by David Bauder

NEW YORK (AP)—Events such as the Masters golf tournament remind Bryant Gumbel why he does “Real Sports” on HBO.

REACHES MILESTONE—In this Oct. 22, 2007 file photo, Bryant Gumble arrives for the Whitney Gala at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City.

The monthly newsmagazine marks 15 years on the air this week, standing even more alone as a home for strong television journalism than it did in 1995. Gumbel, its host, suggests the deals that media companies make to televise sporting events—for example, CBS and ESPN for the Masters—keep competitors largely out of that business.

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP)—Kultida Woods was worried.

No, her son wasn’t being slapped with divorce papers. No mistresses or porn stars were stalking him.

But he did seem on the verge of throwing away any chance he had to win the Masters. And at this moment that seemed like the most critical part of Tiger Woods’ recovery so far.

“Bogey?” Mrs. Woods yelled out from her vantage point off the seventh fairway. “Come on now, stop that.”

FIGHTING BACK—Tiger Woods tees off at the fourth hole during the third round of the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Ga., April 10.

Over the past few months, golfer and athlete extraordinaire Tiger Woods has been forced into seeing almost every aspect of his personal life plastered on the front page of almost every newspaper. Everyone dead and alive has heard about the sexual misdeeds of Mr. Woods.

We have all been forced to endure all of the cackling, hackling and yakking about the misdeeds of Woods 24-7 on every radio or television show that could afford a talking head or at least a reasonable facsimile of one. All of these sexual behavior “experts” have decided to infect our eardrums and our eyeballs with voices and visuals along with any photo or audio of Tiger leaving frantic messages on poisoned answering machines.