In the wake of perhaps the best golf tournament of all time, we learned this week that the primary orchestrator of all the drama will be absent from the rest of 2008's PGA events and any future great events that were to happen this year probably will not -- at least not to the degree of the 108th U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.
Because there is only one Tiger Woods after all. But as we saw during last week's major was how great a game of golf has become, how exciting and dramatic it can be. The 157th ranked player in the World can, on a stage as big as the U.S. Open, step up and challenge the very best in the World. What other sport can you say that about? Perhaps soccer. If they were to have rankings... Point is, the drama of golf doesn't solely ride on the shoulders of the World's No. 1 and why nobody sees that is no longer beyond me. Let me explain.
I really have to take offence with the vast majority of my colleagues who will undoubtedly profess this week about how the rest of Golf's season is inconsequential with Woods out. Yes, Tiger Woods is great, probably the best ever and is a huge reason to tune in BUT he is by no means the ONLY reason. If you like the game of golf AT ALL, respect sports AT ALL, you should be excited about the prospect of some of the game's young stars finally having the chance to step out of the enormous shadow of Woods and become a bonafide star in their own right.
This is what is wrong with the sports media today. We all focus on the very best every single time and 90% of the rest go unnoticed. There are some incredibly talented golfers out there both young and old. If Tiger wasn't around perhaps we'd be talking about the dominance of one of them. And yet it's all about Woods because we make it all about Woods. Just like no one was talking about Adam Scott in the unprecedented pairing -- BECAUSE ALL THE MEDIA WANTED TO TALK ABOUT WAS WOODS AND MICKELSON. If we would've talked about Adam Scott, he'd have been on people's minds too. It's all a bunch of hypocracy and we end up digging our own graves because of it.
Woods is a star because no matter how talented he is, the sports media marvels at him. He gets ALL the attention. Anyone can have this stardom. Look at Kimbo Slice in MMA for EliteXC. The guy is a single A caliber fighter if we were to relate this to baseball. He's fighting guys that would probably be only good enough for the beer leagues. Yet he is a star because of the internet largely and because ESPN and other media organizations make him one.
So for the same media that makes Woods out to be the greatest thing since the motion picture (beats sliced bread in my book) to be crying about his absence making golf boring is absolutely hypocritical. If you love sports at all, it doesn't matter who's playing the game, you still follow it. And in so doing you find athletes to get excited about.
It makes me absolutely sick to hear monkeys like the Associated Press' Tim Dahlberg running his mouth about how golf is worthless without Tiger Woods. You know what Dahlberg? Maybe you should move down to Orlando and become a Woods groupie. Heaven knows the sports journalism community would be better off without you.
I only need to point to one major and a couple of examples to prove my point. The next big PGA event is The Open Championship aka the British Open aka the origin of golf and for my money the greatest golf event there is. The oldest and most storied sporting event there is. A tournament that has been going on for over 140 years folks.
Last year's event at Carnoustie was almost as dramatic as the one that took place at the course in the previous decade. Was Tiger Woods involved in the slightest? Uh... no. Sergio Garcia and Padraig Harrington went down to the wire, to the 18th hole (one of the best there is too in my book) where Garcia had a putt to win the Championship, missed and then went to a 4-hole playoff immediately there after, not the next day when everyone is working and the tournament is yesterday's news. And then there's the famous Van de Velde collapse at the same course on the last hole the previous time the Open Championship came to Carnoustie. Was Tiger involved in that?! Noooo, he was surely was not!
It's moments like that which come from players we don't necessarily expect at the outset that often times create the best drama in sport. Yet clowns like Dahlberg and countless other bandwagon fans who only follow the very best probably never saw those moments happen because Woods wasn't there.
Well just like they say when someone decides not to go to a party, "more alcohol for me." And certainly there will be as there are a bunch of those clowns out there.
Personally, I'm looking more forward to the next golf majors than I was ever before. I can't wait to see if Sergio Garcia can break through and win his first major championship. To see if Lee Westwood can continue his resurgence. To watch bright young players like Geoff Ogilvy, Anthony Kim, Camillo Villegas, Luke Donald, Brandt Snedeker, Paul Casey and Scott. Not to mention see the tour regulars like Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Stewart Cink.
I want to see what rivalries develop and who will step up and out of the shadow of the World's No. 1 that the close-minded media casts so enormously.