Why Steve Williams is a dick

I promised a couple of people on Twitter that I'd one-day deliver my long-winded account of why Steve Williams is a dick. And it's all to do with Phil Mickelson being a ``prick''.
If you recall, in December 2008, Williams was home in New Zealand and at a speaking engagement in Taranaki made the comment: ``I wouldn't call Mickelson a great player 'cause I hate the prick.''
The story went up on the website on the Taranaki Daily News on Friday night where it was spotted by Laurence Donegan at The Guardian, who gave the story a global spin.
Back then I was sports editor at the Sunday Star-Times and we decided to follow the story on the Saturday morning.
Our reporter rang Williams and asked straight up whether he'd been reported accurately and had he used the word ``prick'',  William said yes and then embellished the answer.
``I visit a lot of golf clubs and do a lot of speaking for charity and that is one of the questions I get asked the most: what is Tiger's relationship like with Phil Mickleson?
``I was simply honest and said they don't get a long. You know what it's like. You're at a charity event and you have a bit of fun.
``I don't particularly like the guy (Mickelson) myself. He pays me no respect at all and hence I don't pay him any respect. It's no secret we don't get along either.''
All well and good. Great splash for us and the story goes global.
It lands Williams in a massive pot of boiling water with his then boss Tiger Woods, who had a lot of bridge-building to do with Mickelson.
There was lots of humble-pie eating on the part of the bag-carrier and Williams was pilloried across the world.
Fast forward to the end of 2009 and it's another Saturday morning drama as Woods is reported to have been badly injured in a car accident outside his Florida mansion.
We're scrambling for details so I ring Williams to find out what he knows.
``I'm not talking to the Sunday Star-Times and you know why,'' he says.
Williams then tears strips off me, saying as sports editor I should never have allowed the ``prick'' story to run, that I was irresponsible and should have been mindful of protecting his reputation by censoring the whole thing.
Well, last time I looked I wasn't Steve Williams' minder.
And we gave him every chance to talk down the story. He could have chosen a number of reactions. He could lashed out at the Daily News for running with his initial comment, saying it was made at a private function. He could have acknowledged he said it but then apologised to Mickelson.
But instead he chose to repeat the whole thing to a national newspaper and then further inflame the episode by dropping Tiger into the poop with him.
To have a crack at me 12 months later for failing to get him out of stink of his own creation is just ludicrous.
And that's why I think he's dick.

Wired on 8-Wired's iStout

At my age (and in this occupation) it's not often I'm surprised by things.
After a while, all the weird and wonderful creatures who make up the daily news can become commonplace, and sport often edges towards predictability (until the Black Caps shock everyone by winning a cricket match that matters).
And beer ... well, thanks to a week in Belgium a few years ago I thought I'd tried the most interesting styles.
Somehow Imperial Stout had slipped under the tasting radar. Imperial Stouts are often referred to as Russian Imperial Stouts and I'll confess that my one-time limited beer mind believed these were made in Russia. Part of me thought ``What do Russians know about beer?''
I don't mind admitting I was wrong. Completely. Imperial Stouts were born of an 18th century trade deal between Britain and Russia. English breweries made stouts for consumption in Russia and, because the journey was so long, they had to tinker with the style to make sure it reached  its destination in the best condition.
So an ordinary stout was supercharged.  It had a higher level of fermentable sugars which meant the beer would keep fermenting as it travelled. And it was also highly hopped. Ordinarily, stouts are not big on hops but hops have preservative qualities, so adding them made it more likely the stout would survive the long journey without going off.
The result was a pretty extreme brew  full-bodied, highly alcoholic, as black as coal but with a fruity, hoppy flavour.
My road to Damascus moment with Imperial Stout came from a bottle of 8-Wired Brewing's iStout.
At the first sip I was so astonished by the complex dance of flavours that I put down the glass and said aloud, to no one: ``That is the most amazing and surprising thing I've drunk.''
I simply wasn't prepared for the sweet chocolate and coffee flavours overlaid with an almost summery freshness of hops and an underlying 10% alcohol. This beer is like alcohol-soaked grapefruit coated in chocolate and infused with coffee before being bathed in stickly sweet malt.
Marlborough-based 8-Wired is one of the many newcomers to craft brewing who do not own their equipment. Instead they are contract brewers, renting equipment off Renaissance Brewing in Blenheim to produce their  brews, which are crafted by Soren Eriksen, a Dane who is a brewer at Renaissance.
The only minor quibble I have about iStout is the exhortation on the label to put a scoop of vanilla icecream into a  glass of iStout.
I tried it. It wasn't bad. A kind of alcoholic version of the old spider drinks we used to have as kids when you mix icecream and Coke.
You could try it for a laugh but it's not the best possible use of this wonderful drop.
For more info go to 8-wired.co.nz

I feel Tiger's pain!

I have a lot of empathy with Tiger Woods as his ongoing injuries continue to delay his return to golf.

This is because I’ve had a knee injury exactly like the one Woods suffered in 2008 and I know how hard the recovery can be and how easily things can go wrong and the way other injuries can crop up as a result of the surgery and recovery phase.

Unlike Woods I didn’t rip apart my knee playing golf. Mine came from cricket. But it was the sample twisting action at the heart of the injury which for both of us resulted in a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, a fracture the head of the tibia, torn meniscus and partially torn medial ligaments.Mine wasn't caused by massive forces unless you count lack of fitness and being overweight as forces.

I can understand how Woods did his left knee – all that force of the femur (thigh) twisting over the tibia (shin) which was pretty much locked into position by an anchored left foot.

I did my right knee bowling a cricket ball (trying to bowl too fast!). I planted my right foot at angle of about 45deg and then pivoted my body over the anchored foot. The sound was awful. Like a series of little twigs breaking.

I liken the injury to what happens when you twist a top off a beer bottle. It doesn’t take much effort to turn the cap but once you go far enough it just pops off – just as the femur pops off the tibia.

The hardest thing about this injury is the rehab. After surgery to graft a new ligament so spend a lot of time sitting and recuperating and walking is with the aid of crutches and then a leg brace. The net outcome is the muscles in the effected leg waste away. Even now a year after surgery, I’m struggling to get my right quadriceps to the same size as the left. Ditto the gluteals.

As I recovered and started lifting weights and walking on the treadmill two things happened. First I got extreme knee pain – it turned out that in rehab, the stress on the knee caused the patella tendon to tear, so I had ease back on some training while that repaired. The orthopaedic surgeon couldn’t work out why it ruptured – it just did.

Then I got severe lower back and shoulder pain. My physiotherapist explained that this was because I was compensating for my weaker right side and was loading up too much on the left.

And even now, a year on, I still haven’t regained full flexibility in the right leg. I can’t fully extend it nor do something like a full squat (which makes it hard to line up putts).

I was thinking of Woods again this morning after the news he was pulling out of the Open because of ongoing injury concerns and then I went to gym to do my rehab exercises, trying to push a bit further than usual because I felt good. Before I know it, I’ve rolled my left ankle because my right knee has given out and the left side has taken the force …

I can just imagine Woods, with all his free time, working really hard in the gym to make his comeback in 2009 (which was pretty spectacular, though without a major). I imagine now that he wasn’t quite right – that he was still playing through pain and pushing it hard in rehab which was causing added pressures on his body.

Then he goes into exile because of the whole sex addiction thing (or whatever you want to call it) and makes a second comeback … and tries to change his swing, but is still not quite right physically, hence more problems kick in.

It’s a tough situation and, based on my experience, I feel for the guy. I certainly want to see him back fully fit and going head to head with Rory McIlroy and Jason Day … but being realistic that might have to wait until next year.