DATE: Friday, April 25, 1997                TAG: 9704250903

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Bob Molinaro 

                                            LENGTH:   51 lines

A TIGER-LESS TOURNAMENT MEANS RETURN TO GOLFING BOREDOM

Tubular: Certainly, Tiger Woods' emergence as the Golf Messiah will generate greater TV ratings. But it could also have an unintended effect on new audiences. When they tune into a Tiger-less tournament, the bland game may seem even more boring than before.

A nice alternative: Maybe nobody can be like Tiger. But it wouldn't be so bad working as Tiger's caddy for the next 20 years, now would it?

In the rough: When Fuzzy Zoeller said his comments about Tiger were intended as harmless jokes, is that what's known in golf as a bad lie?

Hockey fever: Hartford Whalers owner Peter Karmanos is expected to move his NHL team to Columbus, Ohio, which is such a hockey hotbed that the Columbus ECHL team just drew a total of 5,685 fans for five playoff games.

The new reality: Redskins' tickets at the Jack Kent Cooke Stadium will cost about $10 more across the board, ranging from $40 to $60. The jump in price was inevitable, but it could have been worse. One of Cooke's legacies is that 'Skins fans aren't being asked to buy personal seat licenses.

For what it's worth: Despite the national focus on Title IX for colleges, the more important battle for gender equity in sports needs to be fought on the grassroots level, at junior and senior high schools where programs for girls are still lacking.

More of the same: For at least another season, college basketball fans can watch players call timeouts as they fly out of bounds. The NCAA rules committee did not have the good sense to eliminate this stupid stunt.

Stat stuff: Team field-goal percentage for men's college basketball dropped again during the 1996-97 season, to 43.5 percent, the lowest since 1965.

Horsing around: It will be too bad if Martina Hingis' equestrian accident causes her to miss the French Open. The good news is, she'll be eligible to ride in the Belmont Stakes.

Going to great heights: The University of Virginia just signed Belarus native Elena Kravchenko, who, at 6-feet-10, is the tallest women's basketball player ever to join the ACC.

Numbers game: This year's 101st Boston Marathon drew 28,000 fewer runners than the 100th. Guess telling people you ran in the 101st race doesn't have quite the same ring.

Harbinger: You know it's spring when you keep hearing how many games Ken Griffey is ahead of Roger Maris' home run pace.

Living single: When Detroit Pistons franchise savior Grant Hill came down with food poisoning the other day, teammate Joe Dumars attributed it to Hill's bachlorhood. ``He probably got sick,'' Joe said, ``eating that week-old food in his refrigerator.''

In passing: The NBA playoffs will have to go some to be as suspenseful as Shaquille O'Neal's trips to the free throw line.

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