:yipee OK, Tiger Woods is a great golfer, and clearly because of his accomplishments and marketing, attendance at tournaments and TV audiences has grown significantly in recent years.
:sevil But is it just me, or does it seem that by lengthening courses which are used for the majors, the organizers of these events are just playing into his hands, and to a certain extent enhancing the number of them he will win over his career and reducing the overall "value" of what he is accomplishing?
:mecry Don't get me wrong, I think Tiger is a fantastic golfer, and would win his share of tournaments under any circumstances. But setting up courses which place a premium on being long only makes it more likely he will win since it effectively takes a greater number of other tour players out of the equation.
:yipee Sure, there might be a couple of average length players who seem to be able to make a run at it in any given tournament, but that is because they are having an excepetional period in terms of some other aspect of their game: either driving accuracy, putting, or just dumb luck I suppose. But generally the players who are at or near the top in the majors recently are all those who can play AND ARE LONG!
:brain Now there is nothing wrong with being a good golfer and being long, but if all the courses for the majors are set up to favour length as the primary characteristic, then only a handful of tour players will generally be in contention, and the best of those will have a chance of winning. That is why you see Tiger, Sergio, Phil, VJ, and a couple of others there in my opinion.
:idea I guess what I would like to see is a return to more traditional setups, so that more of the field will have a realistic chance of contending, so that there might be more interest from a viewer perspective in the majors again. Now maybe that will mean less Tiger, and the sponsors and networks will be less satisfied with that, but overall it might be better for the game.
:director One or two last comments on The US Open. Where are the announcers who used to be critical of loud, obnoxious, and sometimes down right boorish behaviour from the crowds? Maybe they need to sell less beer, but it seems to me that once golf becomes the WWF, the game needs to take a second look at itself (from an image point of view). Sure Sergio's regripping can be annoying, but so is marking, cleaning, replacing, and then "reading" a six inch tap in putt (which virtually all pros seem to do now). And cat calls about friends from the galleries simply is unacceptable behaviour.
And finally, didn't they call the game yesterday for 50 minutes while it rained and Tiger was on the course....just like Sergio suggested they would?