Are you enjoying the 2009 PGA Tour?
Oh, you didn't realize there was a PGA Tour anymore.
Well, I can certainly understand that. Please, don't be embarrassed. It's easy to misplace something so suddenly insignificant.
I mean, let's be honest. At some point, the Tour became a wholly-subsumed subsidiary of Tiger Woods, and without him anymore there simply doesn't appear to be anything there. The PGA: Professional Golfers Anonymous.
It isn't just that Tiger is away, recovering from knee surgery. His magical exit, winning the U.S. Open in a playoff last June, while manifestly in pain, playing on a rotten leg, was so exquisite, it is as if he then left for the heavens, not for rehabilitation.
And slim pickin's remain behind. It isn't Woods' fault, but it's just a very fallow field that he has plowed under. Consider the talent Jack Nicklaus had to battle: Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson -- all four of them far superior to any of the Lilliputians who have been in Woods' thrall.
It's all the more understandable, then, that the Tour, and its sponsors and television producers came to depend more and more on Woods. Just think how many times the cameras would stay on him as he merely strolled down a fairway, while other players presumably actually hit golf balls. In that sense, golf let Woods become the very face of the whole sport, and no one stopped to consider that as he blocked out the sun, no other golfer could grow an identity. Never forget that, notwithstanding what Cassius told Brutus, the fault of individual sports is with their stars, not their underlings.
Woods has been such a phenomenon that when he won that playoff over Rocco Mediate, he even brought commerce to a halt. Trading that day on Wall Street fell by 71 million shares, almost 10 percent. TV ratings used to regularly double in tournaments when he played. And perhaps more than any statistical measure, Woods gave golf buzz. Without him, the sport seems to have pretty much dropped out of the cultural conversation.
It does not help, of course, that golf has been losing participants in the last few years. Moreover, it is especially vulnerable to the economic downturn because the sport was so heavily supported by two especially cursed groups of sponsors: automobiles and financial institutions. Live by the sword ...
Woods is hoping to return to the tour in time for the Masters, early in April. Golf's plight now is reminiscent of the situation the country went through recently, with a lame duck administration technically in charge as we awaited the arrival of the anointed. But we knew for sure we'd have a new president on January 20th. Not to be a Cassandra, but the left leg is a vital cog in the golfer machine. There's hardly any guarantee with Woods' health, so it'll be even more agonizing if the sport has to keep running in place, waiting, without really knowing, when its meal ticket may finally return. Or worse: suppose the Tiger Woods who finally does come back is not the deity who left? Not even Tiger Woods may be able to come off serious surgery and wish himself back to the power and glory he knew.
No comments:
Post a Comment