I don’t care who leaked what to whom. I don’t care if I never hear another campaign speech. I am sick of the spin; it’s enough to make me dizzy. Everything everybody in Washington says these days is keyed to “talking points,” and nobody is saying anything I haven’t heard before. So you can imagine how delighted I am that the U.S. Open golf tournament is being played this week.

The French Open tennis tournament was fun, of course. Especially watching Maria Sharapove dismantle that Italian chick. Oh, Maria! What a work of art you are! That picture of you on your knees, your arms reaching for the sky, your face illuminated by joy and triumph (above, left)… who could ever forget it?

And Rafael Nadal! Was there ever a better tennis player? Too bad his match with that awful Serb was delayed. I suppose they’ll finish it today, but it will be an anticlimax.

And it’s only tennis, after all. This week we get to watch golf – golf at its toughest, golf at its meanest, golf in all its sado-masochistic splendor.

And we get to watch Tiger.

Talk about human drama! Can you imgine what this means to Tiger? How hard he must be practising? How hard he must be praying?

He has to win. Nothing else will do. Not after all he’s put us through.

And it looks as if he might. Rory McIlroy’s timing is off. The wheels came off Ricky Fowler’s game a couple of weeks ago. Phil is … Phil.  And I don’t see any of the others with the sheer grit to conquer that Olympic course under U.S. Open conditions. I realize what a good ball striker Lee Westwood is. I am full of admiration for Luke Donald’s short game. Bubba hits the ball a ton – and manipulates it like a magician.  Dustin Johnson is rounding into form, He won in Memphis yesterday…

There must be a hundred great swingers – great players – among the Open contestants this week. All have the skill to win. But do they have the will?

They are not Tiger, not the Tiger that once stalked the links,devouring his prey.

And that Tiger just might be back. He won Jack’s tournament (photo above, right). And he won Arnie’s, too.

At times, he looked indomitable.

I’m betting he will prove once again that he is.