I was possibly as overjoyed as anyone to see Michelle Wie get taught a lesson at her first pro event yesterday, but the way it went down was total crap. Not that Wie needs the $53,000 she lost by being disqualified, but I hope that jackass reporter from Sports Illustrated is happy with his 15 minutes.

Yes, Wie should have grabbed a rules official if she was unsure about where to drop. God knows if her first name was “Tiger”, she’d have a dozen rules officials at her side with slide rules and compasses “just in case”. But she didn’t, and she did what she honestly thought was the right drop. Instead, some sissy-boy writer walks back immediately after she finishes the hole and marches off some distances on his own. This was on the seventh hole, meaning she had 11 more to go through, probably a good two hours and change before she was signing the now-incorrect scorecard. Even then, the fact that he didn’t come around until the next day to bring this up proves what a chickenshit he really is (and most writers, but I’ll save that for another day). The LPGA should have given Wie a strong slap on the wrist, but left it at that. No need to march back out to the hole and pace things off and come up a foot on the wrong side of the law. If this writer was so concerned with “the integrity of the rules of golf”, certainly he could have raised a red flag in the two hours before Wie finished her round.

I’m totally against the kind of thuggery and circus atmosphere Tiger Woods and his caddie bring inside the ropes, with kicking cameras and idle threats and whatever, but I really hope that this guy from SI gets his, and in a very memorable way.

******

Back to the awesome Saturday that was college football. I’m not going with direct links to the offenders here, because they don’t deserve the traffic, but follow the link through MGoBlog and see one Notre Dame fan’s self-hating view of the world this weekend. Do yourself a favor and start from about six posts down and read backwards. (Reading Brian’s summary at MGoBlog gives a nice overview, reading the full context does it better. Filter through the comments and you’ll wonder how this guy didn’t end up on the shower rod Sunday morning.)

As for the game, while I agree that, by the book, a penalty probably SHOULD have been called for aiding the runner (Leinart by Bush), the ONLY time that’s ever called seems to be if it’s a pulling motion rather than pushing, and pushing is only called if it’s in the clear, as opposed to goal line/first down line scrums.

Besides, I don’t know that any ND fans would be complaining about it if Bush didn’t come out afterwards and admit to shoving him as hard as he could to get him in the endzone. They’d still be bitching about the Leinart fumble “really going out of bounds at the four”, or “they shouldn’t have stopped the clock for him fumbling out of bounds”, or “God shouldn’t allow the scoreboard clock to be reset after it hits zero” or whatever. I’ve been pulling all year for USC to lose a game, and this might have been their best chance until they meet UCLA at the end of the year. With this reminder of how ND fans can be (especially now that I’m in the belly of the bandwagoning beast), I’m almost glad the Trojans are still undefeated. Actually, it was almost nice to see them have to earn a win. The last two years have been full of shots of smug Trojans on the sidelines in blowout wins. The great thing about college football is the pure emotion when you win for your school. Doing it in a close game against a bitter rival should bring out every ounce of joy you can muster, and the Trojans did just that. No flag-planting, no axing of the goalpost, no gang signs or throat slashes, just joy.

Of course, it still wasn’t as OMG COOL! as Mario Manningham slanting across the back of the endzone, but then again, not much is.