Is the common refrain around PGA tournament sites on the very day Tiger Woods announced he is about to undergo season ending surgery on his injured left knee.
We truly think this might, surprisingly, help the PGA’s TV ratings. To be honest, we don’t watch much PGA anymore when Tiger isn’t in the tourney. Same as the rest of you, apparently.
The ‘heydey’ of the PGA Tour was probably back in the late 80’s to mid 90’s. Tiger had yet to come upon the scene and there were any number of top-notch, A-list players who could win on a weekly basis, and for who you might cheer.
Guys like Greg Noman, Freddie Couples, the late-great Payne Stewart, Corey Pavin, Paul Azinger, Nick Faldo, Nick Price, Hale Irwin, Fuzzy Zoeller, Seve Ballasteros, Davis Love III, John Daly, Bernhard Langer, Curtis Strange, Tom Lehman… any one of them could have won every week, and it made golf incredibly watchable, for lack of a better term.
These guys are all golf culture afterthoughts today because Tiger has rightly usurped the magical metaphoric throne.
Now is the time for the PGA build the ‘Tiger contenders’ of the rapidly approaching next generation.
The reason you don’t watch when Tiger isn’t playing is because, well…since Tiger decided that tournament wasn’t worth his time and overwhelming effort…so did you. So did we all. No shame in admitting it.
But, now that Eldrick doesn’t have the option of whether to play or not…you, Joe GolfFan, will find yourself back in front of the big-screen like the old ‘PT’ days…watching and cheering your newly acquired and previously overshadowed favorites.
The specter of ‘El Tigre’ cannot loom upon that which it cannot potentially doom.
