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Absence of Woods will test Tour Saturday, Jun 21, 2008 By Harry King LITTLE ROCK - There are those of us who are hard-core golf degenerates who watch the PGA Tour stop-of-the-week and who catch up on The Golf Channel when something interferes with the live feed. There are those who watch the four majors and cherry pick a couple of other big tournaments. And, there are those who tune in exclusively to see Tiger Woods. With Woods on the sideline, the latter group should be easy to quantify during the next few months. For PGA Tour officials, life without Woods will be a not-so-pretty look at the future - a stark reminder that the viability of the televised tour product relies on Woods in the same way that his golf swing depends on his left knee. Whether his career is shortened by the third surgery in five years on that knee or he exits after passing Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 majors, the 32-year-old Woods is not likely to be around more than six to eight years. Preparing for that day, the PGA Tour is helpless. The Tour can't create another Woods. There may never be another like him - a child prodigy performing on national TV at the age of 2 and then actually fulfilling and even exceeding every expectation at each and every level of competition. There are plenty of good players out there and more are on the way. None will be mistaken for Woods, who won 46 times, including 10 majors, before he turned 30. Phil Mickelson and David Duval were stars in their 20s. Mickelson won 16 times on Tour before he turned 30 and Duval was in his 20s when he recorded all 13 of his victories. Next? Twenty players in their 20s have won PGA Tour events during the past three years, but only four of them have won more than once - Adam Scott, Trevor Immelman, D.J. Trahan and J.B. Holmes. Charles Howell III went five years between victories; Sergio Garcia's victory at the Players Championship in May was his seventh, but his first since 2005 and his "Woe is me" attitude has turned off many in the American audience. Outside of Woods, Mickelson is the biggest draw on the Tour and he just turned 38. Rooting for him comes with reservations about his decision-making, like abandoning his driver for the first two days at the U.S. Open so he could hit a 3-wood short and crooked. Woods and Mickelson are one-two in the world golf rankings, but they are the only Americans in the top seven. Staples in the majors and highly ranked, Ernie Els hasn't won a PGA Tour event since 2004 and Vijay Singh is on the back side of 40. No. 8 Steve Stricker is a 40-something plodder who has won four times in his life. No. 10 Jim Furyk has one major and a funky swing. The only other Americans in the top 20 are Stewart Cink at No. 12 and Anthony Kim at No. 20. At 23, Kim might be the next star, but he needs to take advantage of Woods' absence and win one of the two remaining majors to gain some notoriety. The telecast of Monday's playoff between Woods and Rocco Mediate was a clear tribute to Woods' star power. It earned a 20 share on NBC, a 90 percent increase from 2001, the last time the U.S. Open went into a playoff. That year, Retief Goosen defeated Mark Brooks. The fact that Woods has been playing for at least 10 months with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee is incomprehensible to someone who tore his ACL blocking the wind during intramural football at Arkansas-Little Rock. In the days between the injury and surgery, the wounded shot right-handed layups flat-footed, only putted at the course and had to do contortions just to depress the clutch in his Chevy. ------- Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media's Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com. |
