Another Sunday in paradise.

Sunday, a store clerk wished me a "Happy Father's Day." It had totally slipped my mind, since I am neither a father nor have I had one since his passing in 1967. Generally, Father's Day gets by me.

I would guess that it's a strange situation that finds a couple married for 6 years without children, yet that's how my ex and I ended up. Probably for the better, since the courts usually side with the mother and in her case, she couldn't be bothered - which is probably why we never had children.

My memories of my father are all good ones. He's the one who taught me how to tell a joke. We used to read jokes into his tape recorder and listen to it later. He's the one who taught me to play baseball, and allowed me to be a left-handed hitter, even though I do nothing else left-handed, unless you count drinking when I'm holding something in my right hand.

Sunday was the final round of the U.S. (men's) Open. The thing that struck me as I watched it on TV was the same difference I notice when I go to Philadelphia and think it's a big city - until I go to New York. The crowds at the Open are huge (golf-people call them galleries) and for my money, they're kind of stupid compared to the women's tournaments I've attended. Guys are shouting, "In the hole!" on lay-up's to the fairway and randomly waving at the camera so that they can text-message their friends, "Did you hear me shouting?" The hole is a hundred yards away, dumbass. Like a lot of things, the more popular it is, the more dumbasses show up.

I think I've had my fill of the "Tiger Woods knee pain" stories and the endless replays of him (supposedly) wincing in pain and limping up the fairway to hit another agonizing shot. It's practically all we heard about this weekend. Tiger, his knee and 50 other guys that are also playing.

That's what was so amazing about the TV coverage, though. NBC decided to put the thing on in Prime Time, since it was in San Diego and they had the leaders tee-off at 4:00 EDT and showed all 18 holes of their play, leading to the finish sometime around 9:00pm.

Sometimes the leader has a big lead and the last few holes are just played to see how much he'll win by and sometimes the leader is a guy who couldn't get arrested on most days, but yesterday NBC hit the jackpot.

Not only did Tiger have to fight the knee pain (did you hear anything about that?) he also coughed up the lead to a guy with a surname that is also an intransitive verb - Rocco Mediate.

So they're doing cartwheels at NBC when Tiger rolled in the agonizing birdie putt on 18 (in Prime Time) and Rocco has to keep his hotel room for another day. They'll play another painful 18 holes today and unemployed golf fans and retired homemakers will be able to watch it live starting at noon. NBC picks up ESPN's coverage at 2pm, when undoubtedly the daytime dramas are already over and they won't have to field the "Where's my soap?" phone calls.

Tune in for more excitement and endless replays of the painful knee that has hockey players and other athletes questioning whether they could walk 4 miles in 6 hours three months after having a small intrusive device stuck in their knee.