Text messages from press row ...

A wounded knee couldn’t bury a champion’s heart. ...

“Great fight,” Tiger Woods said. ...

Great theater too. ...

Monday’s drama at Torrey Pines, with 24,000 golf fans ditching work to line the fairways and Rocco Mediate refusing to fold, made you wonder why the other majors don’t embrace 18-hole playoffs. ...

At the Masters, sudden death is used to break ties. ...

At the British Open and the PGA Championship, four- and three-hole playoffs are used, respectively, with aggregate score determining the winner. ...

Woods, a seven-time winner at Torrey Pines, has won 13 of his 65 PGA Tour titles in his native California -- 10 in the San Diego area, two at Pebble Beach and one at Harding Park in San Francisco. ...

A case of wine, a keg of beer and 20 shots apiece might not be enough for Kobe Bryant and the Lakers to wash away Game 6 of the NBA Finals. ...

Not even game-fixing referees would have helped. ...

It looked strangely like a Clippers game, circa 1988. ...

As in, over at halftime. ...

Where was the passion? ...

Speaking of which, in 18 playoff games against the Lakers, Kevin Garnett has never failed to register a double-double, according to STATS LLC. ...

Wouldn’t it be great to see him play with Bryant? ...

Maybe in the Olympics. ...

ABC’s Jeff Van Gundy, after Sasha Vujacic of the Lakers was knocked to the floor Sunday by Sam Cassell of the Boston Celtics, “If you get thrown down by a 38-year-old, you’ve got to get a new strength program.” ...

It’s getting worse before it gets better for Brad Penny and the Dodgers. ...

Hank Steinbrenner’s rant in favor of designated hitters -- “The National League needs to join the 21st century” -- clearly was self-serving, coming after pitcher Chien-Ming Wang of the New York Yankees suffered a foot injury while running the bases in an interleague victory over the Houston Astros. ...

But anyone who saw Bartolo Colon of the Boston Red Sox flail helplessly at the plate Monday couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Steinbrenner has a point. ...

Reader Sid Skolnik of West Hollywood e-mails to note that if the Milwaukee Brewers obtained Ryan Spilborghs, they could team him with Ryan Braun and Gabe Kapler to form the first all-Jewish outfield in major league history. ...

All three played high school ball in Southern California, Spilborghs at Santa Barbara, Braun at Granada Hills and Kapler at Woodland Hills Taft. ...

The way his No. 88 Chevrolet is running -- 11 top-10 finishes in 15 races this year -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. probably won’t have to wait more than two years and another 76 races before his next NASCAR Sprint Cup victory. ...

Former goaltender Glenn Healy, hired Tuesday as director of player affairs by the NHL Players’ Assn., won a career-high 25 games playing with Wayne Gretzky and the Kings during the 1988-89 season, Gretzky’s first in Los Angeles. ...

Two seasons later, playing for the New York Islanders, Healy was the opposing goaltender when Gretzky scored his 700th NHL goal. ...

Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, projected to be a second-round draft pick, apparently was so eager to reach the NBA that he was willing to ignore the obvious: He probably would be better off staying for his senior year at UCLA. ...

USC senior Amy Rodriguez, pushing to make the U.S. Olympic women’s soccer team after helping the Trojans win an NCAA championship last fall, scored the only goal Tuesday in the Americans’ 1-0 victory over Brazil in a tournament at South Korea. ...

Perhaps Rodriguez, if not someone else such as basketball player Lisa Leslie or sprinter Allyson Felix, can help USC athletes extend their streak of bringing home at least one gold medal from every Summer Olympics in the last 100 years. ...

Speaking of Leslie, the Sparks star and three-time Olympic gold medalist has written an autobiography, “Don’t Let the Lipstick Fool You.” ...

Among the topics tackled by Leslie: inadvertently skinny dipping in a coed pool at the Athens Games aboard a ship housing the U.S. Olympic team. ...

Assessing the situation, Leslie writes, she put her swimsuit back on, made her way to the steam room and opened the door only to find men’s basketball Coach Gregg Popovich and staff -- also unaware they were in a coed spa. ...

The uncovered Pop, Leslie writes, “turned a bright red.”

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jerome.crowe@latimes.com