It's 2 in the morning in the Hollywood Hills and Monte Kuklenski, Chuck Louis, Kenny Ralph Harper and John Goodman are at the bar in Goodman's den, nursing the last beers in the house and their memories of the true glory days when all were drama students at Southwest Missouri State University.

Sarunas Marciulionis, the first Soviet ever signed to a National Basketball Association contract, is lying face down across a trainer's table in the basement of the New England College gym in Henniker, N.H. It's late summer, the beginning of preseason rookie camp for Marciulionis's new team, the Golden State Warriors, and, after a workout, he is being treated for a strained lower back.

Andre Agassi's workout is more like batting practice than a long rally. Augusto Solano, a young Colombian player employed by the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Fla., hits the ball to the 18-year-old tennis player, and Agassi whales on it.

To Watson, it's a pattern that has gotten wearisome: first, a beautifully struck approach shot that zeroes in on the flag as if pulled by a magnet.