Welcome back to mediocrity PGA. The association has been suffering a slow decline over the past year due to Tiger Woods being caught with his pants down last fall, and now it has taken an even bigger hit. For the first time in 281 consecutive weeks, Woods is not the #1 golfer in the world. England’s Lee Westwood has slid past him in the overall rankings. This is great for the sport. I know I really look forward to tune into golf on the weekends to watch Westwood drive the ball for average and play normal, boring, golf (sarcasm font needed). I’m going to go out on a limb here and just declare professional golf as the worst major sport to watch on earth now. Yes, even worse than soccer and NASCAR.
All together Tiger has spent a total of 623 weeks atop the world rankings. Before you break out your calculators, that’s almost 12 years. The fact that Tiger is not ranked #1 anymore is not the real issue here. The real issue is that it is evident his game has taken a turn for the worse and noone is stepping up to provide the excitement and showmanship that he has given fans for all these years. The sport is going to need a real boost as long as this downward spiral continues.
We have seen signs of brilliance from Rory McIlroy, but Woods had already had 6 wins and a green jacket at 21 years old. Young gun, Ryo Ishikawa had been tearing up the Japanese tour, but his performance in the PGA tour events have shown he has a lot to work on before he can be mentioned in the same sentence as Tiger Woods (besides this one).
I know Woods only fell to the #2 spot with German, Martin Kaymer at #3. Who the hell is Martin Kaymer? But in the inspirational words of Ricky Bobby, “If you ain’t first, your last.” With the consistency that Westwood is playing, it may be difficult for Tiger to reclaim his reign at #1. Phil is sitting at #4, but we all know any chance he gets at becoming #1, he will s**t down his leg on the 18th and shank his drive into the woods.
Golf fans around the world can only hope and pray that Tiger gets his swing back with the ladies and on the course, so we have a reason to turn on golf on the weekends, other than to admire how good it looks on an HDTV. The game has changed just as every other sport. Fans like to see crushing drives and crazy trick shots from the bunkers and woods, which is why Woods and Mickelson are so entertaining to watch. Maybe the PGA should become the first sport to legalize steroids and HGH. There is a rating booster! Hey, I’m just sayin’ …
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