LINCICOME: Without Tiger, British Open limps

By Bernie Lincicome, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 18, 2008 at 2:29 p.m.

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Photo by Peter Morrison/Associated Press

Greg Norman gestures after a birdie putt on the eighth green during the second round of the British Open on Friday.

When the cat's away . . .

That would be the big cat, of course, the Tiger, and the mice are not playing so much as suffering. Well, so what?

It is still golf, however unrecognizable it can get on those soggy, shaggy moonscapes where they play the British Open. It is not Tiger Golf, this for the first time, really, since Tiger Woods limped off to face whatever happens next.

Can a major be a major if Mr. Major is not there?

The last word from Woods was that he feels pretty good, considering. And golf will say the same thing. Considering.

Yet with the golf world gathered at Royal Birkdale this weekend, there has to be a sense of sorrow, not just that Woods is not there but that his last act will be impossible to follow.

It is not just the absence of Woods himself, against whom any achievement in golf must be measured, it is his own expanded legend, the man who staggered to glory, turning a noncontact sport into animal agony.

This is the soprano following the talking dog, the cheese after the tiramisu, the station wagon instead of the Lambor- ghini.

What could possibly happen there to match Woods' U.S. Open dramatics? And who could be cared about as much?

Does the unlikely reappearance of Greg Norman, even with new bride Chris Evert by his side, cause more than a double take and a shrug?

This only reminds what golf was like before Woods, when Norman was more dressing than salad. Nor does the presence of David Duval, once actually ranked ahead of Woods, bring anything but a sense of what might have been.

And Phil Mickelson, recovered from an awful beginning, again within winning range, would never escape the notion that even should he win, so dramatic a recovery is nothing compared to Woods' ordeal and, in any case, would never have happened had Tiger been around.

If Woods had never been around at all, it is possible to count, oh, at least four more majors for Mickelson, and even a couple for Norman, though Norman did manage to get victimized by ciphers.

Sergio Garcia would have been a teenage winner of a major 10 years ago, and from there, who knows how many more he would have now?

But Woods was there, and will be there again, possibly as good as old. Until then, golf can pretend that it all still matters as much as it did.

One of the golfers suggested that this British Open trophy should have an asterisk on it, and not a bad idea at that.

This is not unlike the years Michael Jordan went off to play at baseball, allowing the Houston Rockets to win their titles. Or when Muhammad Ali was banished, leaving his title to the likes of . . . well, who remembers now?

The usual melancholy of a British Open, inevitable with gloomy weather and lack of landscaping, seems even more heightened without the focus on Woods, as if all those other inadequate souls are in golf's waiting room.

Take a number. The doctor is out.

It may be true that whoever wins this British Open, as well as the upcoming PGA, will not have to explain to his grandchildren that he did not have to beat the greatest golfer ever - just as in ordinary tour stops there is not a special category called Winners Without Tiger (dedicated to the departed International) - but the feat will still be devalued.

One imagines Jan Kodes polishing his Wimbledon trophy from 1973 without mentioning to guests that he won it when, because of a labor dispute, 13 of the 16 male seeds did not show up.

Or, I just remembered, Jimmy Ellis passing his scrapbook around with headlines that confirm that he was heavyweight champion of the world, when, of course, Ali still was.

Any tournament loves to think of itself as bigger than any one golfer - again the International comes to mind as the only realist - and any sport will insist it can survive the absence of even the biggest star.

Baseball continued after Babe Ruth, football is bigger than ever even when those who saw John Unitas and Jim Brown swear it is a poorer game, and Jordan might have invented the personality cult in basketball, but on these games go, making do.

So will golf. If anyone notices.

• July 23, 2008

  7 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  ChapinSummer writes:

  It's The Open, not the British Open. And the landscape in entirely natural, not a Nicklaus-made manicured lawn.

  This is poor writing. It's not "sharp wit" as your profile claims. It shows a poor knowldege of golf and assumes no life in the sport outside of Woods. The winner was deserving, with or without Woods. If you can't see past one man it's better to write on another subject.

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