 Quickly 22 Tone

23 New Age

singer 24 Dangerous

March date 25 Wooded

hollow 27 World’s

longest river 28 “Fish Magic”

artist

29 Char

32 Pilot’s milieu 34 Church official 37 Cobbler 40 Ibsen woman 41 Astronomer’s

sighting 42 Tien Shan

mountains 43 Wallop

45 Far East nanny 46 Peacekeepi­ng

org.

47 Binds 48 Scholarly

org.

49 “—, humbug!” 50 French

monarch

52 It may be

hard-boiled

We keep waiting … and waiting … and waiting for the emergence of the next Tiger Woods — a dominant, dynastic golfer who will turn the PGA Tour and the four majors into his own personal playground.

As we watched the Arnold Palmer Invitation­al weekend leaderboar­ds that included some of the top young players in the world, including the hulked-up, bulked-up tournament winner Bryson DeChambeau, it should be increasing­ly clear that there will never be another Tiger Woods.

In fact, if tournament fields were as young and deep a quarter-century ago as they are today, not even Tiger Woods would have become the Tiger Woods as we now know him: the transcende­nt golfer who has racked up 15 majors and 82 PGA Tour victories in his career. Of course it’s all just speculatio­n and I’m certainly not saying Tiger in his prime wouldn’t still be the best player in golf; I’m just saying that maybe he would only have nine majors and 50 PGA Tour victories.

Obviously, we could say the same thing about any iconic athlete of the past playing in today’s game. Would 6-foot10 center Bill Russell, a dominant defender who was challenged offensivel­y, have won 11 NBA championsh­ips in today’s bombs-away NBA game? Of course not.

Would Babe Ruth have dominated baseball if he had played in the days after the game integrated? Not a chance.

The reason we bring this up is because the fields in golf are deeper and more talented than they’ve ever been, but there seems to be this misinforme­d narrative that something is missing. There seems to be this underlying criticism among sports fans that current players simply don’t win enough.

There’s a reason for that: Because it’s harder to win now than it’s ever been. It’s more difficult to get to the top and stay on top than any time in the history of the game.

“No stone is left unturned now from these kids,” said 47-year-old Lee Westwood, who battled the 27-year-old DeChambeau to the final hole on Sunday before losing by a stroke. “They have got trainers, dietitians, massage therapists, people taking them to the gym to do the right exercises to be specific for their golf swing.“

Said Joie Chitwood, the tournament director of the Arnold Palmer Invitation­al: “I will tell you what has blown me away is the credential­s of these young golfers. I think the talent coming into the PGA Tour is at a level we have never seen before, which only makes it that much tougher to succeed or win. It doesn’t matter if you’re ranked No.1, No. 50 or No. 100, you can win on any given day.”

If you want to know how hard it is to win in today’s game, just look at two of the players who were on the leaderboar­d on Sunday at The Arnie — Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy.

There was time when Spieth was the ultimate closer and the man who was going to take the torch from Tiger and start dominating golf. Spieth won three majors and racked up 10 victories during a threeyear span, but he saw the talent on the tour getting younger and hitting the ball farther and, so, he started tinkering with his swing to gain some length. Now he’s gone nearly four years without a victory.

McIlroy, starting at the age of 21, won four majors during a three-year stretch from 2011 to 2014 and he, too, was going to be the heir apparent to Tiger. While he is still one of the top players in the world, Rory hasn’t won a major in seven years and has gone 16 months without any victory whatsoever.

The year before Tiger arrived on the PGA Tour, 37-year-old Tom Lehman was the leading money winner and six of the top-10 money leaders were 35 or older and only three were in their 20s. Right now, there is only one 35-or-older golfer (Dustin Johnson) among the top 10 of the PGA Tour money list while six are in their 20s.

It’s fascinatin­g to wonder if Tiger would be able to dominate this young, new breed of athletic golfers. It’s not just coincidenc­e that Tiger has won only one major in the last dozen years. Yes, injuries have hurt his chances of winning but so, too, have the fearless, young, technologi­cally advanced robo-golfers on tour today.

Let’s face it, Tiger didn’t have to deal with players like the 6-foot-1, 245-pound DeChambeau hitting 380-yard drives over lakes as he did on No. 6 Sunday. Arnold Palmer himself used to say, “You must play boldly to win.” It seems DeChambeau and today’s daring young guns live by those words even more than the golfers of Arnie’s era.

“I do get myself in trouble sometimes with the length I hit it and where I hit it, but I would say that Mr. Palmer probably would like it,” DeChambeau said with a smile splashed across his face.

Even Tiger himself must love the way DeChambeau prepares and plays. He texted DeChambeau Sunday morning, presumably from the L.A. hospital where he is still re

covering from serious injuries after a horrific car accident in late February.

There’s no doubt that Tiger recognizes the influence he has had on young players such as DeChambeau. Before Tiger, there simply wasn’t an emphasis among most golfers to hit the gym, work out and stay in shape. On today’s PGA Tour, just about everybody is in the gym almost as much as they’re on the range.

Even Westwood, at 47, has embraced going to gym and doing bench presses, squats and dead lifts. Earlier in his career, the only thing he lifted was pints of Guinness, but now he has become a fitness freak.

“I think golfers are more knowledgea­ble now about technique and technology.” Westwood said. “I mean, I could get some stink for it, but I think in general players are more profession­al now and analyze the game more. The kids today have learned from what Tiger did.”

There’s no question, Tiger Woods in his prime would still be one of the greatest golfers of all time, but he wouldn’t be nearly as dominant if he were competing against the physically and mentally superior breed of young golfers that he inspired.

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 ?? Staff/Orlando Sentinel/TNS ?? Mike Bianchi is a columnist for the Orlando Sentinel.
Staff/Orlando Sentinel/TNS Mike Bianchi is a columnist for the Orlando Sentinel.
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