TENNIS, ANYONE? (35 AND OVER, ONLY) West Vancouver Tennis Club is hosting the Farwest Senior Tennis Championships Aug. 17-20. Entry deadline is Aug. 11. The event is open to male and female singles and doubles players 35 and over. Among the club members with international experience who will be competing are Louise Mardon, Sheila Kenin, Kinuko Hagashio and Lubomir Chabot. Cal} 922-9722 tor information. ins ready Games start Friday RAIN spoiled the North Shore Twins’ home season finale last Thursday. But sun is on order tor this weekend's provincial championship. The Premier league baseball team was scheduled to meet the league-leading Whalley Chiets. The game was rained out and won't be rescheduled. But the Twins will face the Surrey sluggers in their second of three : round-robin games at the B.C. champi- onship on Saturday. The Twins enter the B.C. Premier League championship tournament Friday. At press _ time, the 18-13 team was fifth in the !1- team league and playing a regular season- ending doubleheader in Coquitiam. The provinciats will feature a matchup of seven Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley teams and one from Vancouver Island, the Nanaimo . Pirates. The Victoria Mariners, Okanagan Cougars and Parksville Royals all , finished out of playoff contention. ‘The Twins meet the White Rock Tritons Friday at 6 p.m. at Robert Burnaby Park in Burnaby. Two games are scheduled for Saturday at Mundy Park in Coquitlam: 1 p.m. vs. the first-place Whalley Chiefs and :30'p.m. vs. the eighth-place Abbotsford cardinals. - Championship play continues Sunday and B.C..Day Monday. ‘The Twins are pinning their champi- onship hopes on the reliable right arm of ace pitcher Marc Rouleau. Rouleau, 9-2, pitched 70:2/3 innings, compiled a 1.58 ERA and struck out 84 batters this season. Offensively, .393 hitter Jeff St. Pierre will be called upon to hit long balls. He led the __ team with four home runs. “Teammate Dustin Schroer registered a -403 batting average and made 39 extra base hits, including a trio of home runs. Get in TIGER! Tiger! burning briabt 2 On all the fairways within sight, What immortal band or eve - Could frame thy fearful symme- eee With apologies to Mr. Blake, the mystic 18th century non-golfer, I would suggest TransLink may have a prob-. — Bob Mackin jine for Tiger's Canadian appearance Wednesday, August 2, 2000 - North Shora News - 2S . B.C. SUMMER GAMES HONOUR ROLL Last weekend's 8.C. Summer Games in Victoria were a success for North Shore athletes. North Vancouver sent a team of 168 and brought back 91 medals, while 36 West Vancouverites made the trek and came home with 19 medais. For a full list of medal winners, see North Shore Number Cruncher on page 30. COVERING THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY | for pl pees NEWS photo Paul McGrath NORTH Shore Twin Jeff St. Pierre at batting practice Saturday. The Twins are preparing for this weekend’s B.C. championship tournament. Greater Vancouver Opens, with week-long attendances of just over 100,000, it hasn’r .” been an easy trip for either fans or transit. If and when Woods piays here, the tournament boss, Marty Zlotnick, estimates another 50,000 customers will join the throng. There'll be crowd scenes even Cecil B. fem two years down the road. Not that it doesn’t have a few problems now. The same goes for celebrity-chasing golf fins. How, in the course of seven days and the bulk of the - traffic on Saturday and ’ Sunday, do you get more than 150,000 spectators out to Surrey’s Northview golf lay- out? We're talking about the _ 2002 Air Canada Open, where there’s a pretty good chance ‘Tiger Woods, as chief burner, will be lighting up the course. Although he has a list of commercial commitments as long as one of his routine 300-yard tee shots, Woods has told reporters he plans to play at least once in the next few years at every regular stop on the PGA tour. Two years hence, and exactly one week before the Air Canada event, he'll be competing in the World Championship of Golf at Seattle. Inasmuch as he and ail the other winners from the previ- ous 12 months will be in the neighbourhood, this likely would be the most convenient time for the Tiger — and a few other big names who don’t usually come this way — to take a short tip north. TransLink gets into the act because the Whalley railhead is the jumping-off spot for the special buses runring to Northview, which, in common with most golf courses, is well- removed from normal wansit routes, At past Air Canada and DeMille coulda’t have put together. So, you'll take your car instead? Better get in walk- ing shape. Maybe five miles. But then, the golf fan is — in horticultural terms — a hardy perennial. Compare him/her with the baseball, football, hockey or basketball fan. People who attend those sports get to sit in a comfort- able seat. From this vantage point they can take in the entire field of play. Concession stands abound to satisfy thirst and hunger. Rest rooms are easy to get to. After the game, a short walk to a transit stop or the parking lot. Then there's the golf fan. He usually doesn’t get a seat, although a limited number are available around the 18th green. But what good is that when the play is spread over 150 acres? And after that packed-in bus ride, he’s made to feel as welcome as 2 round- house slice into the weods. If he eats, he does it stand- ing up or sitting on the ground. If he has to go, he joins the lineup outside a portable john. Unless he’s a VIP, he certainly doesn’t get to use the clubhouse facilities. There are about 150 play- ers to follow and once he finds the best action, ifhe ever does, he’s constantly reminded to be quiet, to stay outside the ropes and to hold his position. The pros are touchy about noise and sudden moves. On top of all this, if he’s following a crowd-favourite like Tiger, he’s not going to see much more than the top of the play- er’s head unless he’s alritude- advantaged. Like Shaq or the Admiral. Or carries a Periscope. For all this, he gets stuck for about the same tab as the guy who chooses the comfort of an upholstered theatre seat in an arena where there’s ne ayalfs Boh Mackin raving open waters jay’s Sports Reporter bmackin@nsnews.com FOR the second time in fess than a week, swimmers plied a route between West Vancouver's Sandy Cove and Kitsilano Beach. July 23 was the annual Bay Challenge 10-kilometre swim, co-ordinated by the Vancouver Open Water Swim Association, The Bay Challenge was finished by 29 individuals and teams, led by Redmond, Wash. swimmer Alan Bell (2:36.51). Oniy one team and two individuals did not fin- ish. Three people started and finished Saturday after- noon’s inaugural Pacific Breakers Rough Water Crossing. The only difference was clothing: VOWSA requires wet- suits be worn in the Bay Challenge; the Pacific Breakers’ _ event prohibited wetsuits, in keeping with international ~ swimming rules. Shane Collins, a News columnist, co-ordinated Saturday’s event with wife Debbie. Both are veterans of open water swims around the world and competed in the Bay Challenge, sans wetsuit, during the “90s. They reported times of 2:53 Saturday. The only other swim- mer, Steve Duyvewaardt, finished six minutes behind. Shane Collins did wear a so-called sharkskin bodysuit to aid his speed, but such swimwear is approved by FINA, the sport’s governing body, and will be in wide use dur- ing the upcoming Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Collins said his intention is not to upstage VOWSA, but to offer an alternative for swimmers secking a greater challenge. The first recorded crossing of English. Bay was 69 years ago. Canadian swimming legend Percy Norman led 40 swimmers from Point Atkinson to Kits. The event was --refloated in 1983 when veteran triathlete Tom Walker was first to the other side. Like Norman, he didn’t wear a wetsuit. Walker now heads the North Vancouver Recreation Commission’s community services. VOWSA will be holding a FENA-sanctioned, no-wet- suit race Saturday. The annual five-kilometre B.C. Saltwater Championship gets under way at 8 a.m. at Kitsilano Beach. A one-kilometre and 2.5-kilometre ver- sion will start at 10:30 a.m. danger of sunstroke or, in the case of rain, 2 bout of pneu-- monia. As for me. ‘Tiger or no Tiger in 2062, Pi be watch- ing on TV. Unfess, of course, She-who-must-be-obeyed puts me to work in the garden. Meanwhile, before we declare Woods to be the great- est player in the history of the game, as many are now doing, might it not be wise to wait unul he turns 30 before mak- ing it official? Right now, at 24, he’s in a zone nobody else can quite reach. If, by 30, he has equalled or surpassed Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major tournament wins, then stage the coronation. Comparisons, while invidi- ous, also are inevitable. And golf is one of the few activities in the name of sport that lends some validity to the process. They're still using many of the courses the immortal Bobby Jones played in the 1920s when he was the game’s greatest. His scores, were he a young man today and playing professionally, would keep him well removed from the poor- house. And he played with hickory-shafted clubs. Just think of how much better his scores might have been had today’s resources — Stanium shafts, high velocity balls, videotape, swing coaches — been available. - He won the 1927 British Open at St. Andrews with a three-unier-par 285 in the © rain and wind. Tiger was 16 strokes better on four perfect, windless: summer days, with the added benefit of an array of high-tech clubs in his golf bag:. Coming up to more recent history, a few years back Nick Falde: set the previous Open and Sr. Andrews record of 18-- under-par. While he, too, had high-tech equipment, he did- ‘n’t have the weather with him. Blustery and wet, the usual summer diet on the Fife coast. So, what does all this prove? Given an entire week of warm, windless weather during Tiger’s triumphal march last month, I-zan only conclude that radical global climate change is fact, not fiction. _ ~ a