Is Lefty The New Tiger?

The guy some of the media wants to win. (David Cannon/Getty Images)

Remember when Tiger Woods burst on to the pro golf scene and all the media coverage was directed at him and where he stood in any given tournament as opposed to the traditional approach that reported  who was winning and why?

Whenever Tiger played every story began describing his round, his clothes, his mind set, his courtesy car – you name it – and then somewhere in the twelfth paragraph there was mention of some poor schmuck nobody (according to the media) cares about who was actually winning the golf tournament.

So now that Tiger is no longer the object of the media’s affection, clearly we are now meant to worship (and follow at the cost of most known journalistic rules) Mr. Nice Guy, Phil Mickelson.

One of the actual co-leaders. (AP Photo)

Here is how Yahoo! Sports covered yesterday's first round of the Masters.

On the home page, the lead story is headlined thusly:  McIlroy, Quiros share lead at Masters.  When you click on this story you are taken to one headlined with this: “Lefty scrambles his way into contention at Augusta”

The leaders, Rory McIlroy and Alvaro Quiros are mentioned in paragraphs four (Quiros) and six (McIlroy) making nice bookends for a quote from guess who?  Why, Phil Mickelson silly.

The leaders are mentioned some 65 words in and McIlroy’s 63 actually gets a full sentence 502 words into the story.

Of course this makes sense because Mickelson won last year and he’s nipping at the heels of the leaders after an opening round 66 (-6) just one stroke off the lead…

Well…no.

Rare photo of one of the actual co-leaders. (Don Emmert/AFP)

Actually Mickelson shot 70 (-2) and here are the guys that are between him and the first round leaders:  Y.E. Yang (-5), K.J. Choi (-5), Ricky Barnes (-4), Matt Kuchar (-4), Charl Schwartzel (-3), Trevor Immelman (-3), Gary Woodland (-3), Ross Fisher (-3), Brandt Snedeker (-3), Geoff Ogilvy (-3) and Sergio Garcia (-3).  Not exactly a bunch of stiffs as there are some majors accounted for amongst these fellows.

And…127 photographs accompany the story about Lefty vaulting into contention a mere five strokes off the lead and not a single one is of McIlroy…Nada, none, zero.

Meanwhile over at ESPN  and Sports Illustrated, the lead story is about the leaders complete with photos.  

Thankfully, sanity still reigns somewhere.