by Jeff Skinner
As the golf season heats up both, figuratively and literally and heads into the summer we are faced with a summer without golf’s number one draw, Tiger Woods.
No figure in the sport commands the audience that Woods does and his absence certainly will be a subject well discussed in depth until his return.
And that is one of the issues facing golf today: the fascination with Tiger Woods.
No one makes golf bigger than a healthy Tiger Woods. But it’s not healthy for an injured Tiger Woods to seem bigger than golf.
It’s as if golf is chasing its ghost. However, I get the cycle of Tiger addiction and withdrawal. Woods’ impact goes far beyond his sport, and his relentless excellence over most of the last two decades was such a historical aberration that we are only beginning to fully appreciate its force. Even harder to quantify but impossible to deny is how observing Woods’ maniacal sense of mission intensified our deep need to get close to human greatness. Special people like Tiger — in any domain — are destined (he might say doomed) to be studied.
Still, for me, Woods’ absence did not diminish the sublime drama of the Players. Martin Kaymer’s triumph epitomized the classic golf story of a gifted player who mysteriously fell into and finally found his way out of the limbo between instinct and intellect. After Sunday’s rain delay the former No. 1’s three-year journey of supremacy, fall and redemption played back in microcosm over the last four holes. The 29-year-old German may be mild-mannered, speak English with an accent and possess a minimal Q rating, but his graceful performance reminded us that, as Bobby Jones wrote, golf is a game of considerable passion “which burns inwardly and sears the soul.”
Diaz praises the game itself and the many other significant stories that reside in this game besides Tiger Woods. True, we all acknowledge that Woods has brought professional golf to a level that no one could have imagined twenty five years ago but still, as they say, no one is bigger than the game.
But if your measure of “the game” is television ratings, endorsement money and Q Ratings than Woods is your man.
But if your measure of the game is the game itself and the interesting stories in it than Woods is just a bit actor in a huge production.
Diaz says it well, “What it comes down to is this: You either like competitive golf or you don’t. If to stay interested in a tournament you need bonus material like a leader board of big names, a masterpiece course or a flock of eagles, you don’t like it enough.”
I can understand how casual fans want to watch the big names. Those are the same “fans” that watch one football game a year, the Super Bowl.
But like Diaz says if you need something else besides the game to be interested you don’t like it enough.
Sure we all have our favorites but when those players aren’t in the mix we still watch, we still pay attention and we still get to see the magnificence of the game.
One man does not make the game.
Related Articles
