Woods

WASHINGTON -- During his rookie season on the PGA Tour in 1996, Tiger Woods and his father, Earl, set up a foundation to help disadvantaged children. They eventually opened a learning center near the family's California home. The only thing that Woods and his father talked about but never accomplished was starting a golf tournament to benefit the foundation. Earl Woods died last year, but the tournament has now become a reality. During a jam-packed news conference at the National Press Club, Woods and PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem announced yesterday that the AT&T National will be played July 5-8 in the Washington area.

SAN DIEGO -- Is there anything out there that can trip up Tiger Woods? Nothing in the past six months anyway, at least on the PGA Tour, once again zoned as Woods' personal playground, just as it has been since last July when he started a winning streak at the British Open that reached seven straight yesterday with his fifth victory overall, and third straight, at the Buick Invitational. Woods took the lead with six holes to go at Torrey Pines, wound up with a 6-under-par 66, nudged Charles Howell III by two shots, finished with a 15-under score of 273 and, as is his habit, dug deeper into the history books.

Mark Franz first became convinced that the woods outside his Edgewood house were a problem 14 years ago. His wife was mugged outside their home in the Harford Square neighborhood in November 1993, less than a year after the family moved there, Franz said. He said he chased the assailant, who ran into the woods separating Harford Square from neighboring Windsor Valley (then known as Meadowood) and escaped. "It's really like a twilight zone," Franz said of the woods, which lie across the street from the back of his house.

The morning air is cool and as tart as the antibiotic-laced apples that Enid Feinberg feeds to dying deer in her backyard. It's September again. Feinberg draws a deep, determined breath, and then, as she does before dawn every day of whitetail season, steers her sport-utility vehicle up her quarter-mile-long driveway and starts her rounds. The first bucks are just past the mailbox; their heads snap in her direction. "Hey, sweeties," she murmurs to herself, and they bound off almost before the words have left her lips.

For the first time in 15 years, Wine in the Woods will draw thousands of grape fans to the center of Columbia on the same day Merriweather Post Pavilion attracts thousands of music fans to the same location for an evening concert. Such a convergence of cars has been a possibility before, said Jean Parker, Merriweather's general manager, but it never happened to work out until the pavilion booked Seal to appear tomorrow. Representatives from the pavilion, the Department of Recreation and Parks, which organizes Wine in the Woods, and county police and fire departments have been making plans for several months to prepare for the overlapping streams of traffic.

In separate federal trials this week, juries convicted three men on drug distribution charges, including two defendants who were targeted by prosecutors and city police because of their extensive criminal records. On Tuesday, Earl Gordon, 27, was convicted of possessing crack cocaine with the intention of selling the drug. A separate jury convicted Victor White, 49, on Wednesday of possession of heroin and cocaine and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Carlos Woods, 23, was convicted yesterday of drug possession with intent to distribute.

Once upon a time, I had this idea for a set of stories, one for each of the seven deadly sins. It probably says something about me that I finished two stories right off the bat -- Pride and Anger. But I gave up on the project because I had a problem with Envy. Envy is not my kind of sin, if you know what I mean. I've never been the type who eats her heart out over the things other people have. But lately, having rounded the corner past age 60, I've spotted Envy once or twice, hanging about.

TULSA, Okla. -- Row after row, they rose to their feet in the sun-splashed late afternoon and cheered as Tiger Woods reached the 18th green at Southern Hills Country Club, ready for another chapter of history to be written, this time right before their eyes. He didn't keep them waiting for long. Woods carefully steered a three-foot par putt into the hole to conclude his round of 69, then picked the ball out of the cup, faced the gallery and raised both arms in his own salute. Perhaps predictably, that's how the PGA Championship ended yesterday, with Woods the winner for a fourth time and second year in a row, his 13th major title safely tucked away and one step closer to the only record that matters to him. His margin of victory was small, only two shots over Woody Austin, who had a 67, and by three over Ernie Els, who had a 66. But the ramifications are great.

The day before Thanksgiving at an airport is a time for tenderness and tension. A grandmother frets over the fate of the pecan tarts packed away in her suitcase. A mother hopes that hauling two strollers 600 miles to Chicago absolves her from cooking anything at all. And though most people are only going away for a weekend, the concourses are crowded with pieces of luggage the size of Macy's floats. The stress can snap the hardiest traveler like a wishbone. Usually the most interesting place at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport is the observation deck, where 737s can be seen launching into the sky. But yesterday, the real action was at the ticket counters, departure gates and baggage claims where the masses were gathered.

Augusta, Ga.-- --Tiger Woods had never failed to win the Masters when he had a lead on Sunday. For that matter, he had never failed to win any major tournament when he had a lead on Sunday. That suggested the Masters was over when Woods sank a par putt on No. 3 to take over first place by himself yesterday. Yes, it had been a weird tournament with record cold temperatures and record high scores, but the ending, it seemed, was about to be as comfortable and familiar as an old TV program.

Almost everyone likes animals at least a little, but there's that handful who are born "animal people." So says Jennifer Keats Curtis. They pull over for wounded pigeons. They take in orphaned cats. They're the ones the neighbors stop by to visit if a stray mutt comes calling. It doesn't mean they know what they're doing. "So many people want to help animals, but honestly, a good heart isn't enough," says Curtis, a veteran journalist and children's author whose fourth illustrated book, "Baby Owl's Rescue," debuts under the Sylvan Dell insignia next month.

Almost everyone likes animals at least a little, but there's that handful who are born "animal people." So says Jennifer Keats Curtis. They pull over for wounded pigeons. They take in orphaned cats. They're the ones the neighbors stop by to visit if a stray mutt comes calling. It doesn't mean they know what they're doing. "So many people want to help animals, but honestly, a good heart isn't enough," says Curtis, a veteran journalist and children's author whose fourth illustrated book, "Baby Owl's Rescue," debuts under the Sylvan Dell insignia next month.

CHASKA, Minn. - - When the final book on Tiger Woods is written, these two names will need to be highlighted: Ed Fiori and Y.E. Yang. Not Sergio Garcia. Not Phil Mickelson. Not Ernie Els. At least not yet. Fiori came from behind to beat Woods on the final day at the 1996 Quad City Classic, and Yang did the unthinkable Sunday, overtaking Woods in the final round of a major, the PGA Championship. Wearing all white, the ghost-like figure shot a 2-under 70 to become the first player from Asia to win a men's major and the first to beat Woods after he had a 54-hole lead in a major.

CHASKA, Minn. - - Padraig Harrington could sense it in the thick, humid air above Hazeltine National. So could Ernie Els. The fans want Tiger Woods to win the PGA Championship. But they also long for drama. "Everybody wants to see a battle," Harrington said. "It's part of our human nature to support the underdog." A reporter asked Els whether he believed the galleries want to see him - or anyone, for that matter - duel Woods down the stretch today and threaten his two-shot lead. "I could definitely feel that," Els said.

CHASKA, Minn. - - A news conference moderator reminded reporters Friday evening that Tiger Woods is the "36-hole leader" of the PGA Championship. OK, it only feels like the tournament is already over. At 7-under-par, Woods leads the field by four shots - but it feels more like 40. Even Padraig Harrington, probably the biggest threat to Woods' coronation, seems resigned to fighting for second. "If Tiger plays the golf he's capable of over the weekend," Harrington said, "then he will be the winner."

On a shocking and stirring day at the 138th British Open, two of the least-frequently asked questions in the English language loomed over Turnberry and competed for primacy. Would Tiger Woods really miss the cut? And: Could a 59-year-old actually win this thing? After the overwhelming favorite thrashed through a six-hole thud so profound he looked like some other and far more deeply flawed human, the first question found an even rarer answer. Yes. And as Tom Watson righted a foundering round with four birdies in the last 10 holes, a 60-foot monster putt on No. 16 and a 60-footer from the fringe on No. 18 that loosed a proper roar, the second question found a curious answer.

TURNBERRY, Scotland - - One year after the Royal and Ancient Golf Club boldly held a British Open with Tiger Woods 4,230 miles away - and somehow pulled it off - it's holding one with him present to the delight of most everybody, and Woods. Negotiating the callous crosswinds of Turnberry in 2009 trumps trying to get from one room to another in 2008. "My day consisted of trying to get from the bed to the couch and then from there back to the bed," Woods said Tuesday, recalling last year's week at Britain's Royal Birkdale club.

Tiger Woods might have lost his own golf tournament Sunday, if he was capable of frittering such events away. It was there for him to give away, because he couldn't overcome the 11th hole at Congressional Country Club's Blue Course, because he lost a ball there and because he was muttering obscenities under his breath in frustration. But this week would have, somehow, ended inappropriately if Woods had allowed this tournament - the AT&T National, the event he hosts to boost his foundation and honor the military - to slip away.

BETHESDA - -The assumption, at about noon Friday, was that Tiger Woods would head to the clubhouse at Congressional Country Club with the lead in the AT&T National, and that later in the afternoon Anthony Kim would match - and perhaps surpass - the number Woods posted. That would set up a fireworks-filled weekend at the tournament Woods hosts, with golf's leading man and a swaggering Tiger wannabe staring each other down come sunset Sunday. "If that happens, it happens," Woods said after his sometimes ragged but still impressive 66 that got him to 10-under-par 130 through two rounds, firmly in the lead.

BETHESDA - -There were, it would seem, two appropriate and intriguing names that could sit atop the AT&T National leader board at the end of yesterday's first round. With no disrespect intended, that short list did not include D.A. Points or Bryce Molder or Daniel Chopra - fine players all, but something of a who's who of "Who?" So by noon, when one of those names popped up, Bethesda was buzzing because Anthony Kim, who won this tournament a year ago, shot an 8-under-par 62 to set the course record at Congressional Country Club's immaculate Blue Course.