Opinion: My days covering Tiger Woods: By Condoleezza Rice, sports reporter

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As the 66th secretary of State in American history and the first African American woman in that office, Condoleezza Rice trekked around the world and confronted intractable diplomatic troubles with various people.

Or was it various troubles with intractable people?

Anyway, the onetime aspiring concert pianist is free at least from government bureaucracy and able to pursue other passions.

She’s always been an avid sports fan, having attended Super Bowls, the NCAA Final Four basketball playoffs and that game like ping-pong, only on clay. She once said her idea of the ideal job would be commissioner of the National Football League.

Talk about intractable owners.

But this past weekend, according to her, was the best sports event ever, as the Stanford political science professor and fellow at the Hoover Institution covered Tiger Woods at the Masters for the DailyBeast.com.

Her first-person account is here.

Suffice it to say, she had a grand time. And Rice quickly learned that you don’t really follow Tiger on the course. You are instead swept along in a mass of TW fandom.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Note: Rice’s first name was misspelled as Condoleeza in the first paragraph and in the headline in an earlier version of this posting.