British Open afterthoughts: Does golf need Tiger more than Tiger needs golf?

Rob Sylvester is also doing a bit of guest posting today. Yipee!
By Rob Sylvester
Does everyone miss the days of Tiger Woods dominating the tour yet? Yet another major has been claimed by a relative unknown, as South African Louis Oosthuizen has followed in the steps of Irish U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell and captured a major championship without being very well known beyond the inner circles of golf. The bummer here is not that Oosthuizen won, but in how easily he did it — maintaining at least a 4-stroke lead over the entire field for the duration of today’s final round, Oosthuizen’s steady performance sapped any remaining drama out of a less than memorable tournament and ruined any chances of a Jean Van de Velde-level Sunday meltdown, which would have been the only way the Open Championship ended with any excitement.
Congratulations are certainly in order for Oosthuizen, whose dominating performance over the weekend was so anomalous from his previous golf achievements that one wonders how exactly it came to be — how this affable fellow with the goofy name and the Michael Strahan smile conquered the elements and the field so easily in route to rewriting the record books (Oosthuizen’s 7-stroke victory is the second-largest in the Championship since World War II, and comes at the notoriously difficult St. Andrews).
However, the bigger question arising from the result is this — does golf need Tiger Woods more than Tiger Woods needs golf?

While ratings information is not available yet, one would think that Oosthuizen’s Sunday lapping of the field couldn’t have drawn well, especially with no American golfer of consequence finishing higher than Tiger Woods’ tie for 23rd. Golf is a sport with a long history and a rich narrative, and quite frankly no other scenario provides near the levels of excitement or anticipation as Tiger Woods’ chase to surpass to Jack Nicklaus and his legendary haul of 19 majors.
Generally speaking, golf requires major story angles and dominant narratives to remain high in the public’s consciousness, at least in America — arguably even more so than the NBA, golf relies on individual star power to sell tickets and earn advertising revenue. While parity provides for the occasional stellar performance (such as Oosthuizen’s) and allows a wider range of professionals to share the spoils, the casual golf observer is much more likely to be reigned in by Tiger Woods on a march through history than a grab-bag of assorted golfers emerging from the pack to claim a major title before returning to relative anonymity.
Ironic that the storyline getting some of the biggest play today is Tiger’s under-his-breath, profanity-laced tirade on Sunday following a missed putt. What about that pledge to be “a better golfer and a better person,” as he stated in the event’s opening press conference? Um … the F-bombs begin at about the :15 mark of this video.
While many other top golfers (Mickelson, Els, Garcia to name a few) did not step in this tournament, their absences are not as glaring as Woods — the Luis Oosthuizens of the world aren’t supposed to win majors while the greatest golfer of his generation languishes in the field. While the public still has a wide range of opinions regarding Tiger and his recent fall from grace, his drawing power remains unquestioned — he is the most interesting figure on the Tour, and therefore, the most lucrative. If golf would like to be remembered as more than a series of “you know, that guy” winning all the major titles, someone has to step forward as the tournament’s alpha dog, a role still better suited for Tiger Woods than anyone else.
So while the question for Tiger is if he can regain his previous form and compete consistently in the major tournaments, the question for the PGA has become just how soon can that happen?
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Oosthuizen runs away with British Open title [NBCSports]