Philadelphia, PA (My Sportsbook) - I met an old Cuban boxer once at a Frenchtown bar on St. Thomas. Locals called him "The Champ." It was around two o'clock in the morning when I asked the aging fighter what his career record had been. "One hundred and one hundred," he responded -- and I had no choice but to believe him.

You should have seen the size of The Champ's knuckles.

Minutes later, I found myself resisting the boozy urge to sing along to "Just Like Heaven" while sitting several feet away from The Champ. Still formidable looking in retirement, he didn't have a face that screamed, "Sing as loud as you want. I am also a Cure fan."

Buena Vista Social Club would have been more appropriate, I suppose. Or something bluesy, something spiritual and haunted like Blind Willie Johnson. Something someone who'd been beaten one hundred times could relate to. But also something relatable to someone who'd beaten one hundred men.

My friends had known The Champ when they lived on St. Thomas for a spell after college graduation. They attested to his honesty and told me if he said he'd split 200 fights evenly, he probably did. At least his nose looked like it had seen that many battles.

But I couldn't wrap my head around it: two HUNDRED fights, and it came out even on both sides? Mathematically speaking, you could flip a coin 200 times and not be surprised to have it end up equally heads and tails.

Sports are something different, however. There's an opponent -- maybe not always a man, but an opponent nonetheless. Sugar Ray Robinson fought nearly 200 fights, winning 173 of them.

Slightly less successful is Tiger Woods, who I realized over the weekend has won a Champ-like half of the last 24 tournaments he has played. Woods is 12-12 in official events since finishing runner-up to Y.E. Yang -- yes, Y.E. Yang -- at the European Tour's HSBC Champions Tournament on Nov. 12, 2006.

Sidelined by a knee injury, Woods hasn't played since his instant-classic win at the U.S. Open in June. In his absence, several players have stepped up to win tournaments they perhaps wouldn't have if Woods' knee had held up for the rest of the season.

Kenny Perry, Padraig Harrington, Camilo Villegas and Vijay Singh all claimed at least two victories. Harrington won two majors; Singh collected three wins and the FedEx Cup.

But what is the PGA Tour without Tiger Woods? It's the NFL in 2008: defined by parity born in the vacuum caused by the absence of a clear favorite, a best team or player.

Also collecting wins since Woods shut it down for the season were Stewart Cink, Anthony Kim, Richard S. Johnson, Chez Reavie, Parker McLachlin, Carl Pettersson, Will MacKenzie and Dustin Johnson.

The United States won the Ryder Cup without Woods, and that was great. But Singh's FedEx Cup win was anticlimactic at best, and the 0-for-the-summer that Phil Mickelson put together in Woods' absence was disappointing at best, laughable at worst.

All of which is taking the long way around saying that I miss Woods. I miss the storylines, the fist-pumps, the media saturation, the Red Shirt, the Sunday charge, the Sunday runaway win, the Woods numbers game, the "Well, he's Tiger Woods" quotes from his fellow golfers.

We're now in the midst of the PGA Tour's Fall Series, where the most exciting storyline on a weekly basis involves players trying to move into the top 125 on the money list to secure their cards for 2009.

It may not be what we want from our golf tournaments, but even warm water will keep you hydrated, right?

Hydrated, sure, but less satisfied.

I heard last year that they closed Betsy's, the Frenchtown bar where I met The Champ. I wonder if he was there on its final night. I wonder how many ears had heard those same five words that I did.

One hundred and one hundred. That's a hell of a thing.