SUMMER’S here – even given the fact most cricketers are preparing for at least two-sweater days in the field and grass steadfastly refuses to grow at its expected rate.

For all the unseasonal weather – one colleague from Walmgate Towers (soon to be Walmgate dormer) confessed that central heating is still on – you can still tell that the second season has arrived by the sports now seizing the headlines.

The beast that is football always generates a quaking quota of breaking news – well it does on Sky Sports, whose motto must be bigger, better and ad-break nauseam – but its monopoly is undergoing a welcome shrinkage now that there is no summer fest of World Cup or European Championship quest, whereby England fffff...latter and fffff...alter and fffff...ade away.

Cricket, lovely cricket, in its purest form with the second of the two-Test series against the touring New Zealanders currently being played out just down the A64 at Headingley.

The headlines will be banner-sized, indeed Bruce Banner-sized when those incredible sulks, the Aussies, start the first of a brace of 2013 Ashes’ series next month.

Just as we await the Aussie impact, Great Britain and Ireland’s Lions’ task force heads for the land of plenty charged with draining the hosts of all their green and gold might.

And all that’s even before the tennis circus starts to gather momentum with the French Open followed soon after by that blaze of Englishness elite fiefdom known as Wimbledon. Thankfully our best hope resides again with a Scotsman who seems as removed from the upturned noses as the poncey-named UKIP leader is from politics north of Hadrian’s Wall.

But for all the aforementioned quartet of sports, there is another currently amassing unwanted attention – golf.

And just like the last time golf was pin-high in all the more unedifying headlines, at the centre of the storm is Tiger Woods.

His renaissance as a player – recapturing the number one world ranking after the grubby consequences of a tawdry private life – has been as driven as Woods has been since he was a cub named Eldrick.

But as the maelstrom of bad publicity that attended his fall from grace three years ago displayed, “The Phenom” as he was first dubbed, has not always been the clean-cut character initially portrayed.

Certainly, Spain’s third most successful golfer Sergio Garcia is not on Woods’ Thanksgiving list with a contretemps at the World Golf Championship event at Sawcross earlier this month underlining the animosity between the two.

Garcia has a deserved case that in their play-off there was a certain lack of etiquette shown by the American as his rival was about to take a shot. And the Spaniard has not been silent as to how he believed that reflected the true character of the world number one.

It’s almost like his compatriot Rafa Benitez refusing to kow-tow to the over-fawning regard that Premier League managers have for the now retired Sir Alex Ferguson. Garcia implied that while “everyone knew” what Woods was like he had had the guts to say it.

But unlike the Benitez-Ferguson feud, Garcia overstepped the mark. He said in response to whether he would invite Woods to dinner that he would make sure there was “fried chicken” to eat.

While apologising subsequently and refuting the charge of racism, the phrase is racist, echoing the storm of 1997 when American Fuzzy Zoeller made a similar remark as to Woods’ possible choice for the pre-tournament dinner after winning his first US Masters title.

It now behoves the game’s governing powers whether it will take strong enough punitive action.

On the same scale as Luis Suarez or John Terry in English football, Garcia’s remark was a racial slur and without the excuse either of its utterance being somehow lost in translation or being of a rhetorical nature.

Time for the Professional Golfers’ Association, the European Tour or the Royal & Ancient – guardians of a sport that prides itself on etiquette and standards – to act.


What a ta-ra

IT was all football farewells last weekend – Suralex, Moysey, Rafa, Carra, Scholesie, the Michael Owen (as his twitter feed displays) – but there could be one more that will be untold millions of pounds.

The final duel of the domestic season pitches Watford against Crystal Palace in the Championship play-off which offers the Nirvana of the Premier League to the victor.

And for Palace they boast a certain Wilfried Zaha, who has already been transferred to top tier champions Man Ure. If he is the Wembley match-winner, like he was in the semi-final ousting of Brighton, then Zaha’s ta-ra to the Palace will be worth an absolute golden goodbye.