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Covering Tiger's climb no easy task
ST. ANDREWS -- What more can we say? What new brick can we add to this memorial's foundation, to add more weight and stature and emotion? Tiger Woods. Born in a log cabin? No, placed in a capsule by his beleaguered father on a dying planet and sent into the sprawling universe, to land on some unsuspecting planet and save it from double bogies? What more can we say? And yet, we'll have to find more, and soon. For he isn't stopping while we search our thesauruses. But in the time it takes to swallow a new breath, in the moments before his final steps onto golf's grandest plateau, there are stories of another sort to get out of the way. Stories that have made the press center of this British Open both grimace and guffaw in equal doses. 
While Tiger Woods ascends to the pinnacle, we all simply tried to move sideways, from here to there. And many of us failed miserably. We will tell the tale of his journey from every angle soon enough. Time now to recount the others.
"Jumper up top," they said. "But how do we get to St. Andrews?" "Down thatta way. Forty miles down, 40 miles back up." On the second 40, the driver fell asleep, ran off the road, hit a high curb and burst both left-side tires. It was 4:30 a.m. They stumbled, bleary-eyed, out of the disabled car and considered walking the final 20 miles when they noticed lights coming on in a small factory across the street. It was a dairy. And so, in the dawning light of a new Open, they made their way into St. Andrews in the back of a milk wagon.
They booked the crew on the QE2, docked in Edinburgh for the duration of the Open. Only one small problem: the tides dictated their departure and arrival times. On by 8 at night, off by 8 in the morning. They worked until 10. They made it, barely, the first night, but their baggage was left on the dock. They rented a small beer garden off the 18th fairway of the Old Course the next day.
Half of the golfers who fly commercial were left without their clubs for awhile. Stewart Cink didn't get his until the day before the tournament began. Not a problem that the U.N. will soon put on its agenda, certainly, but it can get in the way of a guy trying to win a major championship.
The crew had been here exactly one day, long enough to document Notah's wonderful first round. They filed their stories, piled in their rental car and drove round one of the few corners in this town to have dinner. While they were inside, their car was stolen. Gone. All their equipment, camera, everything, plus their passports, tickets, the works. Only the second car stolen in St. Andrews this year and the local gendarmes handled it as such, grilling the two young men independently, as if they were pulling some American scam. Tiger Woods will tell you it isn't easy climbing to the top. Well, it's not been easy covering the climb, either. More on him soon. But you knew that. Jim Huber is an Emmy award-winning journalist for CNN/Sports Illustrated and a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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