TOTALLY RANDOM : Woods is a big attraction down under

As a child, of course, Tiger Woods listed his stratospheric goals such as becoming a professional golfer, surpassing Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major titles and administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation to the Australian Masters.

Actually, he didn’t include the last of those, but according to newspaper reports, he apparently stopped by Melbourne last week and pulled it off anyway, causing 25,000-strong galleries that runner-up Greg Chalmers likened to “a football crowd” and turning the premier of the state of Victoria into an omnipresent golf groupie.

TV helicopters reportedly followed his passage from the airport to the hotel, taxpayers helped fund his whopping appearance fee, and reports included this pearl in the Age: “His only obvious weakness was his bladder, requiring him regularly to ‘take relief,’ as they say in golf.”

Wrote Patrick Smith in the Australian: “As helicopters monitored his practice round, snappers got him going in and out of toilets, and organizers built a secret Tiger door, the world’s best golfer must have thought Melbourne a madhouse. Certainly the assured welcome of experienced hosts was replaced by a frenzy of bootlicking and puffery.”

Trivia time

Having won the Australian Masters on Sunday, Woods has won golf tournaments on every continent but which?

Biology class

David Thomas reported in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the invocation before Texas Christian Horned Frogs’ 55-28 bombardment of Utah on Saturday included a thank-you to the heavens that “caused the frogs to come upon the world.”

Sadly, it contained no mention of that long-underrated contributor, the tadpole.

So bad it hurts

Of the 92 soccer clubs in the four top tiers in England, fourth-division Grimsby Town sits 91st.

Grimsby Town’s miserable play helped make an Internet splash of a disillusioned fan, who posted a long message to the players on thefishy.co.uk, including: “You are a total disgrace, not only to your profession, not only to the human race, but to nature itself. This may sound like an exaggeration, but believe me when I say that I have passed kidney stones which have brought me a greater level of pleasure and excitement than watching each of you worthless excuses for professional footballers attempt to play a game you are clearly incapable of playing, week-in, week-out.”

Trivia answer

Antarctica, often so overlooked on sports pages.

And finally

With Georgia Tech at 10-1 behind Coach Paul Johnson’s option offense, that wishbone maven Barry Switzer (Bill Belichick’s predecessor in failing famously in the NFL on a fourth-down gamble from just inside his 30-yard line), told Ethan J. Skolnick of the South Florida Sun Sentinel: “The wishbone’s not dead. It’s just that the damn coaches are.”

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chuck.culpepper@yahoo.com