SI VIEW THE WEEK IN TV SPORTS
Saturday 8/16
GOLF
PGA Championship
If you believe that a course named Winged Foot might favor a
player who sports a swoosh on his shoes, you'd be right. Like
Tiger Woods (left), the fairways at the Mamaroneck, N.Y., layout
are long and narrow--seven par-4s play longer than 440
yards--and embrace those who crush the ball off the tee. A Woods
win would further distinguish the prodigy as the first golfer to
win two majors in his first full season on the Tour. Speaking of
history, the 1984 U.S. Open, played at Winged Foot, saw Greg
Norman finish second to Fuzzy Zoeller after an 18-hole playoff.
Only Hawkeye Pierce detests U.S. majors more than the Shark, who
is 0 for 49 lifetime in them.
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, TBS, 10:30 AM AND CBS, 1:30 PM
PRO BASKETBALL
Comets at Sting
As a teenager in Watts, Cynthia Cooper (right) once ran into the
midst of a gunfight taking place outside her home and admonished
the combatants to stop shooting. Now playing guard for Houston,
Cooper, 34, is the one who is trigger-happy, but with
basketballs, not bullets. In successive July outings, Super Coop
scored 30, 32 and 44 points, setting a single-game WNBA scoring
record each time. "She's just the best player in the league
right now," says Comets coach Van Chancellor of his 5'10"
hotshot, whose 22.1-point scoring average was the WNBA's best at
week's end. "I feel as if I'm coaching the female Jordan."
NBC, 2 PM
Sunday 8/17
MOTOR SPORTS
IRL Pennzoil 200
Arie Luyendyk (below), expected to be among the leaders at this
Indy Racing League event at Loudon, N.H., has had a turbulent
1997. Two weeks after taking the checkered flag at the
Indianapolis 500, Luyendyk burst into Victory Lane at the True
Value 500 in Fort Worth to declare (correctly) that he, not
Billy Boat, was the rightful winner. Boat's car owner, A.J.
Foyt, promptly sucker-punched the driving Dutchman. Now
Luyendyk, whose defense against Foyt was about as spirited as
Vincent (the Chin) Gigante's in court, sports a T-shirt that
reads INDY RASSLIN' LEAGUE.
ABC, 4 PM
DOCUMENTARIES
Inside NFL Films: The Idol Makers
Where do we find the intrepid National Geographic Explorer
cameras this week? In the frigid Antarctic? Along the shores of
the untamed Amazon? No, indoors at the always 68 [degrees]
Louisiana Superdome, tracking the crew of NFL Films as it
forages for lasting images from last January's Super Bowl
between Green Bay and New England. Then again, standing within
shouting distance of then Patriots coach Bill Parcells is
fraught with its own brand of danger. "We want to show the game
the way the players experience it," says NFL Films president
Steve Sabol. "The eyeballs bulging, the snot spraying and the
sweat flying." A glaring omission: no mention of NFL Films' late
(and inimitable) narrator John Facenda.
TBS, 7 PM
Thursday 8/21
PRO FOOTBALL
Redskins at Dolphins
The job is his for four more years. Washington quarterback Gus
Frerotte beat out his chief rival (Heath Shuler, now with the
New Orleans Saints) in 1996 and recently signed a four-year
contract that should keep him entrenched as the leader of, if
not the free world, then the Redskins' offense until the year
2001. Despite having thrown just 30 touchdown passes against 29
interceptions in his first three NFL seasons, Frerotte has an
approval rating that is high inside and outside the Beltway:
Witness the former seventh-round draft pick's selection to his
first Pro Bowl last February.
ESPN, 8 PM
All times Eastern. Schedules are subject to change.
COLOR PHOTO: JOHN BIEVER [Tiger Woods playing golf]
COLOR PHOTO: NORM PERDUE/NBA PHOTOS [Cynthia Cooper playing basketball]
COLOR PHOTO: DAVID TAYLOR/ALLSPORT [Arie Luyendyk driving race car]
THE ! ZAPPER
Preseason injuries to star players already have begun to wreak
havoc on the NFL's prime-time regular-season schedule. Among
those now not scheduled to appear: Carolina Panthers quarterback
Kerry Collins (broken jaw) on TNT's Week 1 Sunday-night game;
Green Bay Packers running back Edgar Bennett (torn left Achilles
tendon) on ABC's Monday Night Football season premiere; and,
most sorely missed, Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Mark
Brunell (damaged right anterior cruciate ligament) in what was
to have been his only prime-time appearance, a Week 4
Monday-nighter. Unlike the case of NBC's highly rated sitcom
Frasier, whose star, Kelsey Grammer, went on the disabled list
(drug rehab) last September, ABC and TNT do not have the option
of airing reruns.