The eyes of a Tiger tell the story

Tiger Woods gave his first interviews since the allegations of his affairs were made public, with ESPN one of the broadcasters given access to the world No. 1. Woods remained in his comfort zone during the questioning, but Derek Lawrenson in the Mail feels the player’s eyes were a giveaway that he is still deeply troubled.

Five minutes is how long you get to look for a lost ball. Or how long you have got to turn up following your tee-time before you are disqualified. Now, that brief time span has acquired a further significance in the Royal and Ancient game.

Five minutes is how long Tiger Woods deigned for questions on Sunday night, in his first interviews since Thanksgiving became anything but. As one acerbic American commentator put it, five hours would have been more like it.

There again, watching Woods mumble a few thoughts to the Golf Channel and ESPN in turn, five minutes was about as long as most people would have been able to stomach.

There is not much chance of Woods being a poster boy for rehab, is there? Watching him play humble, falling back at every opportunity on the religious card or the stock rehab cliches like ‘stripping away denial’ and ‘living a lie’ made you almost long for the non-communicative womaniser.

Anyone else worried about Woods’s state of mind?

I think I’ve attended every significant event in his professional life since he joined the paid ranks in 1996. They say the eyes are the windows on the soul and the eyes of the Tiger have always been brimful with excitement at another triumph, or raging with fury at another perceived slight. Now they look lifeless, and it is horrible to see.

Messi is magic

You probably know it already, but that Lionel Messi fella is pretty good. A second hat-trick inside a week for Barcelona had the normally effusive Spanish press lost for words, as Sid Lowe in the Guardian reveals.

Barcelona's talisman is so sensationally good at the moment that comparisons with football's greatest players are wholly justified.

It's not big and it's not clever but sometimes swearing is the only thing that will do. Sometimes you've used up every other word and nothing else quite hits the spot. You've rummaged round the back of the sofa, rifled through the drawers, turned out your pockets and still come up empty. Pep Guardiola insisted that he was clean out of adjectives and frankly so was everyone else. Spain was suffering a severe shortage of superlatives.

The Catalan newspaper Sport invited readers to send in headlines for what they had just witnessed and there were plenty of super, sensational and sublimes, some magic, magnificent and marvellouses, wows and wonderfuls, plus deities by the dozen, and even a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but still there was no way to really do it justice. No polite way anyway. Just wide eyes, a wider mouth and a simple: holy shit!

Civil Wor

You just can’t seem to keep some clubs out of the headlines. Newcastle had been making serene progress towards promotion, but the papers are filled with allegations of a bust-up between Steven Taylor and Andy Carroll that has left Taylor with a broken jaw and Carroll a hand injury. There has been no word from the club but if true it would not need a rocket scientist to work out what happened.