Catch a Tiger by it's tail....
Maybe I am old fashioned – then again maybe I’m not.When Tiger Woods lost the PGA Championship on the weekend, I was delighted. Y.E. Yang was the eventual winner and he’s full credit for the championship, however it was Tiger who lost the trophy more than the other winning it.
I think that Tiger is a freak, he’s a golf God. He is to golf what virtually no one else in the world is to their sport. Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, maybe Babe Ruth.
In a word Tiger is dominant.
Over the past 7 or 8 years, my interest in watching Tiger Woods events on TV have dwindled to almost nil. Show me Fat Phil, Ernie, big John Daly, Sergio or virtually anyone else and I am interested – otherwise it’s Tiger and I have chores to do.
The big difference is that Tiger is ‘Da Man when he’s playing. He can be 10 strokes back on 17 of the final day and the cameras are still following him. Lee Westwood came third yesterday, I saw him on one hole of the 18 he purportedly played.
There are some great and horrible shots made in a golf tournament, a lot of them by Tiger, but there are others. I estimate that there were over 28,000 strokes taken for this tournament. Of those 28,000, I am not including the 50 or so that we watched Tiger make on the Range before teeing it up on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Get my point – it’s boring for me to sit and watch the Tiger channel – and that’s what the networks have made it, the Tiger network.
So with great glee I watched as Tiger (sort of) imploded and let little known Y.E. Yang smoke him down the stretch for the PGA Championship. Go Y.E.!!!
For the record, Y.E. is older and less known, but in fact he was a better winner than Tiger ever was. For the record again, Tiger did not make himself available to reporters on the 18th green as is customary, he instead went to the scorer’s table, then to the clubhouse for a press conference. Some say he was stepping aside, I say he was sour grapes and not gentlemanly enough to face the camera as almost everyone who ever plays him on a Sunday is able to graciously do.
Olympics & Golf – Not the worst sport I’ve heard of including – but it’s all lost on me when they ask Tiger Woods if he’s interested in playing – I must be old and cranky. The Olympics were meant to be the big stage for amateur athletes. We know that Eastern Bloc countries were paying their athletes to not be pro and the system was tainted, but in today’s new world, isn’t it time to turn back the clocks and revert the Olympics to the deserved amateurs?
Tiger can make and buy his own Olympic Gold Medals if he wants one.
Let’s let Matteo Manassero, the Italian amateur compete against the other amateurs – give the amateurs a place to play for all the glory, the way it was for Jesse Owens and The US Dream Team.
Personally, I have no interest in the Team Canada that we send to the Olympics. These are athletes with more money than God and they’ve taken away one of life’s greatest glories from people who have little or no money and no one is going to fund amateur athletes if this continues.
posted by G.M. Shier @ Monday, August 17, 2009
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