I’m sitting at the skateboard park in Truckee, California watching a bunch of young kids skating on their boards. After 20 minutes, a group of six teen-age boys show up. These kids are infinitely better doing all kinds of jumps and moves. I’m impressed.

A young girl walks onto the apron of the skating area holding a skateboard. She looks 15 or 16 to me; later, one of the boys tell me her last name is Pearson and she is 16.

She’s dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt. The boys are wearing helmets; she’s not, just a blond pony-tail. She’s standing six feet in front of me, watching the boys, so I get a good look at her. She’s gorgeous—a slightly taller version of Elin Nordgren.

I’m wondering what she must be thinking watching the boys do their tricks—all that male teen-age testosterone going crazy. Is she intimidated? Will she embarrass herself?

She slides gently on her board moving into position to take the first drop. She does it perfectly, then goes up a steep ramp, flips her board, reverses direction and begins sidewalling the walls, doing multiple turns, reverses and flips—everything the boys had tried, but she does it all seamlessly, flawlessly, effortlessly. I’m totally dazzled watching her—her routine is twice as long and complicated as anything the boys had attempted and she is making everything look easy—and then she ends her routine by flipping her skateboard sideways into the air in a double flip and when the board hits the concrete she lands on top of it. By this time, all the boys have stopped skating and are just standing, watching her.

She casually walks over to a picnic table to join her brother and two friends. She is done. The boys are left to contemplate what they have just seen.

I don’t remember any girls like this when I was 16.

It’s so easy to criticize Tiger Woods. Some of us even enjoy making fun of him. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/guy-t-saperstein/whats-bad-for-tiger-aint_b_390347.html. But the guy just gives us so many opportunities, criticism becomes almost irresistible.

Take the U.S. Open as the latest example. He finished tied for 4th, which is no disgrace for a guy with the personal problems he is carrying around. It would have been appropriate for him to say that he played well, but not well enough to win, and congratulate the winner, Graeme McDowell. Instead, he complained about the greens as being “awful,” criticized his caddy, Stevie Williams, for giving him the wrong club on the 6th tee and encouraging him to fire at the pin on the 10th green, as though it wasn’t his responsibility to make the final call on both shots. I mean, when Woods hit a great shot to the 18th green on Saturday, did he say afterwards, “I give Stevie all the credit for suggesting I hit that shot?” In fact, has he ever given Stevie credit for hitting a great shot? Well, actually, no—because the golfer hits the shot, not the caddy. And, instead of congratulating the winner, when asked about how the course was set-up, he complained about the USGA’s Mike Davis setting up the course to give “more guys the chance to win. It’s more open now, with the graduated rough and being firm and fast like this.” Maybe more players did have “the chance to win” but that is a good thing, not a bad thing, and rather than suggesting the set-up conditions were too egalitarian, it would have shown some grace to say that they all played under the same conditions and McDowell won—congratulations to him. But grace and Tiger are two words which apparently can’t be used in the same sentence.

This dreadful lack of minimal manners followed Tiger’s even more egregiously graceless comments following Phil Mickelson’s winning the Masters in April. The fans had welcomed Woods back with warmth and compassion after months of sordid revelations about his sexual escapades, and Woods had played well, also finishing 4th, but not only had Mickelson won the tournament, it was one of the most popular wins ever because Mickelson is perhaps the most popular player in golf today and Mickelson’s wife and mother were in the middle of battling cancer. But instead of acknowledging the fact that golf fans had welcomed him back with equanimity and congratulating Mickelson, when the TV reporter asked Woods what he thought of the tournament, Woods said, “I didn’t win. It’s as simple as that.” End of story. Apparently, for Woods winning is not just the most important thing, it is the only thing. The fans welcoming him back didn’t merit even a comment from him. Mickelson’s win didn’t merit even a perfunctory congratulation. And acknowledging the strain Mickelson has been under due to his wife and mother’s serious illnesses was beyond him.

Who’s the biggest jerk in sports? Let the bidding begin: I bid Tiger Woods.