British Open.

- Call me crazy but I am picking Tiger to win the British Open this week. I think he is seething that he blew the Masters and US Open and also wants to get the threepeat in the UK. What hurt him in the first two majors of the year was his putting (his driver sucks and has for so long that he has worked around it and is longer really the reason he loses tournaments), which will be helped by the slow greens at Carnoustie. If it's not him I think it will be someone we've never heard of before.

- I am happy to say I was in my hometown of Toronto last week the day Ed Mirvish died. I drove from downtown to the west end of Etobicoke via Bloor St. just so that I kid tip my hat to Honest Ed's at Bloor and Bathurst. Fittingly, there was only a small sign in the window acknowledging the passing of the stores owner and founder. As tacky as Ed's stores could be, it was his stores and theatres that he focused his attention on, never himself. It's a testament to his humble nature that he always considered himself to be just a shopkeeper. The amount of pride he took in the city and the untold millions he gave to charity, mostly anonymously, will be remembered forever in Toronto. His passing along with the closing of Sam's record shop last month leaves a gaping hole in the city as I can't think of any independent stores that can be more readily identified with Toronto.

- It's not a great lead in but my next topic is the unabashed stupidity of Toronto Mayor David Miller. His idea to raise a specific 416 increase to the land transfer tax is beyond absurd. If this were to pass it would only accelerate the already rapid exodus of young families out of Toronto and into the 905 suburbs. It's so potentially destructive it makes me shake just typing this.

- I don't think it's fair to link the fact that steroids were found in Chris Benoit's system with his murder suicide and pin it on the WWF. There have been a lot of irregualr deaths in the wrestling world over the last 10 years and yes, 'riods are rampant, but they are rampant in baseball and football too and those players are not committing similar crimes. If you want to try to link the lifestyle of wrestlers to this type of thing that's fair game, but don't equate Vince McMahon encouraging murder through his entertainers taking steroids.

- It will be very interesting to see how NFL Commish Roger Goodell handles Michael Vick's indictment for illegal dogfighting. Pacman Jones and others he has suspended were not A list stars for the league but Vick is one of the league's 5 main poster boys. Not suspending him would be well beyond hypocritical.

- One of my favorite parts of the week is getting my new issue of Sports Illustrated. Last week I opened my mailbox to find David Beckham staring at me under a headline something like can he change soccer's landscape in America. No he can't, nobody ever can or will, let's just move on and stop wasting valuable cover space.