Antagonizing Tiger Woods might not be the best move if you're a pro golfer. Remember Stephen Ames? Haven't heard a peep out of him since he ripped Tiger's driving on the eve of an Accenture Match-Play Tournament game that saw Tiger win 9&8. Apparently, Rory Sabbatini is more hard-headed than Ames. He already had one turn at needling Tiger, saying early in 2007 that Tiger looked more beatable than ever. How did that work out Rory? Answer: Tiger burned you by 8 strokes at the Bridgestone, and people started heckling your sorry butt. Not that such a sound thrashing would teach you anything, as you demonstrated when you walked out on the Tiger-hosted Target World Challenge yesterday, saying you had shin splints.

Is that what they're calling it when people who are trailing the field decide to punk out, taking their $170,000 last-place prize money with them? Having shin splints? I can think of some other terms for it. Like "being a world class wanker."

I don't know how much Tiger really cared about Rory skipping out. I mean, Tiger had other things on his mind, like winning the tournament by seven. And having his smoking-hot Swedish wife at the match with his new baby daughter. Still, this is Tiger's personal tournament, and there's only a 16-man field. Getting that invite is a big deal. First because it's so exclusive, and second because the purse is so ridiculously huge. So, you'd figure that if a guy had an ounce of class, he'd be nothing but grateful to even be picked.

Sabbatini didn't act very grateful. On the contrary, he behaved like the low-rent belly-crawling Tiger-baiter he is. Rory Sabbatini - the Bobby Petrino of golf.

Of course Tiger will not forget the slight (even if it didn't actually bother him that much). Like Michael Jordan before him, Tiger stores every tiny offense away in his memory bank so he can use it for motivation when the time comes. There will be a tournament next year someplace that Rory Sabbatini and Tiger will both be in contention to win, and on Sunday Tiger will shoot some absurd score and blow Sabbatini out of the water, and Rory will go skulking off again while Tiger kisses his babe wife and his adorable little daughter and even more adulation rains down upon him. That will burn Rory up - you know he's insanely jealous of Tiger - but it won't matter. Because no matter how hard Rory tries to get under Tiger's skin, or get himself pumped up by needling Tiger, it will never be enough. He will never knock Tiger off. He will only make himself look more and more like the whining cry-baby jerk he is.