Jordan’s the Type He Can Bounce Things Off

When heading into unfamiliar territory, it’s always good to talk to someone who has been there before.

But if you’re golfer Tiger Woods, soaring in popularity to a level only a few could even imagine, whom do you talk to?

One of the few people on the planet who can relate is Michael Jordan, basketball superstar turned executive-in-training.

“He calls me once or twice every 10 days and we have great conversations,” Jordan told Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post.

“People talk about impact on the sport. I didn’t know I was having it at the time. With me, we couldn’t see it coming. And once we did, we didn’t think the whole thing would be maintained--it surprises me even now, the life of its own that it has--but Tiger knows the impact he is having. He sees it. . . . You see the way he creates negative thoughts in his opponents’ minds? What he’s got is confidence that borders on being cocky. . . . Intimidation can be so successful. Tiger has that.”

Now that’s confidence: According to Rick Reilly in Sports Illustrated, someone approached Woods at the Buick Invitational in San Diego last week and said, “Tiger, would you be surprised if one of these guys makes a run at you?”

Woods was six strokes behind the leader at the time.

They don’t make the cut: “The PGA Tour’s slogan is, ‘These Guys Are Good,’ ” wrote Nick Canepa in the San Diego Union. “It should be edited to read, ‘This Guy Is Great and the Rest of These Guys Are Good.’ ”

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Trivia time: This week’s PGA Tour stop in Los Angeles, now known as the Nissan Open, has been staged under different names since 1926. How many times has Riviera Country Club hosted the event?

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They also miss the cut: Like many news outlets, the Oakland Tribune compiled its list of the top athletes of the century, picking its top 50 in the Bay Area. Selected No. 1 was Raider owner Al Davis, followed by Joe Montana, Bill Russell and Willie Mays.

But not listed until No. 49, after Jim Otto, John Henry Johnson and Ollie Matson, was Steve Young.

Not even making the list were Mark McGwire, Orlando Cepeda, Barry Bonds, George Blanda, Art Shell and Manager Tony La Russa, who took the Oakland Athletics to the World Series three consecutive years, winning it in 1989.

The criterion was impact within the region and nationally. Guess the latter group, headed by McGwire, just didn’t make any national impact.

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Marriage made in hell: Striking back at the state that took Ken Griffey Jr. from his city, Art Thiel of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote, “[Ohio] is jammed between Kentucky and Indiana, which is like being married to Beavis and Butthead.”

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Trivia answer: Thirty-seven times.

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And finally: Wrote Bernie Lincicome in the Chicago Tribune: “It is always discouraging when someone such as Ken Griffey Jr., who already has everything--wealth, talent, youth, the longest home run stare in history--gets exactly what he wants, until you see that what he wanted was Cincinnati.”