Although it was short-lived, at least for this week, it was great for me, as a golf fan, to see Tiger Woods' return from an eight-month absence following knee surgery last summer.

As somebody who has had major knee surgery, I know what it takes for the "ordinary" person to fully feel recovered. More than 10 years later, there are those days when my knee acts up.

And I'm not a professional athlete -- far from it.

But watching Tiger torque that surgically-repaired knee shot after shot in this week's Match Play Championship and hit great shot after great shot (yes, there were some bad shot too) put a smile on my face.

It would not surprise me to see Tiger win three of the four majors this year. I mean, he won the U.S. Open last year on one good leg.

I'm sure the rest of the PGA Tour is shaking in their golf shoes to see what he can do on two good ones.

After nearly two weeks of this whole Alex Rodriguez steroid use stuff, I've taken as much as I can.

OK, so he took steroids!

OK, so his second press conference still left many, mostly in the national media, with questions.

But here's the thing, he admitted to using them. That's all I need to hear. Does anybody really care about this cousin who injected him? Or exactly where he was injected? Or how many times a month?

I mean, please, can we just get to thinking about playing baseball!

It's been a few days since the Sports Illustrated broke the story about Alex Rodriguez testing positive for steroids while playing for the Texas Rangers in 2003 and 24 hours since the current Yankee slugger admitted to using PEDs from 2001-03 and I still can't get a handle on exactly how I feel.

I truly believe A-Rod was trying to be sincere in his interview with ESPN on Monday, but no matter what he does, he can't keep his foot out of his mouth.

In the end, he admitted to taking PEDs, although he is getting ripped for not remembering exactly what he took. I guess I won't be so hard on him. In talking with a buddy of mine today, he told me he is on three different kinds of blood-pressure medicine, but he can't remember exactly what meds he's on.

In the end, people make mistakes and they should be held accountable.

Does A-Rod deserve to pay for his crime? YES.

Will his legacy be tarnished forever? YES.

Should he branded a cheat or a liar? YES.

But can we give him a bit of a break for manning up and admitting to it, unlike Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa. Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire? YES.

Is it just me, or do we seem to be making a HUGE deal out of this whole Michael Phelps pot story?

I don't condone what he did, but to make a front-page type story as many of the papers have treated it the past few days seems to me to be a little overkill.

Was he wrong to have smoked pot? Absolutely!

Would the story have made the newspapers of he were some also-ran athlete? Obviously, not!

But the kid -- and yes in his early 20s he's still a kid to me in many ways -- he's going to make his share of mistakes. The one thing I would say, however, is you add this transgression to the drunk driving conviction he had a few years ago, and I could understand if someone want to think there might be a pattern.

Until then, however, I would be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Let's just hope he's learned his lesson and is able to move on.