FEHERTY: FUN STALKING TIGER.

Byline: Tom Hoffarth Media

Believe it or not, CBS golf-course reporter David Feherty has been enshrined on a Web site known as the Celebrity Atheist List, which describes itself as ``an offbeat collection of notable individuals who have been public in their lack of belief in dieties.''

A typical offbeat one-liner attributed to Feherty - ``If God wanted people to believe in Him, why'd he invent logic then?'' - was all it took for them to take notice.

Ironic, since Feherty wears a WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelet from Payne Stewart's funeral, but he doesn't doubt ever saying that. Lord knows, in the three years he's been at CBS and the ``Sidespin'' columns he's written for Golf Magazine and golfonline.com, that's where his Irish humor tends to go.

Besides, how can he not believe in some higher power after having been assigned the past few years to follow the leader on the network's PGA coverage, which continues this weekend at the Nissan Open at Riviera Country Club.

And the leader, week after week, has been this 22-year-old kid named Tiger Woods.

``He's capable of doing things . . . there isn't another human who can do it,'' Feherty said Thursday morning before heading out to the 18th-hole tower to work on the USA Network's telecast of the first round.

It was Feherty who once said of Woods: ``Never has my flabber been so completely gasted.''

That's usually because Feherty is put in the position on the course to tell the viewer what to expect Woods to do on his next shot. When in reality, Feherty isn't really sure what the kid could possibly do to top himself.

``I've developed a sense of what he can do,'' said Feherty, 41, who won almost $4 million and 10 tournaments during his 25-year playing career, mostly in Europe. ``We are in an enviable spot (allowed so much access to him during a round), but it's very easy to show him. He's become remarkably savvy with us because he understands the way he has to show a human face. That's a hard thing to do when you've become an instant celebrity. Everyone wants a piece of him and lately his life has been very complicated.

``Sometimes a critic will get on him for cursing or slamming his club down. But when you look at other sports that have end-zone celebrations . . . we should cut him some slack. He holds himself to a higher standard than anyone I've seen.''

Maybe the real indication of what kind of higher standard the media has placed in Woods, Feherty said, is that the Christian Science Monitor received a credential to cover last week's tournament.

If you can believe that.

--Late-night high jinks: Woods' tolerance for Feherty's ferret-like humor was revealed during a CBS late-night golf-highlight show from the Buick Open in La Jolla.

In one of these nutty skits that he and Gary McCord dream up, Feherty pretended to be a stalker and was taking credit from Butch Harmon in developing Woods' game, which included a scene in which Feherty was screaming at Woods on the driving range. Woods fell down laughing after the taping. Later, during a straight interview with Feherty, Woods referred to him as ``a piece of work.''

``He's called me a piece of other things, too,'' Feherty said.

Thursday night's late-show installment for the Nissan Open had Feherty and McCord running around Warner Brothers studios to show the audience a typical day in the production of the 15-minute highlight show. At one point, Feherty had on a Viking helmet and then put on a dress ``that was last worn by Barbara Stanwyck,'' he said.

``It's a lot of hard work taking three days to shoot two 15-minute shows,'' said Feherty. ``They're exceptionally bad TV that we all relish.''

--A Vin-Vin situation: The Dodgers will experiment this spring with simulcasting the first two innings of Vin Scully's call for both TV and radio on the Sunday exhibition games during March. If all parties are pleased, the team will break tradition and go with that setup during the regular season.

TV's expanded schedule has been radio's loss in previous Dodgers seasons as far as who gets to hear Scully. The Dodgers this season plan to televise an all-time high 137 games (55 on KTLA Channel 5, 82 on Fox Sports Net 2) with seven of them coming from spring training. Scully's routine has been to open the TV telecast, do three middle innings on radio, then finish on TV.

The problem this has raised, especially with longtime Dodger Stadium fans who bring transistors, is that Scully's time has been drastically cut on radio over recent years. Of the 130 regular-season games set for TV this year, 60 are home games that will pull Scully away.

The first spring simulcast experiment will be the March 5 game (Channel 5, 11 a.m.) against the New York Mets.

Another thing the Dodgers will try this spring: All weekday radio broadcasts of games in Florida, which in the past has been carried live with late-morning starts locally, will be delayed and put on AM-1150 at 5 p.m. for the afternoon-drive audience. This also allows 1150 to avoid having to pre-empt Jim Rome's 9 a.m.-to-noon show.

Spanish-language KWKW will also do the delay starting at 4 p.m.

SOUND BYTES

WHAT SMOKES

--As a sorta tribute to the late Tom Landry, the Gameshow Network airs a Dec., 1959 episode of ``To Tell the Truth'' in which the soon-to-be Dallas Cowboys coach plays an imposter for panelists Don Ameche, Polly Bergen, Kitty Carlisle and Tom Poston to mull over. The show airs Sunday at 6 and 10 p.m.

--On the 20th anniversary of the ``Miracle On Ice,'' ESPN Classic airs that fabled U.S.-Russia Olympic hockey game Tuesday at 6 p.m. ESPN2's NHL 2Night also has a six-part series on the game starting with tonight's show at 8:30 that covers the selection of the team and coach Herb Brooks.

--Even without an American vessel in this edition of the America's Cup, at least check out the amazing technical work ESPN does on the best-of-nine telecast that begins today (4 p.m., live).

--Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue comes out next week.

WHAT CHOKES

--We've been down this road before: After doing it live for more than two decades, CBS will give up rights to the Daytona 500 following Sunday's telecast (9 a.m. to 1 p.m.). NBC and Fox seized control of a split NASCAR package starting next year. CBS Sports executive producer Terry Ewert explains: ``There are very mixed emotions. In '79, when it all began on CBS, we made the courageous step in televising 500 miles of a race live flag to flag. That was very risky. Through the years CBS has helped (bring) NASCAR to where we are today. It's been a great run. We have no regrets.'' Ewert says CBS' commitment to the NFL, NCAA basketball tournament, golf and the U.S. Open tennis tournament, college football and then the 2001 Super Bowl wouldn't allow the network to open windows that NASCAR wanted when the bidding became open.'' Noting that CBS returned to NFL coverage after a four-year absence, CBS Sports' coordinating producer of auto racing Eric Mann added: ``Who knows, in six or eight years, it might be back. That's just the way the business has become.''

--Did we mention that Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue comes out next week?

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