Golf Braves

John Smoltz is reknowned for his golf ability. Everyone knows him as a scratch golfer who's not afraid to throw down dineros in an on-course wager against Tiger Woods. All of his ability to gascan hitters in the ninth inning aside, that takes some serious stones. So it shouldn't be shocking that once his shoulder gets right and he retires (eventually) he plans on playing a bunch of golf. But he might be looking for something more than just a recreational round.

Any plans to trade professional baseball for professional golf?

I have a couple of goals. One would be to make a cut.one cut.on the PGA Tour, and then to play on the Champions Tour. But I want to do it the right way. There will probably be sponsors [invitations] available, but eventually I'd like to go the Q School route. I want to see if I can do some of the things that baseball has prepared me to do. I want to test my mental toughness at that level.

Now that I totally respect. Because if I was even remotely famous and I knew I could pull off getting free rounds of golf anywhere -- particularly in a PGA scenario -- I would be on that at a frequency rate that would get awkward for my sponsors.

Smoltz will probably take his sponsors up some offers; he'd be foolish not to, but if he goes back and can ball it up enough to officially get his card, that's going to be one pretty impressive story.

Okay, so that headline is not entirely true, but you have to figure Tiger Woods is going to get tired of destroying everybody on the PGA Tour at some point, and maybe he's going to want a new challenge in his life. Michael Jordan did it, right?

So while Tiger isn't planning on dropping golf for baseball anytime soon, his competitive nature does carry over from the golf course. After playing 18 holes with Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Jeff Francouer on Monday, Tiger decided to enter his friend John Smoltz's domain on Wednesday, facing Smoltz from the batter's box.

Woods donned a batting helmet and Braves jersey (tucked into shorts) and stepped into the batter's box when Smoltz threw three simulated innings at Disney's Wide World of Sports.

According to Braves officials who were present, Woods struck out twice and drew a walk before getting a "controversial" single in his final at-bat.

Tiger's "controversial" single landed within five feet of the cup I'm sure.

Am I the only one who wouldn't have been surprised if Tiger took Smoltz deep? I didn't know the man could fail at anything. Unfortunately, as far as I know there's no video available of this, and I've been looking.