Monday, August 13, 2018

Second to one

Well, alrighty, then. Color me officially convinced.

If age and infirmity don't catch up with him first, Tiger Woods is going to win another major. Or should. Or ... you know, something.

He came to Sunday needing to chase down four other majors winners and a pile of the best golfers in the deepest PGA Tour field in four decades, and, at 42, he damn near did it. A 64 on Sunday does not mean he is the Tiger Woods of a decade ago, but it does mean he's enough of him. And it means golf has become a huge deal in America again.

The man became Almost The Man again by putting up two 66s and that peerless 64 in the last three rounds of a major-tournament pressure cooker, and I don't know how you play golf better than that. It's trite and a bit false to say he's back, because it implies he really is the Tiger who was the greatest golfer of his generation in the Aughts. He's not. But, again, he's enough of him.

He's enough of him to be more than just a face in a perhaps historically impeccable crowd, and if you think that doesn't have golf officials turning cartwheels in their wood-paneled enclaves, you've deeply underestimated how limber a golf official can be. All this, and Tiger, too? Yes, please!

The only downside to Tiger's re-emergence -- and I don't know what you call a top-five finish in the British Open and a second-place finish in the PGA if not a re-emergence -- is that once again that aforementioned deepest PGA field runs the risk of being overshadowed. And that's a shame. Sunday, after all, was so much about Tiger Woods and his 64 that Brooks Koepka and his 66 to win it was nearly reduced to an "Oh, yeah, and this happened, too" footnote. And that should not have been.

Koepka, after all, has now won three of the last seven majors and two of the four this year. No matter what he does from here on out, Brooks Koepka is the Golfer of the Year for 2018.

Except, of course, in the public mind, which hands-down will think Tiger Woods and his Not Dead Yet Tour make him the Golfer of the Year.

And the Blob?

The Blob can't really think about that right now. The Blob is too busy leaning on its shovel, digging up the Tiger Woods it so confidently buried on multiple occasions these last few years.

Damn. I really threw a lot of dirt on there.

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