US Open Golf 2012: How Tiger Woods Let Down More People Than Himself on Sunday

Tiger Woods put on one of the worst choking performances of his illustrious career in the final two rounds at the 2012 U.S. Open this weekend.

Woods did himself in when he shot a 75 on Saturday, but he established himself as the most disappointing story in the entire field when he shot a 73 on Sunday.

Sunday is supposed to be Tiger's day. He's supposed to come out in his patented red and showcase his abilities as one of the most intimidating final-round golfers on the PGA Tour.

We weren't treated to that on Sunday, though. Surely Tiger was disappointed in his outing, but he let down a lot more people than himself.

Here we'll go through everybody and everything that Woods came up short for this weekend.

The Game of Golf

It's no secret that the majority of people that watched the U.S. Open this weekend tuned in just to see how Woods was doing.

Scores of 69 and 70 in Round 1 and Round 2 partially delighted the Tiger faithful and gave promise to a bleak weekend—bleak in the sense that the Olympic Club should have been given the trophy. The 7,170-yard behemoth owned every golfer in the field over the course of 72 holes in a tournament that nobody was able to reach even par.

I don't know what it was, but Tiger's demeanor completely changed when he bombed five of the first six holes. Bogey, bogey, double-bogey, par, bogey, bogey—that has to be one of the worst stretches of his career. 

Tiger falling out of contention that early on Sunday was the same thing as I'll Have Another withdrawing from the Belmont Stakes. Less and less people started to care once the storyline of Woods winning his first major was obliterated.

He needed to end his major-less dry spell yesterday if he was going to challenge Jack Nicklaus' current record of 18 major tournament victories. Fans hardly believe in his ability after the abysmal spectacle that he put on in San Francisco, and that will be detrimental to the country's overall interest in golf.

The Fans

Like I said before, not many people watched the U.S. Open to see the great Webb Simpson win with a score of 1-over par. In fact, this was one of the most dull U.S. Opens in recent memory.

Simpson never led while he was on the course and only took the lead when he was in the clubhouse after Jim Furyk and Graeme McDowell imploded on the last few holes. Well, it's hard to say they imploded when the margin for error on the unforgiving Olympic Club course is so small, but they failed to get the job done nonetheless.

Woods has the largest following of any golfer and is one of the most polarizing players on the tour. You either love him for his ability on the course, or you hate him for his conduct as a person off the course.

The general public is beginning to care less and less about golf. They would rather watch the first quarter of Game 3 of the NBA Finals than one of the four most important tournaments of the PGA Tour season.

Do you know how little the first quarter of an NBA game means to the outcome?

If Woods was still in contention when eight o'clock rolled around, there would have been plenty more people watching his final few holes instead of the inconsequential opening period of the Oklahoma City Thunder-Miami Heat tilt.

NBC

Poor NBC. Whoever is in charge of choosing which players get the most coverage must have had a brutal time selecting who the camera was going to once Woods laid an egg.

It looked like Woods mailed it in after his awful first six holes. You could see the feeling of defeat in his eyes, and he knew that it was nearly impossible to climb out of the hole he dug for himself.

Tiger birdied hole No. 8 but gave an emotionless wave to the crowd after he sank his putt. He surely cares about his results, but it didn't seem that way after his feeble acknowledgement of the crowd.

The Twitter-verse blew up with inquiries about where the Tiger coverage was and why the focus was on such irrelevant players.

However, the roles were reversed. Woods was the inconsequential player on Sunday, and guys like Simpson, Furyk, Beau Hossler, David Toms and Jason Dufner deserved all the coverage they received.

Not that this is going to be a huge problem for NBC, but the ratings and interest level are always spiked when Tiger Woods is the focal point of the tournament.