Laying in the bed you made

One of the biggest pet peeves I have regarding sports media types is when they create a situation, and then blame the self-created situation for how they are handling some related story.

A perfect example of this has been the coverage of Trevor Immelman's victory at the Masters over the weekend. Please note that I specific referred to it as Immelman's victory, rather than as Tiger Woods' defeat. If you've been paying attention to any mainstream sports media outlet in the last two days, you might have been confused on that point. And that's rather sad.

I could go into a massive diatribe about how the media has handled Woods and made it such that he is the story every time he tees up, regardless of whether he wins or loses, but I'm going to focus on a single entity in this, for simplicities sake. That entity is radio host Dan Patrick. As you may have heard if you follow golf, back earlier in the season Tiger Woods made some headlines by suggesting that winning the Grand Slam (all four majors in the same year) was realistic for him. Now, while before Woods came on the scenes, that kind of statement was an outlandish idea that would have probably merited ridicule. In Woods' case, however, it probably really shouldn't have even been headline material. Let's remember, for instance, that Woods did in fact win 4 majors in a row, it's just that only 3 of them were in the same calendar year.

Woods followed this up by continuing on a rather significant tear, prior to losing his last start before the Masters. Now, where Dan Patrick comes into this story is that, as Tiger was winning, virtually every time golf and Tiger came up on his show, he would say that he was going to be surprised if Tiger failed to win the Grand Slam this year. Now, as well as Tiger was playing, that's just an outlandish outlook (Woods didn't even go as far as to say that he thought he would win the Grand Slam), but Patrick repeated it rather frequently in the days leading up to the Masters.

So, come Monday morning, post-Masters discussion centered significantly more on Woods and his missed opportunities that it did on Immelman's wire to wire victory. As Patrick was chastised by various listeners for not giving Immelman enough due (now, to be fair, Patrick did have Immelman on his show and even waited until midway through the interview to ask him about anything Woods related), Patrick defended himself by saying "Hey, look, that's the way it's setup in golf now. Tiger's the story, whether he wins or loses." He furthermore went on to suggest that Tiger created this by throwing out the suggestion that he could win the Grand Slam.

To all of that I would say that yes, it's true, but only because you (and the larger media) chose to make it that way. If you spend weeks on your radio show saying that you'll be surprised if Tiger doesn't win the Grand Slam, then yes, Tiger losing the first major of the year is going to be the big story. You can't make Tiger the story, win or lose, prior to the event, and then use the fact that Tiger is the story, win or lose, to deflect criticism of your post-event coverage. Well, you obviously can, it just doesn't hold water. Tiger didn't say he was going to win the Grand Slam - Dan Patrick said Tiger was going to win the Grand Slam.

In this context, it consistently amazes me how many different ways the media finds to discredit a victory, whether done intentionally or not. Look at this tease for an article about the Masters that's currently on the front page of ESPN.com: "The Masters was there for Tiger Woods to take. And he couldn't, giving Trevor Immelman his green jacket." Really? Tiger gave Immelman the green jacket? I find that highly amusing, since it was Immelman's name at the top of the leaderboard throughout the tournament, and the final margin of 3 strokes was as close as Woods ever got.on the weekend. Did Tiger miss opportunities on Sunday, and throughout the tournament? Of course. Could he have won? Absolutely. Was Immelman given anything? No, and it's ridiculous to suggest so. We focus on Woods' missed opportunities, without even asking if there were opportunities that Immelman may have missed. Even the fact that Immelman shot a lackluster 75 on Sunday doesn't change that fact. Yeah, that's a lousy way to finish, but it's a 4 day tournament, and he won by a cozy 3 strokes. You don't back into a wire to wire victory at Augusta, no matter who finished behind you.

So, all that being said, for the last two days, Dan Patrick (along with most of the sports media) has been doing the equivalent of making the bed, laying in said bed, and then complaining about how the bed was made. Luckily for him, many people haven't noticed.