Players need to take a leaf out of Woods' book

Jun 22 2008 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

I MAY be a few quid out in my calculations, but as my bank manager would confirm, there’s nothing new there.

My reckoning is that the 680-odd grand earned by Tiger Woods for winning the US Open with a torn cruciate ligament and stress-fractured tibia is all but the same amount Joey Barton will be paid by Newcastle United for lounging in a prison cell these next three months.

That doesn’t so much put Woods’ performance last weekend into perspective — it was quite obviously the greatest sporting triumph of the modern age — as expose the con men now fleecing all too many of our football clubs.

Every waster out there, whether their speciality is as a feigner, diver, malingerer, basic mercenary or street-brawler — or all and more besides — should be made to watch a recording of Woods’ closing two rounds at Torrey Pines.

Made to watch, in the hope that perhaps — just perhaps — they will remember those long-gone days when they too valued glory above wealth, and might have chased it with a broken leg.