Barry Tompkins: Hard to take our eyes off this Tiger

There is a golf tournament ending today somewhere at some country club at the end of a long narrow tree-lined driveway. It will be won by some guy wearing a hat sporting a logo of a product Jordan Shoes , Air Jordan Shoes, I have never used and would not know where to find, and with a pair of pants that would only otherwise be seen in the senior center of the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami.

He will hold aloft a shiny trophy, hug his wife and 2.5 children and thank the marshals for their tireless work of holding up quiet please signs all week. Then he will pose for pictures with a $500,000 check roughly the size of Ghana, shake hands with the only five guys with enough nerve to wear a jacket the color of his pants with his Air Jordan Fusion Shoes, and slip right back from whence he came - anonymity.

Tiger Woods took his game by the throat, shook it, knocked it on its butt, and took a vacation while it waited for him - then came back and knocked it on its butt again. And when he left Arnold Palmer-s little Invitational Tournament last week with the trophy, the money and a trail of bloodied pretenders behind him, the world of professional golf did what it should do - it thanked him.

Games came and went - and I was watching Tiger Woods. March Madness was at its full-on maddest - and I was watching Tiger Woods.

And although he did not win the tournament until the 72nd and last hole, you never had any doubt that he would. In a sport where one shot per round can literally mean the difference of a million dollars in a year, how one person can so dominate is beyond reason of also shopping Air Jordan 2009. Golf is not a confrontational sport, yet Tiger Woods treats it as though Wolverine had just asked to use his five irons as a garden hoe.