WGC-CA Championship round four: It's not Tiger's fault it's so boring

This blog is late because, after Sunday’s Doral borathon, I decided to get in the car and rediscover the joys of playing golf. I have virtually no time for it so I am complete rubbish - a video would top YouTube’s comedy section within hours. But guess what: it was a magical day when almost everything went right. My drives skipped along the fairways, iron shots landed just about where I intended, the bunkers were a breeze once I sussed they were scoopers rather than diggers. Even my atrocious chipping was indecently good. Shame about the putting, but the greens were supersonic.

Why am I telling you this? First, because I can. Second, because it brought home how all golfers can have a great round one minute and a lousy one the next for no discernible reason. So I have some sympathy with the Henrik Stensons and Paul Caseys of this world who endure yo-yo rounds in their quest for greatness.

But not a whole lot. I play once in a blue moon. They do it almost every day, practise interminably, use the best equipment money doesn’t have to buy, have coaches and machines analysing their every twitch, while employing others to mould their minds into the right shape for a contest. And for all that effort we have what passed for a weekend contest at the Doral?

The field handed it to Tiger Woods with hardly a whimper, even though he was again having a crummy Sunday. Okay, Robert Allenby put in a hot round, but he was always on a hiding to nothing. Brett Wetterich raised a few palpitations, but listen to his interview afterwards: he didn’t really think he was going to get one over on Tiger at the 18th.

I caught an interesting radio discussion Sunday with the golf writer Tim Rosaforte on Tiger’s immense domination of his sport. With what I thought was less than rock-solid conviction, the conclusion was that it was a pleasure and a privilege to watch. Rosaforte put it in the context of other sportsmen who stood head and shoulders above their peers: Tiger’s mate Roger Federer in tennis, Lance Armstrong in cycling. From the past you could add Muhammad Ali in boxing. Having once been something of a petrol head, I’d throw in Michael Schumacher. But Schumacher is the reason I am a former Formula One racing fan. It became a boring weekly procession.

Golf’s not always like the Doral, as Bay Hill showed the previous week. But even there it was Tiger’s succession of unforced and uncharacteristic errors that doomed him rather than the opposition.

There’s an interview with Geoff Ogilvy in The Sunday Times of London in which he articulates a growing mood that Tiger’s domination is not entirely to the good. He makes the point that if something doesn’t bear Tiger’s imprimatur in some way it tends not to happen or to wither and die, because of the media’s Woods fixation. “The positives outweigh the negatives, but there is a downside to having a player who is so much bigger and more marketable than everybody else.”

I do worry that Tiger is beginning to assume the trappings of golfing royalty. But it’s not his fault he’s such a great - and focused - player. It’s not the media’s fault(ish) that people switch off their TVs when Tiger’s not around.

It is the fault of those that would aspire to challenge him because, in fact, they don’t. Instead they too, by and large, lie down and worship him. Let’s have no more fatuous talk of Luke Donald or Stenson or Ernie Els being the player to take on Tiger. In simple terms guys, put up or shut up. Correction - put up AND shut up.

PS: I see that in the land of the free a judge has slapped down a law designed to protect children from online porn, essentially because it infringes freedom of speech. Does that mean that, while adults can’t place a bet on the internet in America because it’s such a terrible thing to do, children can access any amount of depravity to their heart’s content? Funny old … sorry, new world.