Wednesday, August 16, 2000
Woods bad for golf? There's an unplayable
lie
By Bill Lyon
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
The question has been asked, seriously, and more than once: Isn't
Tiger Woods actually bad for golf?
Well, yes, of course he is.
Just as Einstein was actually bad for relativity. And Beethoven
for humming. Michelangelo for doodling.
Genius, in whatever form, should be celebrated.
If it becomes boring, the fault lies in the eye of the beholder,
not with the perpetrator.
Tiger Woods wins too frequently? It is detrimental for the game?
Oh, what unplayable lies those are.
He drives people away? Quite the contrary, bunker breath.
The more he wins, the faster they flock to see him. Through him,
because of him, non-golfers are introduced to the irresistibly
unconquerable game. The more overwhelming his domination, the
higher the ratings. He has disproved one of the hoariest assumptions
in all of sports: that blowouts aren't supposed to sell.
We watch not to see whether he will win but by how much. Even
when it is only him against numbers, even when there is no actual
flesh and blood pursuer, we watch.
Bad for the game? No, because he stirs passion — the passion
of those who pull for him, and, yes, the perverse passion of those
who, for whatever their small-minded reasons, begrudge him his
standing.
Bad for the game? Ask the others. In public, they whine and whimper
about him. But in private, they take out their wallets and smile.
When he turned professional four years ago, the total purses on
the PGA Tour were $69 million. Now that number has more than doubled.
He has provided them with a full trough, and he is considerate
enough to stand back from time to time and let them feed.
He has reached the point where he can elevate an event by himself.
Further proof will be forthcoming on the day after tomorrow.
The least important and most easily ignored of the four major
golf tournaments that make up the Grand Slam will be contested.
Never will there have been as much interest.
All because of one athlete.
The PGA Championship always has been an afterthought, the least-followed
of the Big Four. Can you name any winner from the previous decade?
But on Thursday, when Tiger Woods plunges a tee into the soft
sod of Valhalla — the golf course, not the Viking heaven
— that event suddenly will have the sort of cache and clout
enjoyed only by the rare-air competitions.
All because of one player.
Woods seeks his fourth major in 53 weeks, his third in three months.
He won the U.S. Open in June by 15 strokes, the British Open in
July by 8 strokes. What is next?
He didn't win last week at the Buick Open, but he did extend his
remarkable streak of never failing to shoot below par this year.
He has been in red numbers in all 15 tournaments he has entered.
No one has ever made it through an entire season in red. Jack
Nicklaus came closest, 17 of 18.
Ah, if only Jack were 30 rather than 60.
Nicklaus insists that Tiger won't get a free ride, that someone
will come along to push him. You hope so. Everyone would benefit,
golf most of all.
There is a woman who calls, anonymously and periodically, to leave
the same message, which is to decry any words written about Woods.
He is not, she argues, an athlete. Because he doesn't have to
jump or run or get hit.
You want to say: Try it just once. One swing.
There is a man who writes, anonymously of course and without return
address, in lurid though stunted language that Woods is a figment
of our imagination. The Republic, somehow, is in grave danger
because of his success.
The point is, this kind of response, this sort of emotion, was
stirred only once before. The athlete: Muhammad Ali.
There was a time when, around the world, and in the world of sports,
the three most recognizable names and faces were those of Pele,
Ali and Michael Jordan. Woods is surely on that roster by now.
In a Gallup Poll, he passed Jordan as the most admired athlete.
Time put him on its cover, breathlessly reporting that he had
risked it all by redoing his swing, never mind that he did it
three years ago.
What happens when you are granted such levitation is that you
become a more convenient target. The only thing we seem to enjoy
more than elevating is destroying.
So you shout an oath at the 18th tee at Pebble Beach, and it is
caught by an eavesdropping microphone and that alone is enough
to anger a father and swear you off as a role model for his young
son. (You can't help but wonder if the little boy has ever heard
a naughty word escape from his father.)
You cross a picket line to do a commercial and are assailed by
the union, even though you are not a member and, more to the point,
are a golfer, not an actor.
As if the hod box of expectations on your back isn't heavy enough,
your own father says, for print, that you will end up being far
more important outside golf than in it.
Swell. It is not enough to change golf. Now you're supposed to
change the world.
No wonder he makes the golf part look so easy.
(c) 2000, The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Visit Philadelphia Online, the Inquirer's World Wide Web site,
at http://www.philly.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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