Golf Never Needed Tiger Woods

Whistling Straits will be on the list of everyone's favorite courses forever after the 2010 PGA Championship. Another Alice Dye masterpiece. (Yes, Pete Dye said she insisted on having every piece of sand a bunker.) A course worthy of golfing greats and twenty-year-olds alike.

Dustin Johnson, one of those twenty-year-olds, will be remembered forever. He made himself into golfing lore by turning Alice's bunkers into Majors history. And his demeanor, presence, willingness to admit grounding his club in the bunker, and many other aspects of his game will be remembered as prime examples of how golf should be played, and what true character is all about. Let's all hope he wins the next Major. He has suffered enough.

The Changed Guard of professional men's golf will also be remembered. The old guard were nowhere close to leading. Sure, Steve Elkington had a remarkable tournament and Jim Furyk, whose weak constitution once again made him an also ran, was at the top of the leaderboard for most of the tournament. Sure, we had a brief moment with Lefty on Sunday, but his name could be taken over by Bubba Watson, another lefty, by the next major or so. Especially because he claims to have arthritis.

What we should all take from this PGA, one of the greatest of all time, is that golf never needed Tiger Woods. There is a string of famous writers who proclaimed everything about Woods that could be said in his defense, including most who said golf needed Woods. 

At least one black writer claimed all the commotion was because of racism. The position of this writer apparently was that Woods was perfectly fine despite his serial adultery because every other popular athlete had done the same.

Of course, this was a complete lie. As with other writers, who proclaimed that Woods was to be pitied, or that he was sick, or that he was not to blame, that his "cold" Swedish wife was to blame, and every other excuse that innumerable Woods supporters, apologists, and fans could gin up, their basis for support was not that he was a draw as a sideshow of enormous proportions but instead that he was the Show, and without him golf was nothing.

No man is an island. And no man makes a sport. While there is no team in almost all of golf, it is also not a sport for one person.

The key to sports is rivalry. With Phil Mickelson as Tiger Woods' principal rival, and many others who had a chance, golf went through what many saw as a revival, hearkening back to the Palmer-Nichlaus-Watson-Trevino days.

But who is in the rivalry is neither the essence of golf or a necessity for the sport. Indeed, while some proclaimed that Woods' return meant greater interest, what really was driving the galleries? The desire to root for Tiger again, or the fascination about parts of Tiger's anatomy?

We will never know. No polls were taken to see what was really going on. And none will be, thank God.

What we do know is that like all sports, competition is the most important part. With Tiger gone, and he is very definitely gone, we no longer focus on a man who may break all golf's records. We focus on the competition. And it is as great as it has ever been. No, it is better than it has ever been. 

Instead of Tiger and the rest of the field, the field is now filled with huge hitters whose presence of mind and scrambling abilities appear to exceed the greatest in the game of golf. We also have a steady competitor whose demeanor is much more like Jack Nichlaus, although he is from Germany.

Is there any doubt but that we will see Martin Kaymer again? Or that despite his grief in the last two Majors, Dustin Johnson will persevere. And that everyone in a gallery anywhere will be rooting for Johnson?

There is no doubt.

What will happen is what should happen. Tiger will fade into the past, like a nightmare better forgotten. He will have his records. And he will have his supporters. But he will not be, and never was, necessary for golf.

And that is The Real Truth.