Woods

PRINCESS ANNE -- John Woods scored 24 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and blocked four shots to help UMES defeat Centenary (N.J.), 78-63, last night.Woods hit 10 of 15 shots and led a strong defensive effort with four blocks for the Hawks (5-3), who have won three straight.The Cyclones (7-2), who had won six in a row, turned the ball over 20 times and shot 36 percent.

IRVING, Texas -- Fuzzy Zoeller has committed to play in next week's Colonial tournament in nearby Fort Worth, the first time he will play on the PGA Tour since his racially insensitive remarks regarding Masters champion Tiger Woods forced him to withdraw from last month's Chrysler Greensboro Classic.Woods also has committed to compete, and the two are expected to meet for the first time since this controversy began in Augusta, when Zoeller discussed the menu for next year's champions dinner before the Masters.

John Pershing Woods, a retired tobacco company foreman, died of complications from a stroke Oct. 15 at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. He was 83. Mr. Woods, a Cockeysville resident since 1980, was born and raised in Durham, N.C. After graduating from high school in 1937, he began working for American Tobacco Co. in Durham. During World War II, he served in Europe as an infantryman in Gen. George S. Patton's 3rd Army. He was discharged with the rank of private in 1945 after he was severely wounded in combat.

Consider it a fortunate accommodation, one of the true pleasures of life, that you have lived to actually see Tiger Woods strike a golf ball. It's an experience all unto itself. There has never been anything comparable to the length, accuracy and scoreboard results he's achieving. No need to study film clips, read dispatches from tournament sites, listen to what contemporary players, or golden heroes of the past, are saying about a young man of 24 whose ability has surpassed the intense examinations that golf offers to anyone, adult or adolescent who picks up a club and takes aim at the flagstick.

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Let's say, for argument's sake, that you were going to bet a nickel on the Masters, which begins today at Augusta National, and your choice was Tiger Woods or the rest of the field. Which would you take? The mere fact that you have to think about it says more about Woods than the many feats, statistics and compliments he has piled up on his way to becoming the world's best golfer. One man against the rest of the field? One guy taking on 94 elites invited to play in the year's first major tournament?

BETHESDA-- --Tiger Woods wasn't entertaining hypothetical scenarios, but that doesn't mean that you can't. What do you suppose would happen if your pregnant wife were hospitalized and, rather than joining her, you chose to instead play golf? Chances are, she'd call your mother to complain, scream at least six of George Carlin's seven dirty words, throw every hand-held appliance toward the vicinity of your head, and then, if you're still breathing, move most of your belongings to the curb.

Something so innocuous as going to meet his father for a ride home after an all-night card game led to Mike Woods never playing football again. Or even walking. It happened in Cleveland when the then-Baltimore Colts linebacker became the innocent victim of a shot from a robber's .38-caliber handgun.His life changed forever when the bullet struck his spinal cord and he fell to the floor that May morning in 1982. Woods, a starter for the Colts in 36 of 48 games from 1979 to 1981, has been a quadriplegic ever since, although he says he has regained some feeling in his arms.

Protesters have no place in the woods disrupting hunters, said two out of three respondents to "It's Your Call," The Evening Sun's phone survey on topical issues.Sixty-eight percent of the callers (584 of 854) "did not approve" of protesters following hunters to disrupt deer hunting. Another 270 respondents (32 percent) did not object to the activists' anti-hunting techniques."It's Your Call" represents a sampling of opinions from certain segments of the community, but it is not balanced demographically, as would be done in a scientific public opinion poll.

AUGUSTA, Ga.-- --All week long, we've heard about Tiger vs. Jack. And Tiger vs. History. And Tiger vs. Phil ... the golf course ... annoying photographers ... But here we are today, preparing for the final round of the Masters, and none of that means a thing. In fact, scanning over the leader board - spotting four names higher than Woods' - today's final round of the Masters isn't even about Tiger taking on Trevor Immelman, Brandt Snedeker, Steve Flesch, Paul Casey or anyone else who has been cast as an extra of what's supposed to be Woods' blockbuster fifth green jacket win. Today, it's Tiger vs. Tiger - and for the life of me, I have no clue who might win. We'll shelve the Grand Slam talk for another day. There's one other major achievement missing from Woods' resume, and everyone knows it: Woods has never won a major when trailing after 54 holes.

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Forty-30? Sure, that's a pretty reasonable score for halftime of a college basketball game, or, say, the end of a football game between teams with good offenses.But as a golfer's scorecard, particularly in the first round of the Masters on a day when only seven golfers break par? Forty-30?In the movies, maybe, with a dramatic soundtrack building to a crescendo.Or maybe in some bizarro golf novel, stretching the limits of reality.But for real? Come on. Is any golfer really capable of such a preposterous score?