Tiger Woods is Lurking, Earning his Stripes and Ready to Pounce

Attention golf beat writers, generic sports headline creator and professional cliche guy: Can we stop already with using the phrase “Tiger is lurking?” Or any other play on words using the name “Tiger” for that matter. I am making this an official rule. If Tiger Woods is within 10 shots of the leader before Sunday, no headline shall refer to a lurking Tiger, a Tiger earning his stripes or a ready-to-pounce Tiger. We get it. He shares the same name as a commonly known ferocious cat. Any headline bearing these cliches will immediately be tossed in the recycle bin.

I really thought we were past this. As of late, things had seemed to die down. I foolishly called it a fad (see tie-dye t-shirts) and proclaimed the era of a lurking Tiger dead. Then something terrible happened. Tiger didn’t win a tournament. I realized the the lull in horrible headlines was due to the fact that Tiger was leading every tournament he was in. Then, two weeks ago at Doral, Tiger decided not to dominate. And the headline douchebags were out in full force.

I decided to do a search of the words “Tiger” and “lurking” on Google News. What I found was a laundry list of articles containing the same cliched headline vomited onto the top of the page. So I was really pissed today when I saw an AOL sports headline that read something like this:

“Only Tiger Woods Would Be Described as ‘Lurking’ Seven Strokes Off the Lead”

Really? This is the first thing I see when I’m looking for a little afternoon Master’s coverage. I really don’t think my request is that unreasonable. I’m not saying stop the 24 hour Tiger coverage. I’m just asking for a little creativity. It’s a shame that a pun-lover like myself has to be the one to say it. Enough with the cliches.

Now if only Tiger could Stewart Cink a putt.