By George Diaz, The Orlando Sentinel –
Like dutiful parents, we’ve kept the porch light on for Tiger Woods, hoping he comes back safe and sound, preferably with some semblance of a short game.
Since the Arnold Palmer Invitational here last March, golf fans have been all over the place emotionally. Tiger’s back! No he’s not! Tiger’s back! No he’s not!
So here’s the deal: Stop waiting for Tiger. He may never become the most dominant golfer in the world again.
But don’t go blaming the lack of star power on the PGA Tour all on Tiger. Blame it on everybody else.
In short, no one has the guts or the game to become the Alpha Dog on the tour. Instead, all we have is a bunch of yappy dogs, making noise here and there.
Webb Simpson, Bubba Watson, Charl Schwartzel, Rory McIlroy, Darren Clarke, Keegan Bradley, Phil Mickelson, Graeme McDowell, Louis Oosthuizen and Martin Kaymer all share a common thread:
They each have one major championship victory since 2010. And that’s exactly the problem: Ten majors, 10 different champions. Golf has become a high-profile game of “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” And that’s never a good thing for any professional sport.
We need heroes. We need villains. We need teams and athletes who can dominate.
Sports are superstar driven. Golf is driven by inconsistency. You can’t have the only story line in every tournament hanging on Tiger Woods’ game, or lack thereof.
The NBA has LeBron and the Heat. Major League Baseball almost always has the New York Yankees in the scrum challenging for the World Series. The NFL has thrived on classic matchups like Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots playing tug-of-war with Peyton Manning’s Colts for AFC titles.
Golf has a bunch of one-hit wonders, and the song gets old.
Sure there are moments of greatness, but nothing that comes close to consistency since Tiger became the last multiple-major winner in 2006.
Look at what happened at the U.S. Open last weekend:
Luke Donald, the No. 1 golfer in the world, didn’t make the cut. He bogeyed nine of the 18 holes on the second round. McIlroy, the No. 2 golfer in the world, didn’t make the cut either. He played two rounds of 10-over-par golf.
Mickelson finished 16 over par, courtesy of 20 bogeys.
It was Game On for Woods in the first two rounds, but then he also faded fast, shooting 75 and 73 on Saturday and Sunday to finish tied for 21st.
Granted the Olympic Club course was a bear, but still, these are not your average weekend hackers.
It’s obvious that in a perfect world, Woods will soon find his game and draw in the scores of casual fans driven by Woods’ marquee value. But I have no reason to expect anything but inconsistency from Woods, so the onus now falls on someone else to make a sustained run.
At one point, I thought it would be McIlroy. I was on the bandwagon a year ago after Rory became the youngest U.S. Open winner since Bobby Jones in 1923. He finished with a record score of 16-under par, setting off a cyberspace buzz.
Golf has been “thirsting for the Next Big Thing,” said USA TODAY. “It is McIlroy’s time now, his moment,” wrote Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News. Golf Has Found Its New Star” read the headline in Golfweek.com. “Rory McIlroy is the Chosen One,” a certain Mr. Diaz wrote.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Rory hangs onto the No. 2 ranking tenuously . He’s been Mr. Scattershot, all over the place. McIlroy won The Honda Classic in March and lost in a playoff at Quail Hollow. He’s also missed the cut in The Players Championship, the BMW PGA Championship in England, the Memorial, and now the U.S. Open.
Who knows, maybe he’s just following Tiger’s lead.
In any case, I’d buy a bunch of extra light bulbs if you’re still waiting for a top-flight golfer to show up on your porch and proclaim “I’m here to stay!”
It’s gonna be a while.
