2011 U.S. Open Preview: Why Tiger Woods' Absence Is a Big Deal

For some reason or another, we love to see athletes and celebrities fall flat on their faces.

Perhaps its jealousy, an inferiority complex or just some kind of evil streak present in all of us; but we can't seem to get enough of seeing people that are wealthier, more talented and more famous than us fall from grace.

Want to know what the longest running front-page story in NY Post history was?

It was the Tiger Woods scandal.

Want to know what story it beat out?

The September 11th terrorist attacks.

If that doesn't sum up our society’s fascination with celebrities than I don't know what will.

But we are now a-year-and-a-half removed from Woods' sex scandal, and it's becoming evident that golf needs Woods more than ever.

In the history of American sports, the list of truly elite athletes can be counted on two hands.

There's Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Wayne Gretzky, Secretariat (if you consider a horse to be an athlete, which ESPN did when they ranked him in front of Mickey Mantle in their list of 100 greatest athletes), Roger Federer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.

With Woods, we are witnessing history every time he steps foot onto the golf course.

His win at the 2008 U.S. Open on a broken leg is the stuff of legends, even 50 years from now.

His 12-stroke victory at the 1997 Masters and 15-stroke win at the 2000 U.S. Open will continue to top the list of most dominant performances in golf history.

All that begs the question: Why in the world is everyone so anxious to see the end of the Tiger era?

Is the future of the game so bright that we quickly want to usher out one of the top-three golfers of all-time in order to make way for the likes of Luke Donald, Matt Kuchar, Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer?

I’ve been trying to figure out the reason behind all of the “Tiger Haters” for quite some time, and the only thing that keeps coming up is good old-fashioned jealousy—a human flaw possessed by each and every one of us.

Woods has made $1 billion doing the only thing he’s ever wanted to do in his life.

If Woods wants to go to Europe, he snaps his fingers and his jet is waiting for him right down the road to take him to a villa he has rented for the week. When most of us want to take a trip anywhere we start weighing gas prices against airfares and try to figure out whether we will stay in a 3-star hotel or possibly really splurge for a 4-star.

Woods wants to practice his game in peace, so he essentially builds a golf course in his backyard. We pay $50 greens fees and wait 15 minutes to hit each shot at the local muni.

Human beings are innately competitive. We don't like to see people more successful or better than us at anything. We want to be the best, and if there’s someone better, we resent them.

This is essentially why people love to watch Tiger Woods' fall from grace.

But I say: Be careful what you wish for. There are very few opportunities in life to witness the career of one of the greatest athletes of all-time, and once he’s gone, it may be 30, 40, 50 or more years before we see anyone remotely close to him. Heck, we may never see anyone dominant the game again like Woods did between 1997 and 2008.

Golf will survive with or without Tiger Woods; that much is true. Just as heavyweight boxing continues to survive today long after the eras of Ali and Mike Tyson.

However, there is a massive difference between a sport surviving and a sport thriving.

During the Tiger Era, golf thrived. Take Woods out of the picture, and golf is back to simply surviving. 

Longtime Golf Magazine writer Cameron Morfit might have summed the whole situation up perfectly in his recent article titled, "Tiger's Latest Setback Feels Like the Golf Gods are Kicking a Man When He's Down" saying:

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"For those of us who never really warmed to Woods, the message of the day is to be careful what you wish for, or against. It's like we hoped for a storm to cancel school, only to get snowed in and begin starving to death. Woods almost singlehandedly built the beat I've worked for 14 years, so Tiger's left knee is now partly my problem, too. It's absolutely PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem's problem."

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As Morfit so eloquently put it, Woods’ left knee is essentially the problem of every man, woman and child associated with professional golf.

So yes, we love to see those who are richer and more powerful than us fall from grace, and we have certainly gotten our fill of that with Woods’ recent fall.  

But is our jealousy so controlling that we are willing to give away an opportunity to continue watching one of the greatest players who ever lived, just so we’ll have something to continue reading about in the tabloids or we can somehow feel a little better about ourselves?

You can sugarcoat it any way you want, but a major championship without Woods simply is not as exciting as when he is in the mix.

After all, how many other top-three greatest players of all-time will we see walking the fairways at Congressional next week?

So, sit back and continue to enjoy the fall of Woods, but I’ll say it again, be very careful what you wish for.