Timing is everything

Earlier this week, Tiger Woods announced that he will not be competing in next week’s U.S. Open at Congressional.  While the fans, television networks, and corporate sponsors might be shaking their heads at the loss of the Tour’s biggest revenue generator, there is certainly a number of fellow Tour pros who are less than devastated with the announcement.  While few were considering Woods as a serious contender for this year’s Open, the memories of what Woods has done in the past has surely haunted some of his fellow competitors.  While it is always quite amazing to look back on Eldrick’s hopefully unfinished career, many people overlook what may have been his biggest impact on Tour, and this is the effect that his career has had on others.

For years, the best players of the world saw too much of this.

Between 1997 and 2009, Tiger Woods was by far the most dominant player on the PGA Tour.  During that period, there was a group of challengers that could be seen just below him on every leader board, a cast of brilliant golfers who simply peaked at the wrong time.  When you think of those who were Tiger’s most frequent foes during that time period, names like Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen, Sergio Garcia, and Jim Furyk all come to mind.  While most of these players will be remembered as great players by history, they will also be defined by the fact that they played during the “Tiger Era.”

While Phil Mickelson has four major championships under his belt, the focus recently has been shifted to his inability to attain the ranking of World No. 1.  With the recent meltdown of Tiger’s game, the spot has been left open, and has since been filled by Martin Kaymer and Luke Donald.  When Phil had the chance to attain the number one ranking, the pressure for him to attain what many believed he should have was almost too much.  As Mickelson gets older, his shot at attaining the world’s number one ranking seems to be slipping away.  The true glory in golf lies in winning major championships, and Mickelson, who has four majors, will certainly enter the World Golf Hall of Fame.  However, when Phil looks back on his career, he may not be able to tell his grandkids about when he was the best player in the world.  The same can be said for a few other golfers who were great during Tiger’s reign of dominance.  Vijay Singh was good enough to briefly grasp the number one ranking during a slight dip in Tiger’s game.  While Phil was Tiger’s most frequent competitor, his career will ultimately be defined as being Number Two, the man who could never get past Tiger.

Beating the greats is what makes any athlete a legend.  The 1980 U.S. Hockey team wouldn’t be remembered if they had beaten anybody but the Russians.  The same can be said for beating Tiger. In the golf world, Tiger is the Russian National Team, the Michael Jordan, the Muhammad Ali.  The reason we remember Y.E. Yang’s PGA Championship is because he stared down Tiger and came away with the win.  Rocco Mediate may have lost to Tiger in the U.S. Open, but his ability to force the Woods into a Monday playoff brought him from relative obscurity to being a national hero.  They were the Marty McFly to Tiger’s Biff.  The Rocky to his Apollo Creed, the Ouimet to his Vardon.  The reason why these two are unique is because they may have been the only two to have actually stared down Tiger and taken him to the wire.  A look at Tiger’s second-place finishes in majors reveals two one-stroke losses, to Rich Beem and Angel Cabrera, hardly noteworthy clashes.

After winning the BMW Championship, Luke Donald claimed the World's No. 1 Ranking, something Phil Mickelson has been unable to do.

This brings us to the state of the current golf world.  The names listed earlier, Mickelson, Els, Goosen, Singh, are no longer at the top of their games, and most likely never will be.  They were all great players, but who knows what they could have done in a world without Tiger?  The new generation of greats not only know how to play the game, but they have been blessed with some of the best timing for their emergence.  The hunt for every major is wide open.  The pool of talent at the top is wide, but nobody stands out as a clear favorite. Today’s top-tier of golfers includes Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer, Lucas Glover, Steve Stricker, Rory McIlroy, and Nick Watney.  While Kaymer and Glover may be the only players on this list to have won a major, the others will certainly get their chances.  And they will get them in a world without Tiger.  They won’t have to worry about holding a fourth-round lead with a dragon breathing fire down their necks, or teeing off in the final group being ten shots back.  They were blessed with the good fortune to have been born when they were, and not ten years earlier.  While the lack of a fit Tiger has taken some of the excitement away from the tour, the drama provided by these young guns has done an ample job of filling the void.  With the field wide open at every tournament, the opportunities for this group of golfers is truly endless.

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