'Choke' is not a four-letter word

Babble on.

Mike Weir is not a choke-artist. He's won plenty of times before, including the friggin' Masters for gawds-sake.

But yesterday at the Canadian Open, he choked.

I'm not one of those people who think every loss is a choke. If Weir and Singh had been tied all day, trading lawn-dart shots to the greens and draining 30-footers for eagles until the end, I would have said both played well, but Singh played better.

But when Weirsy blows a three-stroke advantage on the final day of competition, when he misses putt after putt in crunch-time - including a five-footer for the win on the second playoff hole - it's awfully tough not to ask if there was a little constriction in the throat as the day wore on. A small blockage of the airway that required him to take his hands off the clubs and hold them to his neck. An inability to expand his chest cavity and inhale under the crushing pressure of a nation's expectations.

Don't get me wrong: Mike's still da man. He just needs to make sure his caddie knows the Heimlich manoevre for next time.

Babble off.