TED SOBEL SPORTS AUDIO VAULT: Your Inside Access to TOUCHING GREATNESS

I’ll be providing two minute NCAA basketball tournament updates from 9:30am-9:30pm on both Thursday (today) and Friday on KFWB Newstalk 980 and on KFWB.com. And you can thank your Southern California Chevy Dealers for sponsoring these 2 big first days of the Big Dance and they want to remind you that there are eleven Chevy vehicles that get an EPA estimated 30 mpg highway or better—including four over 40. And that’s plenty of savings which you could spend on more and more brackets!

Now for those of you who are curious about my bracket selections in what many consider to be a wide open tournament…I’m hardly going out on a limb, but I like plenty of chalk during this dance.

I’m taking top seeds Louisville, Indiana, and Gonzaga to win their sides of the brackets along with #3 Florida. And my two ‘sort of’ darkhorses are the 2 seed Duke and #3 Michigan State.

In other words anybody lower than a 4 seed would surprise me to even reach the final 4. I’ll then go with Louisville over Gonzaga and Florida to top Indiana with the Gators to take it all by beating a slightly favored Cardinal squad. Which would also likely make U.F. coach Billy Donovan much much to expensive a candidate to replace Ben Howland at UCLA should it ever get to that point?

Good luck with your brackets and thanks for tuning in to my reports and please tell your friends to do so as well.

Fuzzy Zoeller’s Vodka sponsored Indy Car

I haven’t covered the Toshiba Classic in a few years so it was nice to get out to Newport Beach Country Club and check out the 50 and older guys again. This is one of the most successful events on the Champions Tour and always draws some of the best fields throughout it’s 18 years in Newport Beach. And after a fairly cold Friday here, it warmed up a few degrees to help out some of the older bones to lower their scores.

South African David Frost is your 2nd round leader at 13 under par after an eagle on 18 for a one shot lead over Fred Couples. Some of you know of my issues with Couples going back almost 20 years and today is the first time I’ve interviewed him since the mid 1990’s (I only did it because I like a few of the people who run this event and it helps them out!).

It was also fun meeting up with Fred Funk who’s been great to me over the years along with one of the all-time greats Tom Watson who was kind enough to give me a few minutes after his solid 4 under 67 round. We covered his overall game along with Tom taking over as the next U.S. Ryder Cup captain and how he feels about the new anchoring rule with the long putter. But the round of the day went to Scott Hoch, who’s dealt with enough injuries to last most a lifetime. Good for Scott who came into the media room after his best score ever on the Champions Tour–a 7 under 64.

All in all it’s always great to be involved in this annual tournamet-which includes giving back to some of the great charities that benefit from it.

David Frost is your leader after 2 rounds:

Fred Couples is one shot back:

Tom Watson trails by 8 shots but improved on his opening round by 3 shots:

Fred Funk is trying to stay in the hunt tied with Watson:

The PGA Champions Tour Toshiba Classic tees off tomorrow morning at Newport Beach Country Club which is just down the street from where veteran golfer John Cook lives. He’s a 9 time winner on the senior circuit after bringing home 11 first place checks on the regular PGA Tour.

John was kind enough to call me this morning to discuss this week’s event along with covering a few current issues in the world of golf like the controversial new ruling of the long putter and it’s soon to be illegal anchoring to the body. And we chatted about his longtime buddy Tiger Woods who’s constant swing changing would ruin most careers but somehow not Tiger’s. Few know Tiger like Cook and it was great to get his insight on what Woods has in front of him to try and catch or surpass Jack Nicklaus’ major wins record of 18.

John Cook with Ted Sobel:

Cookie has an 11:55 Friday tee time with playing partners Bernhard Langer and Rocco Mediate and it would be nice to see him win this thing in his own backyard—almost literally!

At least one Gasol is enjoying the Staples floor lately!

The Clippers got barbequed Memphis style by the team they’re trying to overhaul for the 3rd seed in the western conference playoff race. The Grizzlies won it going away 96-85 by shooting over 54% on the night and better than 65% over the first 3 quarters. The points in the paint stat was well in favor of the Griz 46-30 and they held the Clips to just a 43% shooting night.

Chris Paul led ’em all with 24 points while Blake Griffin added 22, but that was far from enough against the Grizzlies 5 guys in double figures including Marc Gasol’s 21 points and 5 steals (which equaled the entire L.A. squad). Needless to say, it was a quiet locker room afterward but I got what I could from the Clippers who continue to struggle against the top teams in the west as of late…something they’ll need to correct by playoff time or else make it another short post-season.

Coach Vinny Del Negro postgame newser:

Chris Paul and Blake Griffin postgame newser;

Jamaal Crawford who shot an awful 1-10 from the floor tonight:

Grant Hill sums up a tough night that he could only muster up 2 points in 12:30 of playing time:

And DeAndre Jordan was in a total loss for words after this one:

The good news is the Clippers get a few days to practice up for the collapsing N.Y. Knicks who lost by only 23 in Denver tonight and their 29 pt. blowout loss at Golden State on Monday night. You can hear the Clips try to beat up on the possibly Melo-less Knickerbockers on KFWB Newstalk 980 on Sunday starting at 11:30am.

Newport Beach Country Club is the place to watch local golf this week as the annual Toshiba Classic is back in town. I called the media room to see if there was a player that I could get on the phone last minute–and there was 50 year old tour rookie Esteban Toledo putting nearby.

I didn’t know that this was Toledo’s first time playing this event, and that the resident of Irvine had also met his wife here 19 years ago when she was waitressing in the club.

It was a fun interview while at the same time, Esteban is very passionate about his personal charity.

Here’s what he wrote on his website estebantoledo.com:
“For fifteen years it has been my dream to establish a ‘Giving Foundation’ that will put efforts into helping children around the world, and I am proud to announce that my dream has become a reality. With the assistance of my family, friends, fans, and supporters, I am proud to introduce The Esteban Toledo Family Foundation. A foundation focused on helping others, especially children. Our purpose is to supply basic needs such as shelter, clothing, food, education, love, and an introduction to the Lord.
If you have any questions, comments, or you are ready to contribute, volunteer, or assist the foundation in any way, please feel free to contact our Executive Director and Jay Miller”.

Toledo had never won on the PGA Tour with a pair of 2nd place finishes being his best, so how great would it be if he could pull it off on Sunday? Mucho luck this weekend, Esteban!

My chat with Esteban Toledo:

Annika jumped into Poppy’s Pond 3 times

I first attended the LPGA’s Kraft Nabisco media day in Rancho Mirage where I got to play the Dinah Shore Championship course (and not very well, I might add). That was after interviewing golf’s first major of the year’s defending champ Sun Young Yoo and Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam who won this tournament 3 times. Annika was on Skype from her home in Florida and she’ll be this year’s Pro-Am host the week of April 1 and she talked about not being motivated to ever make a comeback to competitive golf and how she loves this course. Yoo’s english is even better than it was last year when I had the priviledge of introducing her onto the 18th green on Sunday before winning her first major title.

Annika Sorenstam talks retirement and why she’s content with her life now:

KNC defending champ Sun Young Yoo can’t wait to try it again:

Azarenka serves in front of a nice late night crowd in the desert

After a full day at the golf course, I then headed up the road to Indian Wells to catch the night matches at the BNP Paribas Open where world #2 and defending champ Victoria Azarenka put away her 3rd round opponent Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium in 3 sets. Azarenka is a great quote as she just speaks her mind and often says things that makes you shake your head. So check out our post match interview where she says not feeling great made her prefer sleeping over playing tennis on this night but she fought through it anyway. And she’s the only athlete I’ve ever interviewed who told me that ‘confidence is OVER-RATED’! Whatever works, Victoria. Azarenka hasn’t lost a match yet this year and is right behind only Serena Williams in the WTA world rankings. I then watched the aging Aussie Lleyton Hewitt (former world #1) lose in straight sets to journeyman Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland.

Azarenka (on the left) says goodbye to another opponent

Victoria Azarenka speaks and you can’t help but want to listen:

Hewitt serves before heading home

All in all it was a full day and now I get to drive 2 hours towards home past midnight trying to figure out why I did this whole ordeal? 🙂