It’s another major championship offering another week to obsess about Tiger Woods and the state of his golf game and love life. This has been the paramount story in golf this year, and it won’t be any different this week when the U.S. Open returns to Pebble Beach.
That’s inevitable because of Woods stature in the game and the monitoring of when, and if, he ever will return to being a dominant player. But while we wait, a welcomed thing has happened on the PGA Tour: the players thought to have the potential to one day challenge Woods on a consistent basis are looking like they’re ready to do just that.
Check the list of winners this year and it dispels the notion the PGA Tour is all about one guy. Steve Stricker, Ian Poulter, Hunter Mahan, Camilo Villegas, Ernie Els, Jim Furyk, Anthony Kim, Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy, Adam Scott and Zach Johnson all have won tournaments this year, offering the kind of balance and competition that every sports industry seeks to achieve.
Sure Woods is the superstar and the corporate dollars and television ratings are at their peak when he is doing well. There would be no bigger story in sports if he somehow manages to win this week and capture his 15th major championship. But if the PGA Tour has learned anything this year, it’s that it can’t build its entire existence on one player, not even Tiger Woods.
The problem is nobody really cares about anyone other than Tiger. All was well before November when the revelations of Woods’ infidelity became public. It was OK for the Tour to be all about one player before that. Occasionally, someone like Vijay Singh or Mickelson would offer a mild threat but it was always about Tiger.
Now that Woods gets less interesting the more he keeps losing, the PGA Tour needs to make a better effort marketing its other players. Veterans like Stricker, Furyk, Els and Mickelson have proven they still have plenty of game left, and players like Poulter, Mahan, Villegas and Kim, look like they’ve matured and have the ability to become consistent winners. The next generation also is making an early splash with McIlroy, a 21-year-old from North Ireland, breaking through for his first PGA Tour win at Quail Hollow, and 22-year-old Rickie Fowler keeping his name on various leader boards.
What hurts golf is when someone like last year’s U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover wins and does virtually nothing else. He has five top 10 finishes since Bethpage, but no wins and no “Wow” moments. Y.E. Yang has had trouble matching the excitement he generated by beating Woods at the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine.
The only way marginal golf fans will bond with someone other than Woods is for those players to consistently be on the leader board. That’s why this week is ideal for someone other than Woods to break through.
If Woods continues to be mediocre, the game needs someone else to become a star this week, someone who can draw fans attention beyond this tournament. Mickelson won a third Green Jacket at Augusta to award his cancer-stricken wife. It’s time for someone else to do something memorable. If Els can win his third U.S. Open, if a young player like McIlroy or Fowler can contend on Sunday then there will be something else to talk about besides Woods.
So far, the right players have been winning; second tier stars who are trying to be the Lee Trevino to Jack Nicklaus.
Pebble Beach is the stage to make that happen — to make people care about someone other than Woods.