Thank God for Tiger Woods
“Doing the Bull Dance…Feeling the Flow….Working it…Working it…”-Kevin Kneeland, Happy Gilmore
On weekends like this I feel it is essential we stop and take a look around. The Red Sox have been absolutely destroyed by New York (Bring on the Off-season!), Connecticut is abuzz with “Pilot Pen” fever (…dear god), and the NFL preseason continues to put the careers of star players at risk for no good reason (Fantasy Drafts Aug 25-Sept 1). Needless to say, I have not read a sports page in a week.
With Connecticut politics downgraded to its customary spot behind stories about Tom Cruise, the new hot single by Crunk rapper X and a 10 year old murder case, I found solace in the effervescent manly commentary of Jim Nantz and the rest of the CBS golf crew. Now, the PGA championship is the disfigured step child of the four golf major championships, and golf can be boring as hell to watch, even when doing 20 other things at the same time. However, all this changes when Tiger Woods is playing up to form.
Watching Tiger is like seeing U2 in concert. You know that you are experiencing something at its absolute best, ….someone rising above the chaos to another level. Sure, I like rooting for other golfers. I think that the current generation of golfers is the greatest of all time. Commercially, the game is a peak, and practically every week different golfers step up their game. Watching Tiger and Chris DiMarco battle it out at the British inspired me to play the par three greens in Vernon everyday for a week. It did not help my game by the way. I still am an embarrassment to my family and my country when carrying a golf club at any time.
Watching Tiger cruise up the leaderboard on Saturday, and the anticipation of the possibilities the following Sunday morning is simply awesome. The PGA often allows for much lesser known players, like past champions Shaun Micheel and Rich Beem, to challenge the greats on the final day of play. Tiger won the title at Medinah in 1999 after almost blowing it to a surging Sergio Garcia. This year, atop the leaderboard with Tiger is Luke Donald, with Mike Weir, Geoff Olgilvy, and the aforementioned Sergio Garcia all within 4 strokes. All will challenge, and it will make for great theater.
Tiger Woods is the most dominant sportsmen of the post-Jordan era. Now there are certainly people who dislike him for this reason, and probably this reason alone. These haters are naive. Sure he doesn’t play in enough tournaments, but he is the fastest to 50 PGA tour victories. He will one day surpass Jack Nicklaus for all time major championships. More then anything though, his dominance has the ability to overcome the seedy and overly scandalized world of professional sports.
That is the appeal of Golf in 2006. No juicers.
Strength and Honor.
-The Prez
On weekends like this I feel it is essential we stop and take a look around. The Red Sox have been absolutely destroyed by New York (Bring on the Off-season!), Connecticut is abuzz with “Pilot Pen” fever (…dear god), and the NFL preseason continues to put the careers of star players at risk for no good reason (Fantasy Drafts Aug 25-Sept 1). Needless to say, I have not read a sports page in a week.
With Connecticut politics downgraded to its customary spot behind stories about Tom Cruise, the new hot single by Crunk rapper X and a 10 year old murder case, I found solace in the effervescent manly commentary of Jim Nantz and the rest of the CBS golf crew. Now, the PGA championship is the disfigured step child of the four golf major championships, and golf can be boring as hell to watch, even when doing 20 other things at the same time. However, all this changes when Tiger Woods is playing up to form.
Watching Tiger is like seeing U2 in concert. You know that you are experiencing something at its absolute best, ….someone rising above the chaos to another level. Sure, I like rooting for other golfers. I think that the current generation of golfers is the greatest of all time. Commercially, the game is a peak, and practically every week different golfers step up their game. Watching Tiger and Chris DiMarco battle it out at the British inspired me to play the par three greens in Vernon everyday for a week. It did not help my game by the way. I still am an embarrassment to my family and my country when carrying a golf club at any time.
Watching Tiger cruise up the leaderboard on Saturday, and the anticipation of the possibilities the following Sunday morning is simply awesome. The PGA often allows for much lesser known players, like past champions Shaun Micheel and Rich Beem, to challenge the greats on the final day of play. Tiger won the title at Medinah in 1999 after almost blowing it to a surging Sergio Garcia. This year, atop the leaderboard with Tiger is Luke Donald, with Mike Weir, Geoff Olgilvy, and the aforementioned Sergio Garcia all within 4 strokes. All will challenge, and it will make for great theater.
Tiger Woods is the most dominant sportsmen of the post-Jordan era. Now there are certainly people who dislike him for this reason, and probably this reason alone. These haters are naive. Sure he doesn’t play in enough tournaments, but he is the fastest to 50 PGA tour victories. He will one day surpass Jack Nicklaus for all time major championships. More then anything though, his dominance has the ability to overcome the seedy and overly scandalized world of professional sports.
That is the appeal of Golf in 2006. No juicers.
Strength and Honor.
-The Prez
posted by The Dude at
10:52 AM
1 Comments:
Tiger makes for better Sundays, no doubt about it. But the best story possible in golf?
Someone beats Tiger on a Sunday.
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