$20 Million Buys You This Kind of Privacy

Remember the dream house Tiger Woods said he wanted to buy when he turned professional in 1996? Well, it turns out he didn’t have to float a jumbo mortgage to get it.

With Woods having won more than $55 million through 2004, not including endorsement and sponsorship deals, it’s the dream house itself that floats.

According to Powerboat and Motor magazine, Woods spent $20 million buying a 155-foot yacht. “Everything I buy, everything I own, is from my earnings on tour,” Woods told the magazine. “That’s the way I wanted it to be, that I earned it.”

Woods named his yacht “Privacy,” which probably is an improvement on “Water Hazard” or, better yet, “Sunken Putt.”

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Another Tiger: Damon Hack, an NFL writer for the New York Times, recently got engaged to his girlfriend, Suzanna Yip. “With last names like Hack and Yip,” he said, “I guess we won’t be naming our first kid Tiger.”

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Trivia time: Olympic gold-medal winner Luis Scola, being pursued by the San Antonio Spurs, could become the fourth Argentine player in the NBA. Who are the three others?

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An Irish Panther: One of the fans watching Oregon State beat Notre Dame in the Insight Bowl on Tuesday was Pittsburgh offensive lineman Rob Petitti, who will play today against Utah in the Fiesta Bowl.

Seeing the Irish brought back memories.

“Me and my day loved Notre Dame,” Petitti said. “I had, like, Notre Dame posters all over my room and stuff. Notre Dame jerseys, hats.... I had everything. And I threw it all away when I got a scholarship to Pittsburgh.”

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Fighting words: Ukraine’s Vitali Klitschko is the World Boxing Council’s heavyweight champion. At least one sportswriter thinks he knows why.

“The Americans may deride him, but they have no one better,” Alan Hubbard wrote in England’s Independent newspaper. “So where have all their heavyweights gone?

“There is a belief that young American athletes who aspired to be boxers are now playing gridiron or basketball, where the money is almost as attractive and the pain considerably less. Those kids who might have been decent heavyweights are now linebackers, running backs or tight ends.”

Or playing for the Indiana Pacers, perhaps.

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Not-so-Golden Bears: Reaction to Cal’s 45-31 drubbing by Texas Tech was swift.

Wrote Ray Ratto in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Someday, the great ‘Cal got hosed by the BCS’ tale will be remembered as one of those charming urban myths, like ‘There are alligators breeding in the sewers,’ ‘Jimmy Hoffa is buried in the end zone at the Meadowlands,’ and ‘There’s an intersection in Seattle without a single Starbucks.’ ”

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Trivia answer: Detroit Piston guard Carlos Delfino (on the injured list), San Antonio guard Manu Ginobili and Chicago Bull forward Andres Nocioni.

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And finally: “There are some truly unwatched Olympic events,” observed Marina Hyde in England’s Guardian newspaper. “If anyone had wanted to hide a map of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, on the Athens taekwondo mat would have been the place to do it.”