You've spent the week wishing you could come across a golf writer, just so you could ball up your fist and punch him or her right in the back of the head.

	Tiger Woods' troubles have been mainly on the greens.

We know this because you've read all the Tiger Woods In A Slump stories you can stomach. Not only that, you've read all the Tiger Woods Isn't In A Slump stories you can stomach, too. Indeed, given the dismal content of the discussion, both prosecution and defense come off as people who really deserve a good windpiping.

But this is the problem with covering your individual sports. Those people who pay attention to team sports, with the traditional owner/general manager/marketing/coach/athletes structure, have an incredible advantage.

We can suggest trades. Also, suspensions, releases, reassignments, and our personal favorites, firings.

Now you try bellying up to Mr. Word Processor and opening your daily story with this terse little opener:

"Fire Tiger Woods."

Why, you'd look like an idiot. Or at least someone who likes his Cocoa Puffs with a Glenlivet chaser.

See, you can't fire Tiger Woods, Michelle Kwan, Todd Eldredge, Mike Tyson, Andre Agassi, either of the Williams Sisters, or whatever fetal gymnast is the talk of the day. They just keep playing until (a) they retire to become victims of People Magazine, (b) they burn out, (c) they stop winning, or (d) the senior tour runs out of money.

Of course, with figure skaters or gymnasts, all we have to do is wait until they turn 15, and then they get pushed out for new models. True, Kwan is still out at the top of her Salchow, but let's be frank here. The woman is Gordie Howe, relatively speaking. She is the exception that empirically proves the rule.

Woods, on the other hand, is going be with us for the next 30 years or so, and when he goes six tournaments without being handed a seven-foot-long check, we can't say, "Well, ship him off to the European Tour, damn it. He's killing the ball club."

We can, though, talk about slumps, non-slumps, and whatever lies between those two poles. And we can do it until our tongues begin to seep blood, and the eyes and ears of our audiences calcify and drop off their facial perches.

“

Woods ... is going be with us for the next 30 years or so, and when he goes six tournaments without being handed a seven-foot-long check, we can't say, 'Well, ship him off to the European Tour, damn it. He's killing the ball club.' ”

And that is the logical result of not being able to write that killer lead paragraph, "Fire Tiger Woods."

If we could do that, it would exorcise a lot of the demons that are otherwise taken up with "What's Wrong With Tiger Woods?" not to mention all the skull-cracking answers, like: