SN pe a

A es eee

Can golf survive without Tiger?

Absence of the PGA Tour’s greatest draw could be disastrous

By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor

ow, I know that the whole Tiger
Nie scandal has been talked

about and over-analyzed to the
point of insanity, but this article isn’t meant
to talk about the faults of Tiger, it’s about
what sort of impact his absence will have
on the game of golf now that the world’s
number one player is taking an indefinite
leave from the game to repair his failing
matriage.

To most golf fans, not having Woods
tee it up on a regular basis (or at least, a
regular basis for Tiger, who really doesn’t
play all that much anyways) is almost as
big a blow as finding out that the previously
untouchable superstar isn’t the role model
we all thought he was.
To those running the PGA Tour,

this whole scenario has been a complete
nightmare. Not only have they lost the
mystique and aura surrounding their biggest
(and perhaps only) draw, but they’ ve

also quite

literally lost “Ag expected, golf’s ratings plummeted
i and tournament sponsors departed

ak ae: in waves when Woods was away. The
being Naw, question now is, can golf survive that sort
golf has to of disappearance from the 14 time major
go without winner again?”

Tiger for

almost all of last year after Woods missed
eight months of competition due to a
seriously injured knee that caused him to
miss two majors.

As expected, golf’s ratings plummeted
and tournament sponsors departed in
waves when Woods was away. The
question now is, can golf survive that sort
of disappearance from the 14 time major
winner again?

Now, granted, the odds are Woods,
who is a nine-time PGA Tour player of the

year, won’t miss a major, since the next one,

The Masters, doesn’t take place until April,
but chances are he won’t play until then.
Aside from the noble aspirations of “fixing

his marriage’, for Woods allowing the
overly intense media coverage of this whole
ordeal peter out somewhat is probably
almost as important. Surely, if Tiger isolates
himself and stays out of the public spotlight
for long enough, people will move onto a
different story and eventually forget about
him until he returns to golf.

But for the game itself, things aren’t
as cut and dried. No other sport is as
totally reliant on one player as golf is
on Tiger Woods, and the ratings results
speak for themselves. Consider the last
time Woods won a major, back at the
2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. This is
widely regarded as Tiger’s finest moment,
when he battled through his knee injury
all week, concluding in an emotional 18-
hole playoff victory on Monday against
Rocco Mediate where Woods was basically
playing on one leg. After winning the
tournament and creating perhaps one of
the most unforgettable moments in sports
history, Woods wouldn’t play again until
returning at the
2009 Masters. In the
interval, you would
be hard pressed to
find a casual sports
fan who could tell
you the winners of
the majors Woods
didn’t play in.

It’s a shame, and it isn’t healthy for
a sport to be set up that way, but that is
what golf has become. Now, with Tiger just
hitting his stride in 2009 after his injury,
how can the game recover with another
prolonged stretch without him? Golf won’t
die without Tiger Woods, but sponsors
continuing to drop out at the alarming
rate they did in 2008 could result in more
tournament cancelations, a compressed
schedule and the reduction of the sport to
the sidelines. With all these potential road
blocks golf could potentially become even
more of a fringe sport than it already is.

 

 

 

 

 

Stoits,

Is Haye next for Klitschko?

 

By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor

ewly-crowned WBA World

Heavyweight Champion David

Haye (23-1, 21 KOs) has made
his goal for 2010 very clear: he wants to
fight, and beat, the WBC’s Heavyweight
Champion Vitali Klitschko (38-2, 37
KO’s).

The 29-year-old Englishman,

who must first get past John Ruiz in a
mandatory defence of his title sometime
in April or May, has long been rumoured
as a potential
opponent for
either Vitali
or his younger
brother Wladmir

“Vitali’s greatest performance to date is
a loss to Lennox Lewis. That’s his most
memorable fight and the one result on
his record that will be remembered in the

and the one result on his record that will be
remembered in the history books... There
are probably one million dudes in America
called Kevin Johnson, and beating one of
them doesn’t make you an all-time great
heavyweight.” Haye has said in his brash
interviews. He then went on to say that

the Klitschko brothers, “may be big in
Switzerland, but so are yodelers, and no
one wants to watch them fight.”

For his part, Klitschko hasn’t taken
the bait and rushed into an immediate bout
with Haye. While he has gone relatively
unchallenged in
his four fights
since returning
from a four
year retirement

Klitschko, i e : in October of
who holds history books...” —David Haye 2008, nobody
the IBF and can say that

WBO versions of the heavyweight title.
Haye, regardless of what you think of
his methods, is doing an excellent job of
injecting some flavour and energy into the
heavyweight division. He has his sights set
on a super fight with Vitali sometime in
late 2010, and hasn’t been shy regarding
his opinions on the big Ukrainian’s career
and his recent choice of opponents, which
includes the previously undefeated if
unheralded Kevin Johnson, who Vitali
pounded away at for 12 rounds in an easy
win that was widely described as lacklustre
and boring.

“Vitali is nearly 40 years of age now
and the clock is ticking if he wants to
form any sort of legacy... Vitali’s greatest
performance to date is a loss to Lennox
Lewis. That’s his most memorable fight

Vitali Klitschko isn’t a fighting champion.
His win against Johnson came just two
and a half months after his TKO victory
against Chris Arreola. At 38, Klitschko
has surpassed any objective person’s
expectations in regards to his fight status.
Well, except for David Haye by the sounds
of things

If Haye and Vitali are to square off
in 2010, it will certainly be the biggest
heavyweight fight in years, which would
be a welcome addition to the sterling
string of bouts being pumped out by the
welterweights. Don’t be surprised if and
when Haye and Klitschko eventually meet
in the ring, it comes towards the end of
2010, not at the beginning.

An