Without Tiger, you don't have a tournament

Posted by: Karlo Berkovich

John Daly is in the upcoming Canadian Open. So is Nick Price. And Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh, Chris DiMarco and Canadians Mike Weir and Stephen Ames.
Crowd favourites, former champs like Price and Singh. And the Canadian hopefuls, both of them top PGA pros.
Trouble is, if you don't have Tiger Woods, for all intents and purposes, you don't have a golf tournament. And TV ratings — arguably except for the Canadian Open in Canada, for obvious reasons — continually prove the point.
An interesting take on that point, though, goes to The Record's golf columnist, Mark Bryson. He says Tiger's dominance, despite the ratings, in many ways takes the interest out of watching a tournament. At the PGA Championship, for instance, once Tiger took a three-shot lead, and given his fantastic (indeed unbeaten) record as a front-runner, you knew the tournament was over no matter how early in the final round it was.
My take: It's a double-edged sword. Watching Tiger is like watching Picasso paint. So we are, in this sporting era, privileged to watch him. But weekly coronations can get old fairly fast, too.
A solid rival needs to step up.