When perennial prick Kurt Busch calls you an egomaniacal and emotionally unstable phony and nobody mentions a pot or a kettle, you know you’re having a bad week. Such is the ongoing saga of Carl Edwards, the star of one of the most watched YouTube videos of the week.

            The story goes like this: Edwards, a fan favorite for his broad smile, back-flips, shirtless Mr. Olym ...

Don’t ask Kyle Petty a question unless you want an unvarnished and totally honest answer. And don’t ask him for his opinion if you don’t really care what he thinks. At 47, the son of the greatest driver in NASCAR history and someone who has been behind the wheel of racecars since he could reach the pedals, is too old to pull any punches, and too universally liked to be ignored. So when Kyle sits down behind the TNT desk six times a year or saddles up to his weekly spot on SPEED network’s “Tradin’ Paint” his toothy Petty smile and intelligent down-home analysis make people pay attention. Darrell Waltrip might have “Boogidy, Boogidy, Boogidy,” but Kyle Petty is the man fans want to see and hear. He has, in one abbreviated broadcast season, become the go-to buy for the television-watchin ...

Have no doubt: Saturday night at Talladega makes Mardi Gras look like Vacation Bible School.  I'm told the fall race, going on this weekend, is tamer than the one in April, which is hard to believe given the wide-open scene last night in the campgrounds surrounding Alabama's grandest sporting venue. 

"You ort to see it when the Tide ain't playin'" says a friendly and exceedingly drunk camper known among his compatriots as "Punkass." "I bet they's half-again-as-many veee-hicles camping in the sprang." 

Punkass is a veteran. It is his 20th time to spend the weekend on a small plot of grass within site of the track's infield tunnel. His bus, which is the site of a barbecue on Saturday night, is one of many that will need to be painted after this week. Today it's fire-engine red with the number "8" on both sides, the hood, and on the rear em ...

Sports lost a real champion this week – a guy whose character loomed larger than his 6’4” frame, and whose example shines brighter than all the records he set. Al Oerter, a four-time Olympic Gold Medalist in the discus (1956, 1960, 1964, 1968) and the only man ever to win each of his four gold medals with a new Olympic record, died at the age of 71 after battling high blood pressure and heart disease.

            Maybe it was the time, but Oerter was the kind of man all men wanted to emulate. He didn’t ki ...

Behold the Tao of Woody: After shooting back-to-back rounds of 65 and working his way into the final twosome on Saturday with Tiger Woods, golf's resident philosopher, Woody Austin said of the world's best player, "When he's playing well he's not hard to beat, but he's hard to catch." 

And that restaurant has gotten so crowded that nobody goes there anymore.

Woods, who played the first 27 holes of the tour championship in 13 under, which is where he stands (alone at the top with a two-shot lead over Austin) going into the weekend, looked exactly as you'd think he would when asked about Austin's comment. His first response was, "Excuse me? Say again." When the quote was repeated Tiger stared for a second and then said, "I don't know what to say to that." 

No one else seemed to, either. But that's Woody Austin for you. Yogi would certainly be proud. 

They sure made it look like a pitch-and-putt, but East Lake Golf Club is not as easy as the 30 finalists in the FedEx Cup, including the winner Tiger Woods, made it look. Yes the average score for the week was a shade north of 67, and, yes, new course records were set two days, and, oh yeah, Tiger did shoot 28 on the front nine on Friday, and finished the week a whopping 23 under par, yes, yes, indeedee, Zach Johnson, a guy who was labeled "The Who" by British journalists at last year's Ryder Cup, shot 60 on Saturday. But historically the golf course hasn't been such a cake walk.

Hal Sutton shot 6-under the first year the Tour Championship was held at East Lake. He walked off saying "This course could host a U.S. Open tomorrow." That wasn't too much hyperbole when you consider that Lee Janzen shot 4-under to win the U.S. Open that year, and Vijay Singh won the PGA Championship that year with a 9-under total, a virtual ...

Before the start of the second round of the Tour Championship, Butch Harmon nudged Adam Scott in the ribs and said, "It's pretty sweet that Tiger's trying to swing like you now." 

In fact, there have been some noticeable changes in Tiger's swing of late. Gone are the exaggerated follow-throughs, the long, flat backswings, and the flat left wrist. The Tiger of today looks remarkably similar to the Tiger of 2001, a time when everyone said Scott's swing looked just like Tiger's. According to those in a position to know such things, there might be a good reason for Tiger's new look. According to sources close to the situation, Tiger and Hank Haney are, in a word, done. As one source put it, "They're not making it public yet, but they're done. And you can tell by the way he's swinging the golf club."

If true, this has been coming for some time. As early as April, when Tiger finished sec ...

Not long after Adam Scott rolled in his third birdie putt in a row during Friday's second round at East Lake, Scott's instructor Butch Harmon got a message on is Blackberry. It was from Natalie Gulbis, who had just finished her day at the Solheim Cup in Sweden. The message read: "What do I need to do? I'm pushing short putts and keeping my head stiff. So mad that I lost my match, but the team's kicking Europe's ass."

Butch did not respond immediately. But he promised to before the end of the day. "It's a five-hour time difference. I'll give her a call after dinner over there," he said. 

Nothing like giving lessons on two continents at the same time. 

Early Friday morning, the 30 greatest golfers in the game resumed play at historic East Lake Golf Club in the final playoff event of the FedEx Cup, the grand finale of the 2007 PGA Tour season. And the fans numbered in the....dozens. 

OK, that's not entirely fair. There were a couple of hundred people between the first tee and the driving range, but if the majors are golf's ultimate benchmarks, the galleries for this championship are puny at best. Twenty people gathered outside the locker room waiting for Tiger to emerge. At the Masters that number is at least a hundred, and at the British Open the Tiger mob can easily hit four digits. Organizers can't be blamed. In a pre-tournament press release, tournament officials boasted "that all tickets to the event, which is the culminating tournament to the first-ever PGA Tour Playoffs for the FedEx Cup, are completely sold out. This marks the first sell-out since 2000 for The Tour Championship, and approximatel ...